Your home… with living:room

As part of the Dublin Open House event in October, I took a look around FKL Architects‘ ‘A-Rated House’ in Rathmines, Dublin – a concrete built 2-storey home, designed to respond the physical and planning restrictions of a small North-facing mews plot in the South Dublin inner city suburbs.

The 3-bed house was designed for Michelle Fagan and Gary Lysaght, both partners at FKL Architects, and their family, and besides setting a new aesthetic brief for environmentally responsible design, it also offers some interesting spatial ideas to meet the challenges of modern family living.

5 Ideas to take from FKL’s A-Rated House (after pics)

Front View from Laneway

Entry and Stair

View from kitchen toward garden

Double-height 'Slot' thru House

Stair & Rooflights

Upstairs Living Room

Balustrade around double-height 'Slot'

View from Living Room toward Landing 'Bridge'

Master Bedroom

Rooflight in Bathroom

Rear View from Garden

5 Ideas to take from FKL’s A-Rated House:

Green Credentials:

Eco- friendly concrete, external insulation, a green living roof to replace the building footprint, solar panels, heat recovery, vegetable plot and a lively suburban location, eliminating the need for a car as fundamental ingredient in daily life – all go to show creating a beautiful, modern home doesn’t have to mean sacrificing environmental credibility.

It’s Not White:

For anyone who’s ever tried to co-exist in a minimal white interior with grubby-pawed toddlers or to impress aesthetic appreciation upon crayon-toting kids, the passing of this particular trend must surely meet with a chorus of Hallelujiahs! The A-Rated House’s concrete interior creates a neutral background that’s easy on the eye, with timber cabinets and wall panels providing an added visual warmth.

Upstairs, Downstairs

The most interesting idea at work in the A-Rated House is the central double-height slot that divides the building in two – bridged only where the stair lands at first floor level – creating a visual and spatial link between upstairs and downstairs. Wherever you are in the house, you are aware of this relationship to everything else – a truly open plan type of living. The advantage is that everything in the house feels connected – the disadvantage could be a lack of privacy.

Light Matters

One of the biggest challenges of building in this location is the orientation – the house faces South onto a narrow laneway, with the living rooms and garden facing North. Light from the front of the house, and from strategically placed rooflights, travels down through the central double-height space bringing sunlight into the rear of the house – the family can enjoy the tracking of the sun’s path through the course of the day across this space. Dividing the living space between ground and first floor levels  also maximises natural light and views at the upper level.

Flexible Space

At the rear of the house at ground floor level, addressing the garden and only partially open to the kitchen dining space, is a family living room or snug. This space has a doorway linking it to a discrete ‘service’ corridor giving access to a Utility and storage area, the integral garage and also downstairs WC / Shower room. The snug can therefore double as guest accommodation complete with en-suite bathroom, when required.

Final Thoughts

My only concern about the open plan nature of the house would be a lack of privacy that could become an issue as the family grows older. When puberty and the woe-ridden adolescent years hit, a place of retreat becomes essential to the sanity of teenagers and parents alike.

The saving grace here comes in the unlikely form of the City Fathers and their insistence that off-street parking be provided as an integral part of the design, despite the owners not owning or wishing to own a car! The ‘garage’ (although this seems too mean a word for the clean, bright space created for this purpose), already separated from the main body of the house by the service zone, provides the possibility of sanctuary – the final component  to make this a truly sustainable and flexible home.

If you found this article of interest, you may also like:

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