The commission was to design a single-family house on a beautiful site overlooking Kinsale Harbour in Cork. Extensive site and historical research was undertaken and the aim of the project was to make a house which built literally and historically on the local context and offered a contemporary organisation of rooms to support modern life.
The form of the house is kept as a simple ‘A’, to ensure it has a clear and clean silhouette when viewed from across the Harbour. The house is built down on an existing stone wall that bounds the site, tying the new house to an existing family house also on the site. The two storey house is clad in black slate, in keeping with Cork traditions. The ground floor is open plan with broad views out to the Harbour. The first floor bedrooms are introverted and quite, with secret, private views to the landscape. In this way communal family life is balanced with private, individual life within one form. A fireplace acts as a social and structural anchor, with the house anchored to this and to the road wall and then cantilevered to offer long, uninterrupted views of the water.