The studio is the realisation of a long-term plan for a home-based workplace, a freestanding extension to a late-Georgian terraced house.
- Houses
- Office
- Wood Awards - Highly Commended, Small-Scale Building Category
A simple rectangular plan, with an irregular bite taken out to protect the roots of two birch trees planted thirty years ago. The built form provides a destination at the foot of the garden.
The studio is a shed-like structure, a sloping roof to protect views to the dome of Rathmines church, mono-pitched over a single if slightly complex volume, creating two negative spaces, side garden and sunken court, exploiting the level difference between street and lane.
Brief
The brief was to provide working-from-home studio space for an architectural partnership. The studio provides space for drawing and writing, collaboration and private study, painting and discussion.
Planning
The existing Georgian terraced house was built in 1830s, with strict planning and conservation controls on new building within the curtilage of a protected structure and in close proximity to a 19th century church building with a monumental dome.
Construction and Materials
Construction began with a concrete footprint, a retaining structure to allow the building to be dug down into the levels of the site. Above this 900mm concrete datum, the superstructure is timber, a Douglas Fir structure, heavily insulated and externally clad with hand-laid brick and a black zinc roof. Angled brick specials resolve the corner geometries, with no bricks cut on site. The studio is designed to exploit natural daylight and natural ventilation in all areas. Space-heating is via an air-to-water heat pump.
The challenge was to build a spatially efficient and environmentally resilient workspace within strict conservation controls and dimensional restrictions.
Existing boundary walls and trees are protected, and important view-lines are maintained.
The lower studio is wrapped around the existing birch trees and opens onto a sunken court. The mezzanine studio faces towards the rear wall and dome of the local church.
Two workspaces meet in the middle around a kitchen and stove, with a meeting table on the mezzanine. A concrete and plywood stair winds around the chimney.
There are no corridors or wasted area, a functional plan with different kinds of space and a range of volumetric variety within the limits of a 60sqm structure.
The built form makes minimal intrusion on the conservation setting of adjoining houses and is designed to be a sensitive addition to its surrounding context. Built of natural materials for long term durability and minimum maintenance.
The building was built with only the minimum required use of fair-faced concrete, the main material of construction being locally sourced structural timber.
The studio was painstakingly constructed to a precise and demanding geometry by a dedicated builder, with one skilled craftsman responsible for most of the work on site and coordinating plumbing, electrics, metalwork and joinery.
The studio is designed to accommodate future change and to foster multigenerational functionality. Spaces are planned to allow change of use to residential. It is a prototype for sustainable intensive development of Dublin’s underused back lanes, proposing a flexible and adaptable densification of the downtown residential plot.
