RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Architect’s Comments

The site is situated in an extremely exposed location adjacent to Coliemore Harbour in Dalkey.  It is bounded by the sea and Dalkey Island to the East and Coliemore Road to the West.

The challenge of the brief was to reconcile designing a building closer in form to a lighthouse than a conventional house with the complex site geometry and level changes down to the foreshore.

The intention was to design a modest, insignificant entrance pavilion with an open garden/terrace that does not prepare the visitor for the unique drama of the seaward elevation.

To protect the house against the sea we undertook building a reinforced insitu concrete framed structure, which is anchored to the bedrock, incorporating a granite faced concrete breakwater that creates a tidal rockpool.  It is submerged during the twice daily high tides and has stepped access to the pool and into the sea.

The house itself is designed at two levels, the two storey section containing the entrance block, living, dining and sleeping areas is connected vertically via central toplit double height stair hall to a screening cinema, guest accommodation and spa that extend across the full length of the site at the lower level.

The forecourt and entrance block are clad in a heavy cut granite to offer protection/refuge from the road and the noise.   The sense of refuge is reinforced with the traditionally built coursed random rubble garden walls and natural beach pebble garden terrace. This contrasts directly with the lighter materials of white render and structural glass that reveals itself to the sea and the view over the two levels facing the Island.

The lower level rooms are very private spaces and are linked directly to a continuous terrace overlooking the tidal rockpool and Dalkey Island.  This subterranean level has a cave-like section with a deep plan and darker rear retaining walls on one side and floor to ceiling glass towards the sea views.  We introduced natural light along the length of the rear walls using precast concrete glass block rooflights and a clear span toughened glass rooflight to the two storey stair well.

Internally, the floors are finished in limestone to take advantage of the light  and this material is used on the wall of the vaulted steam room and sunken bath.  The extreme location demanded the use of marine grade stainless steel doors and shutters to ventilate the house coupled with toughened glass and bead blasted marine graded external balustradings.  The front door is a tactile solid hardwood.

The concrete sea retaining walls are re-clad using old granite rocks from the site to create a continuous, uninterrupted sea wall.

Clients Comments

I first saw a little old fisherman’s cottage in 1997. I had driven up to Sorrento Terrace, perhaps the last great piece of Regency Architecture in Dublin and, as such, under a preservation order. The particular house I was looking at was the end terrace house and at the time it became the most expensive house in Ireland when it went to auction. On the way down the hill towards Coliemore, the oldest harbour, I saw a For Sale sign on a beautiful little cottage situated directly opposite Dalkey Island. When my daughter Tess went into the glass room that had been very badly built onto the back of the house she immediately wanted me to consider the site. It had many problems and in the heyday of bad planning the authorities had allowed the owner to pour concrete directly over the house into the sea to provide a walking space for his dog. A later owner had bought what seemed a useless piece of land about twenty feet by eighty feet beside the sea. I wondered what would happen if you could build there but, given the difficulty with Dalkey, it seemed almost impossible to get planning permission. John Meagher, John Feely and Magnus Strom of de Blacam and Meagher Architects unbelieveably got permission and contructed the house in extremely difficult circumstances.

Living in the house is like living in the sea. A combination between an ocean liner and a lighthouse. It feels like the house in the Beatles movie which is nothing from the outside but once you open the door you have entered a world out of Alice in Wonderland. At the same time, as you look out at the ever changing seasons through the glass windows, 150 feet long, looking straight out to sea you feel isolated from the world behind and like Prospero you look out at your own Island in front of you. The limestone and granite of the house plays beautifully against the stone of the old Martello tower and one of the oldest churches in Ireland and those feelings of spirituality and protection surrounds the house. In the house you feel safe and excited by the ever changing and sometimes stormy sea. Outside the walkways are beautiful and by candle light as romantic as anything I have ever seen. The final piece de resistance is a beautiful rock pool which holds to the natural line of the sea and incorporates the old cement into a beautiful design. Amazingly, the old folks next door who live in the last fisherman’s cottage love the house and how it’s understated grandeur fits in with the shore.