Horse Facility Design and its contribution to Horse Welfare

This article is from the December 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

This article introduces horse facility design with a focus on property planning and the challenges that each unique context offers for an equine development.

Designing for a property’s conditions is critical to the overall success of a horse facility and its consideration is recommended from the beginning.

The arrangement and development of horse-orientated buildings is best accommodating an optimal balance between equine-centric and human-based activities. To be responsive to the horse’s physical and behavioural requirements is not limited to one’s experience of horses or traditional building practices, but involves application of current evidence-based scientific research and equitation science. We exist in an amazing time where the swell of horse welfare awareness and growing scientific knowledge can alter the equine’s quality of life outcomes significantly. The ‘constructed’ environment that our horses’ spend most of their time is a paramount opportunity for this.

Every property has its own weather patterns, topography, existing infrastructure (buildings, fences and services, etc) and value. Similarly, every equine development has its own unique set of people, horses, routines and objectives (reasons for being) that operate, occupy or inhabit that land. A property will also have its own particular set of authority controls, such as town planning and environmental considerations.

Horses are highly attuned to their surroundings and each other – it makes sense to plan for their inherent relationship to the environment and to their ‘herd’. The same applies to our own accommodations where the facility’s efficiency, safety, durability and comfort levels can be vastly improved and enhanced with simple foresight and site analysis.

Site responsive planning and design development can be beneficial for a variety of purposes including: providing optimal property access, safety, activity-specific functionality and efficiency. Good planning identifies opportunities as well as challenges on a site. This understanding ultimately results in the best management and utilisation of the property conditions for your purposes and create an overall delight in the daily equine experience.

‘Placing’ facilities on a property without carrying out a thorough site analysis and ignoring the relationship between the facilities and its environment can limit the quality of the experience, but more importantly, the effectiveness of the purpose for which they are constructed. This includes housing and exercising horses in buildings and ancillary facilities that are detrimental to their handling, training and performance.

Without careful consideration of the surrounding property environment both unexpected and undesirable consequences can include:
• Undesirable and inescapable hot or cold winds
• Dark buildings requiring artificial lighting during the day
• Facilities that do not allow any winter sunshine to penetrate into the spaces to take the chill off the cold air temperature, dry out bedding and flooring or kill bacteria
• Horses readily overheating even on a sunny spring or autumn day.
• Horses unable to have quality rest or maintain focus on their training.

Often these issues arise simply from having facilities that were not designed for the specific conditions of the property.

The benefits of understanding and designing for specific site conditions can be far-reaching. Simple advantages may include: having you and the horses protected from winds when grooming and tacking-up, enjoying uninterrupted views of exercise and high usage areas for safety and security; to more substantial gains such as minimising excavation requirements (labour, cost, disturbance to natural land forms).

A site analysis may include the consideration of:

• Existing Conditions - Recording of existing structures including buildings, fences and services.

• Vegetation and animal life

• Views, day and night

• History - Background information and past uses of the property that may influence future development, such as the repurposing of buildings, reuse of construction materials.

• Climate - The local conditions including prevailing weather (wind and rain), seasonal differences, humidity, frost and snow, and the property’s orientation to the sun.

• Topography - The land formations, soil profile, geology and hydrology.

• Access and Circulation - Consideration of the site’s entrance and circulation within the property, including vehicle, pedestrians and horses.

• Authorities and Controls - These include the legal planning and building permit requirements and procedures. These may influence the nature and scope of the equine-related activities, facility placement in relation to boundaries, adjacent properties and waterways, the environmental requirements, indigenous and cultural occupation investigations, construction, historical building controls and waste treatment requirements.

A thorough site evaluation can identify the optimum land areas which may provide equine facility development opportunities. This may include: the facility being orientated away from the inclement weather; facility layout, paddock arrangement and circulation paths relating to topography to minimise excavation effort and costs.

After the pre-design stage of collecting and evaluating site information and data, an informed facility design process can begin. Interpretation of this site analysis needs to direct the design development. It can act as a checklist to accounting for design decisions.

Thoughtful design that responds to the property’s unique aspects aims to increase an awareness of the considerations involved in planning a horse establishment. As their caretakers we all need to grow an appreciation of the critical factors that help create the ultimate equine environments that we work, live and play in with our horses.

In summary:
• Site investigations are an important preparatory process for all facility planning and design proposals.
• Site awareness should always inform the property planning of any horse complex, especially given that horse establishments usually operate in a largely outdoor capacity.

• Horses can be very sensitive, both physically and behaviorally, to weather conditions. We need to optimise this to set them up for success, their welfare needs and overall quality of life.
• Detailed analysis of a wide range of site aspects can provide great insight into the contextual potential of a proposal and may inject value and integrity into the property development.

Facility planning is a challenging and complex process with many factors being worked through and considered simultaneously. Planning often involves compromise, but prioritising design objectives can aid in resolving these conflicts.

Regardless of how the general planning considerations take shape, it is still critical to adopt an equine-centric approach. This is the thread that connects all the aspects of horse facility design and guides the most appropriate, thoughtful proposal on each unique property.

Important property planning factors
• The site and its existing conditions, history, climate, topography, access and authorities
• Facility requirements of all the occupants and the activities to be supported
• Construction type, materials, availability, building program, cost
• Sense of horse place and the celebration of the spaces we share with our animals
• Capital investment to consider monetary budgets and the prospect of a staged development
• Value in relation to quality, flexibility, current market demand and future-proofing
• These often need to be considered throughout the entire design process to provide greater appreciation of the development’s planning opportunities and limitations

Written by Leonie Lee BA(Arch) BArch(Hons) of Equitecture - www.equitecture.com.au

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