Interior Design Ideas Small Space Gray: October 2009

The house is located in a conservation area close to Dublin’s city centre, on a small but prominent infill corner site at the junction between Mountpleasant Avenue and Richmond Place. A modest dwelling built to replace the existing cottage located on the site.

Richmond-Place-House, Boyd-Cody-Architects, Design, Architecture, House

The accommodation consists of 2no. bedrooms, 2no. bathrooms, kitchen, utility and living / dining area set over three separate levels. At two stories the house remains substantially in character with the nearby terrace of houses and forms a low book-end building to Richmond Place, while making a strong contextual response to both the unusual site configuration and the prevailing architectural context, in particular the gable end of the house immediately opposite on Mountpleasant Square.

The ambition is to build the entire site, maximising the footprint of the building and visually extending the living area into the external courtyards formed to each side.

The geometry of the existing site is the principal generator of the building form. Approximately triangular in shape and with a pronounced curve along Richmond Place, the house adopts the site boundary line along its north and south elevations and aligns with the adjacent terrace to the east and west.

The resultant form is carved twice to make two compressed entrance spaces one to the front and a smaller one at the rear. In order to maintain the low-lying nature of the block fronting to Richmond Place, the living room is sunk 750mm into the ground, following the natural fall across the site.

The house exploits its section to create a series of interconnected but separate spaces of varying height and dimension, creating a sequence of compression and release as one circulates through the plan. The main bedroom opens out into the roof-lit stairwell by means of a work desk and folding screen forming a potentially seamless flow of space connecting with the living room and kitchen below.

The kitchen itself is placed at the entry level and overlooks the living space across the worktop, with the storage units opening into the living room. The concrete desk formed by extending the ground surface into the building, faces west into the courtyard and the neighbouring street beyond. Externally the house is faced entirely in brick, directly referencing the neighbouring house.
Satin anodised aluminium windows are brought flush to the surface of the outer skin to accentuate the tautness of the form and emphasize the two entry points. Internally a simple palette of materials is deployed, white oak for the service areas, concrete, plaster and rubber to the living areas to give a legible uniform reading to the interior.

Architects: Boyd Cody Architects – Sinead Bourke, Dermot Boyd, Peter Cody, James Corbett, Ryan Kennihan

Location: Rathmines, Dublin 6, Ireland

Programme: Residential House

Engineer: John Casey

Site Area: 121.5 sqm

Constructued Area: 110 sqm

Budget: 250,000 EURO (US $394,900)

Design & Construction: 2004-2005

External Materials: Brick, Satin Anodised Aluminium Windows

Interior Materials: White Oak, Concrete, Plaster and Rubber

The expansion and renovation project of the countryside house is located on the road to Cuesta Lo Prado, on Curacavi city (Metropolitan Region).

Casa en el campo - Benjamín Murúa + Constanza Infante

The building sits on a plain between the hills and the valley on a widely open space overlooking the hills on the east and the valley on the west.

Requirement was to expand the house adding 3 bedrooms and a sala but keeping the existing geometry intact.
The objective of the project was to reuse and emphazise some elements of the Chilean houses of the early 20th century present in the pre-existing building like patios, galleries and open corridors.

The house had an “L” shape layout housing a sequence of bedrooms with a gallery on the east side and a open corridor on the west.

This 2 circulations were used and extended to the north so as to integrate all with a second “L”where the new bedrooms and sala were included, connecting the old part with the new one with a threshold.

With this operation, the gallery took the place of the core circulation connecting all the areas but also as place to stay because of its width and orientation to the morning sun and the hills. .

On the other side, the corridor was extended to the garden overlooking the valley and protected from the heat during summer days. The bedrooms and the sala surround a patio that being enclosed becomes an inner court as an extension of the sala.

Once the gates that contain the space are opened, the garden blends with the geography of the hill, bringing it into the project.
The configuration of the house allowed working with open corridors, galleries and patios and to give it a fresh look contemporary materials were used like glass, steel, wood and concrete.
The sofits disappeared and special constructive details were used on the joints between the windows and the roof taking advantage of the lightness of the materials.