The clients’ brief was to create a new ‘home’ at the end of the garden of their large Victorian house near the centre of Dublin. The new home would be accessed from the rear lane on which other ‘mews’ type residential had been built.

The challenge was to provide, within a smaller envelope, the scale and elegance of our clients’ former home without resorting to a miniature version of the original.

The three-storey section (basement and two upper floors), the elegant central roof-lit stairs and provision of abundant natural light to almost every room achieved a contemporary solution to the challenge of the project.

The new home developed and improved the ‘mews’ typology by creating elegance in vertical circulation, abundance of natural light, additional accommodation (playroom, spa room, large utility room and significant storage) over and above the generous living accommodation which is often lacking in ‘mews’ house solutions.

Having risen to the challenges of the site and brief what gave KMD Architecture the greatest satisfaction was the fact that, upon completion of the project, our clients named the house ‘Abhaile’ (‘Abhaile’), which in the Gaelic language is the word for ‘home’.

2006

2009

To respect and respond to the siting of the house, which is viewed from the original Victorian house, the project envelope is ‘neutralised’ and carefully restrained by completing all solid elements, the flat roof and walling in a 600mm x 600mm grey ceramic tile system. The roof was designed to allow rainwater to drain through open joints in the tiles, allowing a homogenous wall-to-roof junction, free of visible upstands or parapets.

All the elements of structure of the house are in in-situ concrete, insulated externally, which provides ‘thermal mass’ comfort and quiet acoustic performance to the internal environment.

Other sustainable features include a high efficiency gas condensing boiler and thermally efficient aluminium / timber window frames double glazed with low emissivity glass.