this rural family home has been based on the traditional irish ‘longhouse’ and has been designed to integrate an old cottage into the overall composition. the location of the new build, in relation to the existing cottage, sets up an entrance courtyard to the north of the site offering a sense of enclosure and arrival. at the rear of the house another external space is loosely define by the plan shape with large areas of floor to ceiling glazing reacting to the south-west aspect and providing multiple points of access to the garden.

the main living/dining/sitting space takes up the full depth of the larger volume that runs north to south while the metal and timber clad box contains a sitting room, removed from the main living area but with a visual connection across the garden. to reinforce the connection to the site many of the windows are extended to floor level and materials such as stone, metal and timber are used both on external and internal surfaces to blur the line between inside and out.

the composition of long house and metal annex is a contemporary take on the way irish farmhouses were traditionally added to and evolved. the contrast in form and material gives rise to a more visually interesting composition which resembles the farmyard clusters that sit most comfortably in the irish landscape.

photos by – www.f22photography.ie