RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Eastern (over €300,000)

Responding to its site with great sensitivity, the deliberate and careful plan form exploits approach, organisation, orientation and view. Elevations are no less considered, making this a house to be looked at or from with equal pleasure.

Architects Comment
The site slopes gradually eastwards with open views out to sea and across Dundalk Bay to the Cooley Mountains.

The house is designed to take advantage of the views with living areas and master bedroom in a split-level open-plan spiral. Entry is from a gravel forecourt at the north east corner of the site and the house is organised around the forecourt with bedrooms facing east and kitchen dining opening on the south side onto a timber jetty.

The monopitch roof gives the house a low-lying profile and it appears as a single storey when seen from the West Side from Chapel Pass. A raised light box brings southwest light into the living space at the centre of the plan. Two guest bedrooms are located under the half level on the East Side at the lower level of the site contour.

Client Comment
We acquired a dream site in the village of Blackrock overlooking Dundalk Bay and the Cooley Mountains. The site and the village deserved a house design to look forward with confidence rather than repeat the past. John Tuomey with his Dundalk connections and his many architectural successes made him and Shiela an easy choice.

Not having the architectural vocabulary for our discussions we fell back on phrases like ‘clean’, ‘uncluttered’, ‘confident’, ‘honest’, (where things were not pretending to be something else), ‘contemporary’.

From such vague expressions has emerged a house – no, a home – that expresses all our preferences, and more. Here we also pay a tribute to Patsy Boylan of Oldmount Construction who understood and achieved the high standards that the design deserved.