A subtle extension to a house on the South Circular Road meets a family's modern demands without compromising the house's period charms, writes Emma Cullinan
Architectural awards are usually associated with large buildings: winners of RIAI accolades this year included the Glucksman art gallery in Cork and Athlone civic offices, yet in among the architectural achievers was a tiny extension to a period house on Dublin's South Circular Road.
The clients chose architect Noel Brady of NJBA Architects and Urban Designers because he proposed a subtle addition to their home, whereas others they interviewed had suggested huge extensions running alongside an add-on kitchen. These would have cut out light into the kitchen and eliminated a courtyard.
"The courtyard was the priority," says Brady. "I felt they should keep this special place, which is a sun trap."
The extension is for TV producer and writer Anne Heussaff who left RTÉ to work at home, where her husband, social housing expert Simon Brooke, already had an office. The house, where they live with their son Conall, seemed big enough for three but finding a new work space was difficult. Simon already had a front room, the double apex roof ruled out an attic conversion, and the couple didn't want to break up the perfect proportions of the bedroom or ground-floor livingroom.
When Brady proposed adding the extension to the ground-floor sittingroom at the rear, the clients were doubtful: would it look odd to have a contemporary structure attached to a period room? And there was surely a risk of cutting out natural light from the existing room.
Happily, both worries were unfounded, and the extension has actually increased the amount of light entering this room. As 10-year-old Conall says: "There's so much extra light coming into the old livingroom that it can be difficult to see the PlayStation screen on a sunny afternoon - but it's worth it to have such a nice view out to the garden!"
The divide between the new and old structures is framed in thick cedar, creating an almost subconsciously perceived threshold between the two spaces. The extension is full of these subtle spatial tricks.
While the new office exudes calm it's immediately apparent that this is a complex space. It marks a change from the restrained single-box extensions that have been de rigeur in Ireland recently. Internally, three walls meet above the desk space, the door to the garden is recessed and windows are placed high and low, at right angles to each other, framing certain views.
A neighbour's sycamore is captured by the large top window, while a flower border is framed by the lower one. "If the relationship to the exterior is uniform, such as you get in a greenhouse, then you don't really see what's outside after a while," says Brady. "In the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens you see the ribs, the architectural structure, and the plants within, rather than the exterior."
The framing of external views keeps up interest and no doubt helps Heussaff contemplate future paragraphs. She already has a novel, as Gaeilge, under her belt - it's a thriller called Bás Tobann (A Sudden Death) and she is now writing another one.
While there are views from the desk to wider spaces, such as the garden and the central part of the extension which has a high roof, the writing area is quite cosy with its lowered ceiling. This intimate space suspends belief in another spatial trick: there's a recess above the desk in which a light sits shielded by timber slats suggesting that this void could ascend the height of the building.
The rectangular timber slats are picked up in the contemplative bench beside the window which looks like an inviting muse site although, in reality, those who work from home spend their thought time putting on the washing, pulling up weeds or cleaning out computer keyboards with unbent paper clips.
The lighting too is zoned, into three areas: library (in the main space), desk and seat, so they can be lit separately or everything can be switched on for a flood of light. This is a lot of adaptability in a small space.
"It is easier to have flexibility in a large building, and more difficult in a small one," says Brady, who also added in three timber "windows", in certain spots, including one by the desk, that work as vents and screens. Anna says these stop her "feeling as if I'm in a goldfish bowl".
Shifting spaces and flexible places have served to prevent this extension from becoming an alley way from the existing livingroom into the garden: the small new office and library is a place of its own with a distinct personality. Yet this extension doesn't fight the established areas either side of it: the period livingroom and garden. Even the seemingly daring, trendy green copper exterior blends with the garden.
From an upper window in the old house, the view across the flat copper roof is easy, in that you're not faced with air vents and pale asphalt. While the interior is calm but complex, the exterior reads fairy simply, being composed of two boxes, one protruding from the other.
This wasn't what the clients envisaged at all but they like what they got. They had suggested a conservatory to the architect but were open to ideas.
"I was gifted by patient clients and concerned craftsmen, " says Brady (Hollybrook Ltd built the structure, Custom Crew Construction did the copper work and J Strand Joinery was responsible for the timber).
"We were quite demanding. We didn't just say, 'you know best, do what you like'," says Brooke. "We had an idea and Noel had an idea and there were lots of discussions. Noel said that these conversations were the most important part of the process. He was right - you could see how something could just be done really quickly. He listened to our ideas and we listened to him. We would never have come up with the final design but then that's why we employed an architect. We're really happy with it."
Brooke admits that, despite having lots of models and images of the finished extension, a client really doesn't know what they're going to get until it's finished. To give them an idea, Brady showed them pictures of buildings that were in a similar style - although none of them are exactly like the finished structure. Brooke says that this helped them all to realise they were one the same wavelength.
At one stage, Brady did consider a two-storey extension that spoke of Louis Kahn's Fisher house (Philadelphia, 1961) and this new building certainly has that early Kahn-like use of timber frame to make a strong gesture, with the door set into an alcove; flush windows on the outer walls, divided and positioned in a Mondrian-like way; and an overall composition comprising separate geometric shapes. But this is a contemporary work, with that copper, the solid timber 'windows', sheep's wool insulation, a recycled pitch pine floor, as well as chunky cedar and white oak joinery.
Being green without, and within, Anna calls it her an seomra glas - the green room - although in a neat word play between languages it's a glass room too. And it shows that it's worth doing everything right: even small-scale projects can be prizeworthy.
