My Life in Culture: Artist Brian Maguire
My Life in Culture: Artist Brian Maguire

Sarah Finnan

Inside the incredible shipping container house in Ringsend
Inside the incredible shipping container house in Ringsend

IMAGE Interiors & Living

No pumpkins in sight: how the Irish celebrated Samhain long before Halloween
No pumpkins in sight: how the Irish celebrated Samhain long before Halloween

Erin Lindsay

‘My experience as an Olympian has taught me how to sacrifice short-term fun for long-term fulfilment’
‘My experience as an Olympian has taught me how to sacrifice short-term fun for long-term...

IMAGE

A seafront Skerries home has been given a luxe update with rich colours and hotel-inspired details
A seafront Skerries home has been given a luxe update with rich colours and hotel-inspired...

Megan Burns

Every entrepreneur has a lightbulb moment . . .
Every entrepreneur has a lightbulb moment . . .

Leonie Corcoran

Qbanaa: ‘A career in music is like a start-up business — you can lose a lot at the beginning’
Qbanaa: ‘A career in music is like a start-up business — you can lose a...

Sarah Gill

My Career: Founder of the AI Institute Maryrose Lyons
My Career: Founder of the AI Institute Maryrose Lyons

Sarah Finnan

Galaxy gazing: This is the future of AI
Galaxy gazing: This is the future of AI

Lizzie Gore-Grimes

Step inside textile artist Nicola Henley’s dreamy Co. Clare farmhouse
Step inside textile artist Nicola Henley’s dreamy Co. Clare farmhouse

Marie Kelly

Image / Editorial

This suburban Dublin house has been nominated for an international architecture award


By Megan Burns
04th Aug 2018
This suburban Dublin house has been nominated for an international architecture award

The World Architecture Festival celebrates the most exciting buildings from around the world, including museums, high-rise buildings, and cutting-edge creations. Included on the shortlist, in the category of Completed Houses, is a Dublin home designed by David Leech architects. What makes this accolade all the more interesting, is that it’s not an extravagant mansion, all glass, steel, and abstract shapes: it’s a home designed for an ordinary family. Even more impressively, this was the practice’s first project. (See its latest one in our July/August issue)

Situated in the garden of a end-of-terrace 1940s Dublin 3 home, the site was by its nature restricted, with the existing walls and hedges to work within. The design embraces, and makes the most of this, creating a building that fuses normal suburban housing with original, thoughtful design.

Most of the supporting walls were located in the core of the house, allowing a curtain of folding timber and glass doors to form part of the exterior on the ground level. This can be completely opened up to create a continuous space between inside and outside.

dublin house award

The ground floor has four spaces: hallway, kitchen, dining and living. The ceiling height is varied across this level, and the floor level adjust accordingly. A recessed ceiling track allows each room to be enclosed by curtain if desired, or left to be more open plan.

The first floor has three bedrooms and a bathroom, with a central landing that is lit by a skylight. The ceilings on this level follow the pitch of the roof, and are 4.5m at their highest point, and 2m at their lowest.

dublin house award

Although an example of architectural excellence, this house in many ways takes its inspiration from the ordinary. The materials and techniques used are straightforward, and would be familiar to any builder. From the outside, it appears not dissimilar to the terraced houses surrounding it, with rough off-white render, and a heather-coloured fibre cement roof.

However, copper guttering and downpipes elevate it to something out of the ordinary, forming a kind of outline to the house that will eventually oxidise to green. The gable visible from a laneway behind the house has a doorway and window in relief, a nod to the fact that this house doesn’t only concern itself with the purely functional. Let’s hope this project inspires some more creative approaches to ordinary Irish homes.

dublin house award