Hasta La Ideas

Dublin practice GKMP Architects has added two tiny extensions to a nineteenth century terraced house in the city, one of which incorporates a wooden window seat looking out onto the garden.

GKMP Architects was asked to renovate and extend the three-storey house in the south of Dublin by replacing an existing bedroom and scullery with an enlarged kitchen, dining room and play room.

Instead of adding an extensive new structure that would have imposed on the garden at the rear of the property, the architects proposed two single-storey extensions with a total footprint of just seven square metres.

“The main architectural problem we identified with the existing house was the great disproportion between living and sleeping areas,” architect Jennifer O’Donnell told Dezeen.

“Since the existing area of the house was considered sufficient to meet the needs of the family, we decided that the challenge in this case was to build as little as possible, to the greatest possible effect,” the architect added.

The new additions are constructed from concrete, which O’Donnell said “was chosen to act as a contemporary addition to the hard cement render of the existing rear facade.”

Bright blue tiles introduce a hit of colour and are used for the surface of a bench built into the concrete of the extension closest to the garden.

“The glazed Italian ceramic tiles were chosen in consultation with the clients and are used as a lining in those places where the wall thickens to form a seat or sill,” O’Donnell explained.

The tiles also appear inside the playroom, which adjoins the new kitchen and dining area and features windows that wrap around two sides.

A corner bench with upholstered sofa cushions is fitted below the windows, while new glazed double doors lead from this room out to the garden.

Both of the new extensions feature large skylights that introduce natural light into the open-plan lower ground floor.

The window seat in the dining area is built from iroko wood, which contrasts with the pale interior walls and frames views of the garden.

The architects also added an oak staircase to connect the new kitchen with an existing living room on the upper ground floor and a new den on the first floor.

The staircase is lined on one side with a bookcase and wraps around a utility room tucked away in an otherwise dark and redundant space at the centre of the house.

Photography is by Alice Clancy.

The architects sent us the following project description:

House Extension at Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook

This project involves the restoration and extension of a three-storey terrace house built towards the end of the 19th century, which has a red clay brick finish in a Flemish bond to the front elevation and a hard cement render finish to the rear. It is one of 6 identical terraced houses, grouped in handed pairs and with identical roof lines, eaves and architectural treatment both to the front and rear.

The existing layout of this house did not lend itself to providing kitchen/dining/living space that was proportional to the rest of the accommodation and so it was proposed to address this imbalance through modifications and a small addition to the existing house rather than through building a large extension in the rear garden.

The new addition consists of two small single-storey extensions, one to the rear of the main part of the house and the other to the end of the existing return on the footprint of the existing lean-to kitchen, that open the lower ground floor of the house to the garden. The new-build is made of cast in-situ concrete with blue glazed tiles.

Inside, a large corner window brings light into the play-room, while a new oak stairs forms a second, more direct connection between ground and first floor living spaces. A new utility space is built into the dark central section of the house, with the new stairway wrapping around and above it as a discrete element, hidden between the old house walls.

Architects: GKMP Architects
Contractor: Sheerin Construction
Engineer: David Maher & Associates

The post House extension by GKMP Architects
includes a wooden window seat appeared first on Dezeen.

Rough walls of locally sourced rubble surround this house on the south coast of Ireland by Dublin studio Aughey O’Flaherty Architects (+ slideshow).

The single-storey Carnivan House overlooks the sea from a cliff-top vantage point in Fethard on Sea, so Aughey O’Flaherty Architects designed the residence with floor-to-ceiling windows and a rooftop terrace.

The building features an L-shaped plan with a square lawn on the eastern side, where it can benefit from morning sunlight but is also protected from the prevailing south-westerly wind.

Narrow terraces are tucked into recesses along three different elevations. Framed by polished concrete and with glazing behind, these inserts exaggerate the thickness of the exterior walls.

The entrance to the house is at the outer corner and leads through to an open-plan living and dining room in the southern wing, or to four bedrooms in the eastern wing. An indoor staircase ascends to the roof, where the private terrace is screened behind a parapet wall.

Other recently completed houses in Ireland include a seaside residence with two wooden halves and a rural cottage with four limestone extensions. See more Irish houses on Dezeen.

Photography is by Marie Louise Halpenny.

Here’s a project description from Aughey O’Flaherty Architects:

This project is a new house on a site by the sea in Wexford. The site is located on a headland, Baginbun Head, a protected scenic amenity area. It contains a Norman wall and is bounded on three sides by cliffs and sea. The challenge was to deal with the potentially conflicting objectives of creating a home that was sensitive to this beautiful landscape and that also made the most of it.

The form of the house is a simple L shape. This is a response to function, the path of the sun through the day and to the wind.

The living accommodation is located in one wing, which is dual aspect and avails of the east-west orientation. The bedroom accommodation is located in the other wing and avails of the north-south orientation. The entrance and services are located in the intersection of the two wings. This square intersection has a low ceiling height to enable a roof terrace, positioned above. This is open to the sky and concealed within the roof profile.

The building is kept low and the L shape plan is rotated to avoid the prevailing winds, regularly wild, from the sea to the west. The two wings protect and shelter a south-facing garden which completes the square.

Three external covered spaces are cut into the L, in the form of niches, of varying depth. The entrance porch is located in a recess on the more public, northern side. A south-facing terrace opens the bedroom wing to the garden. A long west-facing covered porch opens the living room wing to the wonderful landscape and the views of sea and sunset to the west.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

The building was designed to be energy efficient and cheap to run. The house is a combination of new and traditional construction technologies. The house is a super insulated air-tight prefabricated timber structure, slowly wrapped in a local random rubble, sitting on a polished concrete base. Its layout and detail were guided by the principles of sustainable design.

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

The use of natural light is integral. There are tall ceiling heights and large areas of full-height-glazing and sliding screens located to maximize the solar gain.

Above: section one – click for larger image

The east, west and north façades are exceptionally thermally efficient. It was designed with a marsh grass roof to increase thermal efficiency and link it with the ground.

Above: section two – click for larger image

The house is 260m² in size. The design process began in Jan 2008 and the house was completed June 2012.

Above: section three – click for larger image

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by Aughey O’Flaherty Architects appeared first on Dezeen.