Jigsaw Dublin, Leeson Park Property, New Irish House, Building, Development

Jigsaw Dublin : Leeson Park House

Dublin Residential Project, Ireland – design by McCullough Mulvin Architects

24 Jun 2009

Leeson Park Property

Jigsaw

Design: McCullough Mulvin

JIGSAW – LEESON PARK, DUBLIN, IRELAND

photos : Ros Kavanagh

Material choice and a will for limpid, calm spaces dictated a language of paradox for this horizontal form, extension to a Victorian house in Dublin. Board marked concrete was poured to walls, floor and roof to form a textured tube, yet this weighty rectangle skates lightly across the original return of the house, trapping a small courtyard behind and generating a tension between the expected gravitas of the concrete and its expression to the garden as a calm, horizontal form, floating above the terrace.

The materiality of the tube is underscored by huge circular rooflights which mark the passage of light throughout the day on walls and floor. A splayed ramp tethers the new garden space to the ground floor of the house, glazed walls to the trapped courtyard space offering views of a mature Japanese maple in gravel.

Boardmarked concrete walls and ceiling are finished in a light, translucent wash, a wall lining of black American walnut at one end forms bookshelves and surrounds a stove which can be enclosed to form an intimate study for winter evenings by pivoting a large black walnut door out from the wall. A sedum roof with thyme was planted on the roof of the new structure, linking to views of the garden beyond from the main reception rooms of the house.

photos : Christian Richters