34 Palmerston Road

This project involves the construction of a new two storey addition to the rear of a large three storey semi-detached bricked fronted Victorian house in the south of Dublin. Internal alterations are also carried out to rationalise the plan and a new bathroom and solarium are located on the roof of the house. A new strategy for the garden is implemented in granite, gravel and grass to follow the geometries of the new addition and the existing house. The client wished that the main family activity should remain on the first floor of the house, so a new kitchen is placed adjacent to the main reception rooms, connecting with the dining room through a moving oak bookcase and sliding oak doors to the living room beyond. Below, a playroom connects directly with the garden and new teak deck. Externally, the addition is sculptural, it reads as an abstracted bronze clad volume. It rests alongside the existing house, held in a teak fold, formed by the adjoining deck and vertical garden screens. The proportions and articulation of this sculptural object are determined by use and context. Through the subtraction and erosion of the orthogonal form, the addition reads more as an independent object at first floor, providing spatial relief to the large sash window of the dining room.

At ground floor, the space turns and connects strongly with the garden through section. Light and views are controlled by the solid and void relationship of bronze and glass. Large pivoting bronze clad doors provide all ventilation and access to the new addition and a teak staircase runs along the northern boundary wall serving the garden directly from the first floor. Internally, the addition and all the other spatial interventions in the house are lined in pigmented rubber. Rubber is also used to face all the fitted furniture in these rooms to give uniformity. A rubber and steel bench for instance, lifts in a fold along the south side of the kitchen to form a window seat for the family.

Three new bathrooms and a utility room are located on the lower floors. One space, a bathroom and solarium, is constructed within the roof and central valley of the house. From the solarium, there are panoramic views of the city and the bathroom is sky lit. The external walls, the lowered ceiling over the hallway below and the staircase serving this space are all clad in bronze to form another sculptural intervention.