0/ -1 John Dillon Street

The site at John Dillon Street in Dublin's Liberties was originally part of the precinct of the church of Saint Nicholas of Myra. It consisted of a ruined outbuilding, two metres lower than that of the adjoining church grounds, and accessed from John Dillon Street through a door in the churchyard wall. Old maps show the footprint of an earlier church on part of the site. To minimise their impact on the adjoining church and surrounding one storey terraces, the houses were cast in situe as a pair of two storey top lit walled gardens set off a dogleg landing to the street with living above and sleeping /bathing below. Each level is lit from above from external gardens while the roof is planted to complete the landscape of the churchyard. Openings to the street were maintained at a minimum. Light is borrowed to the lower floor through manipulations of the section at toilet and access to roofgarden. Each house contains a diagonal visual bias by virtue of the slight shift in the plan inherited from the site boundaries.

The concrete was shotblasted. To maintain the material expression on the interior all insulation is external, retained by the backfilled site and salvaged random coursed calplimestone wall to John Dillon Street. The external insulation above ground level within the churchyard is protected by an untreated cedar fence with expressed plug fixings. This detail is continued for entrance and utility doors to the street.

All room divisions running north-south are glazed sliding screens in black anodised aluminium, with all electrical services incorporated in their edge detail. All heating is underfloor. To amplify the top light the floors are of polished Carrara marble tiles. Opposite both internal and external baths the services are clad in mirror. As a final layering each item of furniture & doglegs stairs, double kitchen, hung table, landing floor, decks, bed platforms, wardrobes, bedroom and toilet door - was made of recycled hardwood. One bed platform is piano hinged to retract as worktable for home office.