House overlooking Dublin Bay
Extension to private house, Dublin
Completed 2022
Arigho Larmour Wheeler Architects have recently completed an extension to semi-detached Victorian residence facing the Dublin Bay.
The existing house is unusually bright, with wide southerly views to the sea, but the rear of the property is north facing and in shadow for much of the day. The brief was to make a new family kitchen living dining space with a playroom on the ground floor, and an extra bedroom on the first floor. Extending this property to the rear could easily have resulted in a deep plan with little light.
To ensure we did not leave the existing house with dark spaces in the centre of the plan, our approach was to introduce both a courtyard and a rooflight to either side of the first-floor bedroom extension and in doing so pull light back in to the existing house and extension where the plan is necessarily deep. The bedroom extension is set closer to the centre of the plan on the upper level and looks out to the garden below.
A clear visual path is established from the front door of the existing house through to the garden, and the planted courtyard provides an additional connection to the outdoors along the way.
To the rear of the new living spaces a canopy will extend out to form a threshold space mediating between the landscape and the inside, allowing the family to leave the doors open and enjoy the fluidity of this in this in-between space in any weather.
Photography by Aisling McCoy