Hudson House

A narrow, linear garden behind an existing restaurant on Railway Street, Navan, is the site for this new house. The house is designed in response to the client’s particular requirements. They needed to be near to but separate from their work. They had been living over the restaurant and used an existing courtyard – the hollowed-out shell of a disused workshop – as an outdoor room.

The house is organised around three courtyards with external circulation between living and sleeping zones. The living space and bedroom tower are positioned on either side of the footprint of the former workshop.

Storey-height retaining walls hold back the higher-level neighbours’ gardens on either side of the court, the living room roof is on the same level as the adjoining gardens. The cast-in-situ cranked roof gives the living space a cave-like character. Cave, courtyard and tower are the constituent elements of a concrete house excavated from the existing conditions of the site.