Located 30 metres from the seafront, House in Blacksod Bay is surrounded by countryside, so Tierney Haines Architects drew inspiration from the local architecture to create three gabled buildings that reference traditional farmhouses.

The family that occupies the house spend most of their time in the two-storey eastern wing and the large central kitchen, which can be separated from the guest suite to the west by a series of moving partitions. "The client asked for a stone house that would make the most of the site and that could be divided in two for winter and summer use," architect Stephen Tierney told Dezeen.

The rugged dry stone walls were constructed using local Lacken sandstone, which will naturally weather with age but also protect the house from intense weather. "When there are storms there can be seaweed on the roof," said Tierney.

Window sills and lintels are also made from roughly cut stone, while slate tiles cover the steeply pitched rooftops.

Inside the house, oak-framed windows set up views of the surrounding landscape. "You drive into the protected courtyard and there are glimpses through the blocks of the distant mountains, you enter the hall door and a distant view of the open sea is framed, then as you move further into the house the views open up one after the other," explained Tierney.

"There is a real pleasure standing in the large window openings framed by 700-millimetre thick walls and see the Atlantic storms several centimetres from your nose but not feel them," he added.

Other Irish residences we've featured include a blue limestone-clad house extension and a mews house with protruding brickwork.

See more stories about houses in Ireland »

Photography is by Stephen Tierney.

Here's some more information from Tierney Haines Architects:

House on Blacksod Bay, Co. Mayo, Ireland.

This family home on Blacksod Bay in west Mayo takes its inspiration from local farms and the small courtyard enclosures they make. The house faces south to the sea that is a mere 30 metres away, the courtyard form provides shelter in a location where it is difficult to use planting. The dwelling's heavy stone walls anchor the building in its rugged setting and give protection against the severe weather.

This is a house for large family gatherings with the kitchen at the heart of the house. In the winter the two storey block can be closed off for the immediate family while in summer the house expands for the many visitors. Access from the courtyard and circulation through the house are orientated with constant reference to the views of the open sea, islands, beach - a two hundred degree panorama.

The materials selected mirror the qualities of the site and were chosen to weather and age, sandstone, limed oak, zinc. The local Lacken sandstone is as hard as granite, has a warm variety of tone and brings continuity from exterior to interior. The rough drystone wall is refined by cut stone lintels and sills which lead to the use of a similar finish internally on both walls and floors.

Above: site plan

The internal spaces are varied in section and make use of quieter textures and a limited palette of colours and materials. The deep window reveals are lined with limed oak. Curtains are made from undyed linen. Externally, rough sandstone masks the window frames focussing the viewers attention on the landscape beyond. As one moves through the quiet interior, views of the wild landscape are composed through generous glazing.

Above: ground floor plan - click above for larger image

The house is BER A rated for energy using 320mm cellulose insulation, HRV ventilation, geothermal heating and taking benefit from its south facing aspect.

Above: first floor plan - click above for larger image

Area: 450 sqm
Project Stage: Completed
Design: 2009 - Completion: 2012

Above: section AA - click above for larger image

Architects - Tierney Haines Architects, Stephen Tierney, James Casey, Gabriella Regina, Sandy Rendel, Alex Doran.
Contractor – Vincent Naughton Builders, Vincent Naughton, Rory McGinty, Diane Naughton
Engineer – EDPM, Frank Endicott, Alan Guildea
Service Engineer – Fergus Doran
Lighting Design – Contemporary Lighting Solutions, James Hornsby

Above: section BB - click above for larger image

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Tierney Haines Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

To recreate the character of the single-storey cottage, the architects mirrored its sloping roof profile for the new buildings, creating a staggered row of gables that step gradually down the sloping site.

The existing residence has white-painted exterior walls, so the dark limestone of the extension relates more closely to the slate that covers its roof.

The architects explain how the limestone "weathers over time to match the geology of the surrounding cliffs," and also "becomes highly reflective when wet."

Semi-enclosed courtyards fit into the gaps between each of the buildings, finishing with an east-facing terrace overlooking the coastline, which the architects say "reveals spectacular views of the cliffs, the sea and the islands of West Cork."

Glass walls and large windows frame more east-facing views from the dining room, living room and study, which occupy two of the new buildings.

House at Goleen was completed in 2009 but hasn't been widely published.

See more residential extensions on Dezeen, including a Corian-clad addition to a house in London.

Photography is by Nick Guttridge.

Here's some more information from Niall McLaughlin Architects:

House at Goleen

Client Brief

The existing house had suffered the abuse of the local climate and haphazard development over a period of years resulting in a fragmented plan and disjointed appearance.

The clients brief was straightforward; to retain part of the original structure and to provide additional accommodation and landscaping fit for the quality of the site.

Existing Site

The site is located in an area of exceptional natural beauty. Sea views and rugged yet lush landscapes combine with fast changing skies and wild deep blue seas. The site faces the sea to the east.

The existing house was set between a steep rock face to the north and a small stream to the south. The access road winds down the cliff from the west to the house. To the east a long gently sloping lawn stretches seaward towards the rocky coastline.

Planning Constraints

Outside of the local development boundary and set just below one of Europe’s most scenic roads, the character of the views and the landscape seen from the land around the house and the sea had to be maintained.

The local design guide proposed traditional or vernacular forms as acceptable but was clear that designs of exceptional quality with an emphasis on energy efficiency offering diversity in design would be acknowledged.

Design

The house is formed of a series of linear pavilions set parallel to the original house. The pavilions step down the 1.6m fall of the site creating a meandering path through the house from the entrance on the west to the living space and sea views to the east.

The form of the existing cottage influenced the design of the new structures and its ridge was used as a datum that defines the heights of the new buildings. A series of pitched roofs are staggered across the site creating pockets of space forming semi-enclosed courtyards.

At the end of the journey a large terrace reveals spectacular views of the cliffs, the sea and the islands of West Cork.

Guest bedrooms are located in the refurbished cottage. Visitors pass through a glass link into the first of the limestone buildings, the first of which accommodates the master bedroom and bathroom.

The second limestone pavilion contains the dining room and kitchen.

The final pavilion is broken into two parts, one for the living room and the other a freestanding study, accessed via stone doors and a small bridge over the cascading pools.

Materials Method of Construction

The existing house is roofed in natural slate with rendered white walls. New structures are clad in Irish blue limestone. This natural material weathers over time to match the geology of the surrounding cliffs. The stone becomes highly reflective when wet. The loads of the stone to the roof and the walls are supported by a reinforced concrete structure providing thermal mass that regulates temperatures and stores heat.

Project: House at Goleen
Location: ‘La Finca’, Spanishcove, Goleen, Co. Cork, Ireland
Compeltion: July 2009
Area: 300 sq m
Project architects: David Hemingway, Tilo Guenther

Site plan - click above for larger image

Ground floor plan - click above for larger image

Section - click above for larger image

East elevation - click above for larger image

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Niall McLaughlin Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Photographer Jamie Young is compiling an archive to document the history of water towers in Ireland.

As well as photographing the towers, Young has gathered drawings, maps, images and documents that chart the history of each one and their relationships to architectural periods and styles.

Young explains how property websites provided a resource for locating the structures, which are often used as way-finding landmarks when giving directions.

"I hope to firstly list and then document every tower still standing in Ireland," says Young. "It is a photographic essay, conservation piece, research project and an archive of history."

The project was inspired by the work of German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who spent years photographing industrial structures in black and white.

Other recent photography stories on Dezeen depict distorted views of American cities and landscapes and a series of rooms viewed from the ceiling.

See more photography stories on Dezeen »

Here's a project description from Jamie Young:

Water Towers of Ireland is a research project undertaken by Jamie Young and ongoing since June 2010. The project began with an urge to draw people closer to these objects which seem to permanently sit on the horizon, and it quickly grew into an obsession. Part inventory, part photographic essay and part history, the work now includes maps, anecdotes, drawings, polaroids, large prints and an exhibition.

Exploring water towers through photography, the images of Bernd and Hilla Becher quickly come to mind. The Bechers’ studies of industrial typologies were strictly documentary in nature and were often exhibited by type, laid out in grids. Each piece of industrial architecture was photographed in black and white, in flat light and in isolation of its surroundings. This approach meant that similar forms of structure could be easily compared, while also leaving them devoid of their individual character.

Stepping away from the hard documentary style of the Bechers’ series, Young’s images look to give an emotive value to these objects, these erratics of our everyday landscape. His photographs convey their personalities and act as portraits, while accounting for a lack of uniformity in scale, surroundings and weather conditions.

Jamie became interested in water towers because of their form, singular use and roles as landmarks. While researching and cataloguing the towers, he also found that they could indicate a timeline in the history of the country - from the oldest water towers of railway stations, through the progression of concrete construction, and on to the need for larger reservoirs in recent times, when communities have simply outgrown their elevated supply. While these angles all helped to form a long inventory and map nearly two hundred towers, the most interesting route to discovery was through property websites. In this instance, the vital role of the water tower is stripped away and it now stands only as a landmark – “…and take the last exit to the left before the water tower”.

The first strand of this work culminated in an exhibition last April. Opened by Prof. Hugh Campbell, the show consisted of a selection of photographs and information gathered as part of the project, and was presented as a mix of large prints, instant prints, text and maps. What Young found through this exhibition, is that once these images are placed in front of an audience they themselves start to notice and value the water towers they encounter. As well as contact from photographers doing similar work in other parts of the world, people often send photos of water towers from their travels. The best example of this can be seen on a sister blog – southeastasiancorrespondent.tumblr.com - set up to host the regular offerings from a friend living in Singapore.

The project is ongoing and currently seeking further funding to complete the research and ready the work for publication.

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by Jamie Young appeared first on Dezeen.

Irish architects Dot Architecture and Soc-Arc designed the walls and sloping roofs of C-House on top of the substructure of an existing house that had been irreparably damaged by flooding.

Inspired by the forms of a traditional Irish bungalow, the house has a single row of low-silled windows that create the false impression that each block has only one storey inside.

Once inside, one of the blocks is revealed to house two floors of bedrooms while the other two contain double-height living and dining rooms.

Other projects we've featured from Ireland include a mews house with protruding brickwork - see all our stories about Ireland here.

Photography is by Paul Tierney.

Here's some more information from Dot Architecture:

C-House

In August 2008 a 1980s family home in rural county Kildare lay submerged under 1m of water during three separate, unprecedented flash floods. The family devastated by the loss of their home saw the opportunity in rebuilding, to remodel the house while making it safe from possible future floods.

Alterations to the existing ground levels were essential. The existing slab and raft foundations were to be reused as much as possible to reduce costs and environmental impact.

The existing external walls were cut at cill level of the original house, filled, and used as retaining walls providing a new raised ground floor level 1.2 metres above the original.

Building material salvaged from walls above cill level was re-used where appropriate as fill below the new ground floor slab. A lower ground floor level was formed by tanking a leg of the original ground floor.

The project is a contemporary interpretation of an Irish Bungalow, answering issues of context, planning and site levels. Three blocks sit on the site connected through an interlocking knuckle hall linking the uses of living, kitchen/dining and sleeping.

The ‘light chimneys’ direct light deep into these spaces leaving an ecclesiastic glow in the space and act as mini stacks for natural ventilation of the spaces.

Additional floor area and natural light were primary drivers for the scheme, as the previous house had been dominated by a long and eternally dark corridor surrounded by a series of box rooms. The project uses both direct and borrowed light from the light funnels.

The two-storey Sleeping block is a tanked part-basement polished white concrete floor built on the existing slab, a void punched through the floor above brings light to the new hall below.

The rooms are lit by tilting/pivoting/swinging large format hardwood windows and doors using a modular size of 2.25m x 1.5m throughout.

The upper floor is supported on a cranked beam giving additional height to the first floor rooms without overly raising the ridge level and retaining the appearance of bungalow externally.

The crank in the beam returns space to the lower level bedrooms enabling the larger format windows to pull in more light at this level.

The entire first floor level is lit by the large light chimney, providing direct and borrowed light to the bedrooms and study by use of internal rooflights, screens and voids.

The living spaces in the front block can be combined by folding back two large triangular flush screens, 1.5m x 4.5m, leaving the central chimney in the round.

The kitchen/dining block is an addition to the original footprint providing an 8m x 8m square floor with pulled-in slider and overhang forming a porch between the adjoining utility and back garden. Light falls from above via the off-centre light funnel.

Floor Area: 260 m²Architects: Steven Connolly, Alan Connolly & Gráinne Daly

Quantity Surveyors: Mulcahy McDonagh and Partners (MMP)

Joinery: McNally Joinery
Dining Table and Bench: Kieran Costelloe, Furniture Restorer and Cabinet Maker
Client: Private
Location: Prosperous, Co. Kildare, Ireland Project
Size: 260 m2
Project Duration: 12 months

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and Soc-Arc appeared first on Dezeen.

A glazed corridor connects the two wooden halves of this seaside house on the east coast of Ireland by Dublin studio A2 Architects.

Constructed from Douglas fir, the single-storey residence replaces a holiday chalet that previously occupied the site.

An existing sea wall protects the rear terrace behind the house during high tides, but a gated staircase leads down to the beach when the tide is out.

One side of the house contains nothing but a large living and dining room, while two bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen are located opposite.

Clerestory windows run along the sides of the house, above the furniture.

You can see a few more projects in Ireland here, including a mews house with protruding brickwork.

Photography is by Marie-Louise Halpenny.

The following text is from A2 Architects:

Seaside House

A new seaside holiday house occupies the former site of a longstanding summer chalet with existing private access to a dramatic beach on the east coast of Ireland, north of the capital city of Dublin.

Resonating with the scale and placement of neighbouring mobile homes, two untreated douglas fir timber enclosures rest on a cast concrete podium over a drift geology. Shelter unfolds between parallel wall planes to embrace views east over the Irish Sea and west over potato fields.

Viewed from the upper coastal road the grass roofs assimilate into the patchwork of field enclosure common in the Irish landscape.

A central cast terrazzo fireplace and a roof lit spine hallway anchor the plan.

A datum at 2.1m extends out to the external terraces forming shelter like the cap of a hat above which a continuous south facing clerestory window spans the living room, tracking the sun from morning to evening.

Clerestory glazing internally above the built-in furniture brings reflected sunlight into the timber lined bedrooms and bathrooms. A counter level window in the kitchen affords a panoramic view north to the headland on the coast. A layer of reflective polished terrazzo is laid over the concrete podium and parallel to the horizon in a wave-like rhythm.

A coastal garden and raised planter afford privacy to the main bedroom and a sheltered evening terrace enjoys west sun and views of the horizon through the living room. The large seaside family terrace is the focus for daily beach life; a place to gather and enjoy the sun or the shade.

Underfloor heating and superinsulation allow year round economic comfort and use.

Project Facts:
Internal Area of house: 150 sq.m
Duration (design to completion): 2006 – 2010
Location: County Louth, Republic of Ireland

Architects: A2 Architects
Team: Caomhan Murphy MRIAI, Peter Carroll MRIAI, Joan McElligott MRIAI

Structural Engineer: Casey O’ Rourke Associates
Main Building Contractor: Peter Taaffe, Ardee, Co.
Terrazzo: P.J. Ryan Terrazzo and Mosaic Specialists Ltd.

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