Hasta La Ideas

Home rental website Airbnb has opened an office in Dublin with a reception area modelled on an Irish pub designed by local architects Heneghan Peng (+ slideshow).

Heneghan Peng were given a brief by Airbnb to create a series of open and collaborative workspaces similar to the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

The architects designed a horseshoe-shaped bar in dark wood to mimic the interior of traditional pubs found across the city.

The bar is complete with bottles around the top, candelabras at both ends and a suit of armour that is posed to be having a drink between the stools.

Tables and chairs in the adjacent presentation space are also modelled on typical pub furniture, and the ceiling and flooring echo the decor of drinking venues from different eras.

Continuing the local theme, a pair of green and beige Irish telephone boxes form booths for private phone calls.

Heneghan Peng also included the 12-metre-long bench it designed for Ireland’s Venice Biennale pavilion in 2012, which dips and rises as users sit on different sections.

Throughout the office are a series of meeting pods made from oriented strand board, with interiors designed to look like apartments listed on Airbnb from cities across the world.

These rooms are glazed on opposite walls and the name of the city that the design is based upon is written on the side.

Some have seating set into the outside walls for employees to sit and chat in, designed to look like different spaces from the same apartment.

Other larger pods are hinged at the centre so they can be rolled apart to split them into two meeting rooms.

Giant wooden steps are scattered with cushions to create an informal meeting area or workspace.

The post Airbnb hopes for luck of the Irish with pub-like
Dublin offices by Heneghan Peng appeared first on Dezeen.

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.

Exposed brickwork, pegboards and adaptable wooden display units feature in this Dublin clothing store by Irish studio Designgoat (+ slideshow).

Designgoat exposed the structural layers of a four-storey building to create the industrial interior for clothing and accessories brand Indigo & Cloth.

The main retail space is located on the ground floor and houses clothing, accessories and a coffee bar over a raw concrete floor.

Exposed brickwork lines the interior walls, while an adaptable shelving and display system enables the shop owners to customise the way they display products.

“The shelving on the ground floor was designed by us and built to be flexible,” Designgoat director Ahmad Fakhry told Dezeen. Each shelf can sit flat for displaying shoes and products, or at an angle to display magazines.

A long wooden display counter stretches along the centre of the space and doubles up as a coffee bar. The counter, benches and stools are all made from solid white ash and glass, and feature custom-made steel sockets for their powder-coated white legs.

On the back wall of the store, two pine pegboards are used for displaying accessories such as hats, shoes and bags.

The store extends to the first floor, where black painted steel and oak clothing rails display more clothing and products.

The second floor accommodates an office with customised light fittings and desks, while the top floor is being refurbished to create a photography studio, meeting space and storage area.

Other retail interiors we’ve featured recently include a pop-up skincare shop in Tokyo that has wooden chairs piled on top of one another and a bakery that features a tree growing out of its curved timber counter. See more shop interiors »

Photography is by Al Higgins.

The post Indigo & Cloth
by Designgoat appeared first on Dezeen.

Our interview with barista champion and Dublin coffee bar owner Colin Harmon

Three-time Irish barista champion Colin Harmon loves Dublin. We got a taste of his infectious enthusiasm for the city on a recent tour of his two Third Floor Espresso (3FE) coffee bars there—one in the Twisted Pepper building, where it serves as a cafe by day and cocktail lounge for the music venue at night, and the newer 3FE location on Lower Grand Canal Street.

While he was working on opening 3FE, Harmon turned down numerous offers in other European cities in favor of staying in his beloved hometown. This emotional decision propelled him into becoming a leader in the burgeoning community of food makers and entrepreneurs in Dublin.

We recently talked to Harmon about his coffee journey while driving around Dublin in the 3FE delivery vehicle, gleaning insight on the 3FE company and his goals to be an ambassador for the city he loves.

What aspects of 3FE do you feel are uniquely Irish?

I do some traveling as part of my work and every time I meet people from another country they say, “Oh, it must be so bad there with the economy and the recession and everything.” You read terrible things about the city and the country and what’s happened, but ultimately life goes on. You can see there are still buses driving around and still people going to work and getting on with it. That’s the ethos of what 3FE is about. We started with very little money. We started with just enough money to get a decent espresso machine and some good coffee.

How did you raise the money to buy the espresso machine?

I sold my car. It was very much “spend the money where you need to, then bootstrap from there.” So we make a little, we spend a little. I suppose it’s a very Irish way of doing things.

How much does 3FE’s home influence the way things are done?

Irish people are very good at starting off with what you have, putting your head down and getting on with it. I think doing it in a friendly and approachable way means everything to us—engaging people, talking to them and making them feel welcome. At 3FE we feel like we are ambassadors for the city. We have a lot of tourists coming in who have been recommended by friends. We are proud Dubliners and want to show people that we might not be the richest city in the world, but we still can do things right. We want to work hard and have a good time as well.

How did you get the Twisted Pepper space?

Before this I worked in finance. I was a trustee officer for a professional investment fund. I was very well paid. I tried to quit five times and they kept shouting bigger numbers at me to make me stay. Finally I left my job and decided I wanted to find something I love doing. I fell into coffee. I got a job at Coffee Angel that is owned by 2006 Irish barista champion Karl Purdy. And after six months with coffee, I won the Irish Barista Championships. That year I finished fourth in the world.

And at that time, you had bought the machine and it was in your apartment?

Yeah. I had set up a competition training room in my third-floor apartment. Then I did a lot of traveling for about a year, but I wanted to stay in Dublin. I am a Dubliner. I wanted to be here, so I started to look for a shop. Not having the budget to open a retail store I was kind of hamstrung. I then met Trevor O’Shea who owns Bodytonic Music and runs the Bernard Shaw on the South Side, and the Twisted Pepper on the North Side. Trevor was trying to get people in during the day. So he said, “Why don’t you come in, set up a coffee shop, and when you are making money you can pay the rent.” It gave us a hand-up. The banks had been laughing at me. It was the only serious offer we had.

How did you decide on a coffee to serve at 3FE?

We only serve Has Bean, whose owner, Steve Leighton, is my business partner at 3FE. Steve started Has Bean about nine years ago. He originally had a shop, but decided to focus on roasting. We met just before the World Championships in 2009 when I began looking for someone to roast my coffee as I was representing Ireland. Steve was the first person I contacted and he was so accommodating and supportive. We’ve been thick as thieves ever since.

So we started 3FE. And it literally was one cup at a time. We were serving maybe 15-20 cups of coffee a day, but the next day it would be 25 and the day after that would be 30 cups. Be nice to people. Make good coffee. Hopefully they will come back and bring a friend. Soon we got too busy for the front porch at Twisted Pepper and we had to move in to the main bar. Last September we opened our second shop on Lower Grand Canal Street. We also supply other coffee shops in the city and train their staff. We now employ 14 people—two chefs and 12 baristas.

What’s on the 3FE menu?

We split our menu into two sections: a tasting menu and a drinking menu. The drinking menu is for people who just want a cup of coffee. If somebody comes in and orders from the tasting menu, we understand that they are there to experience something. They’d like a sample or to learn something about the farm. The coffees change every week. When you order a trio on the tasting menu, you get the same coffee beans made as an espresso, a cappuccino and a filter coffee. It’s a good way to get to know a very distinct coffee. The other one that is popular for us is the filter tasting. We serve two different coffees side by side. We do hand pours. We always make two very different types of coffee. We might serve a washed Kenyan next to a pulped natural Brazilian.

For our hand pours, we use a Marco Uber Boiler that is made here in Dublin. We also have a Marco batch brewer. For espresso, we use the Aurelia Nuova Simonelli. It’s the competition machine. We have one in both of our stores.

You get some famous fans?

We get a lot of people who are coffee daytrippers. One day these guys came in a sat down at the bar. They said that they would like to taste something interesting, and had a few hours to spare so I told them they could sit there and I would feed them tasters of everything and that at the end they could pay what they thought it was worth. They seemed up for it and they seemed like nice people. I started making them espressos.

Then if I was making a filter coffee for someone else, I would give them a small cup to let them taste the thing and talk them through different flavors. Basically I had a chat with them for about three hours. In the course of this they said hey were going to Oslo soon. I suggested they go see Tim Wendelboe. I asked, “What do you do?” “We’re musicians.” I said, “Really? What is the name of your band?” They said, “We are Arcade Fire. Have you heard of us?” My jaw dropped at this stage.

They’ve become very good friends of ours at the shop. They often email us from different cities and ask our advice for where to go. We have sent them to cafes in Croatia and Copenhagen and everywhere in between. Every time they come back to Dublin they do a coffee tasting with us.

How do you respond to people who ask, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a drink”?

It is just a drink, but I think at the core of everything that is generic there can be something amazing. So you could take something like lasagna—why would I order a lasagna? But there is definitely a place to go where the lasagna will blow you away. It’s the same for ice cream, same for stout, same for whiskey. I think that engaging people with something as common as a cup of coffee, but making it amazing—how incredible that can be.

Dublin practice FLK Architects have completed a precast concrete residence overlooking Dublin Bay in Howth, Ireland. (more…)