-
Architects: Donaghy & Dimond Architects
- Area: 0 16sqm
-
Photographs:Ros Kavanagh
The project was inherited as a house in which the client had lived, left for some time, and returned to with a desire to remodel it. The design aims minimally but strategically to extend while transforming house and garden. The new concrete casting, clad in Corten steel, creates a hinge or joint between house and garden, adding space and light to an opened-out kitchen dining and living space. The upper level of the newly cast element is a planter and a polished concrete bath with deep mullions screening views, and a shutter opening towards the spire of St Patricks Cathedral. Beneath is a shaded larder and a bright rooflit dining space with bench integrated into the cill of the sliding window.
The kitchen counters are made in polished concrete and the floor is laid in woodblock, the pattern of which extends in the brick floor to the garden. The garden is lined in brick salvaged from military buildings at the Curragh. A new shed covers the rear entrance and the stepping garden wall gathers water from the roofs to fill the pond which waters the plants. Materials are brought together to interact. The corten starts out black and the oak a tan colour - this reverses over time to red rusted steel and oak naturally blackened by the ink wash of tannin and iron oxidising. Later the oak may bleach again and the steel will darken as it oxidises further. The brick walls bear flecks of blue paint from a previous life.
