“House Amongst Ruins” - A New Rural A-rated "Nearly Zero Energy" (nZEB) House

A newly built A-rated "Nearly Zero Energy" (nZEB) rural house built amongst the ruins of a historic farm near Loughcrew in Co. Meath.

This three-bedroom home is built on the footprint of the derelict main building at “South Farm”, the new house reuses salvaged local limestone to clad the main elevations. The unique nature of the site and its changing ground levels has allowed us to build a three-storey house that is screened by the surrounding ruins and landscape, appearing as two stories from the rear and single storey from another side.

Outdoor spaces are formed between the new house and the surrounding stone walls to provide sheltered courtyards of differing character that all receive sunlight at various times throughout the day.

Living spaces are located on the uppermost floor to avail of the spectacular views in all directions and benefit from maximum natural light. The vaulted roof is supported by twelve custom scissor trusses creating a dramatic volume of space. Large sliding doors open onto a viewing balcony to the front and a sheltered dining patio that receives the afternoon sun to the rear. A few steps lead down to ground level. Remarkably, all three floors can be accessed from ground level on three different sides of the house.

Carefully positioned window openings of various sizes provide framed views out over the Loughcrew landscape in all directions. The staircase winds around a central void with a dramatic light feature.

Every room, landing and hall has been designed to capture a view of the surrounding countryside; moving through the house there is a constant variety of light conditions and connection to the landscape.

Each of the three bedrooms has its own distinct character with the ground floor ‘cave-like’ room opening onto the front courtyard and the master bedroom viewing towards the beautiful surrounding stone walls and the carefully restored neighbouring house.

The previously abandoned house to the northwest has been stripped of dashed cement render and a unsightly porch addition and completed with a reclaimed slate roof and new windows to provide additional accommodation.

The ‘nZEB’ A rating has been achieved ahead on incoming new building regulations using a “fabric first” approach to sustainability with super levels of insulation to walls, floor, roof and high-performance triple-glazed windows. Renewable heating is provided by an air-to-water heat pump that feeds into underfloor heating throughout. Heat losses are minimised by an air-tight building envelope and use of a mechanical ventilation system (MVHR) that recovers heat from stale air to preheat fresh incoming air. (links).

The historic brick limekiln immediately adjacent to the house has been retained and sensitively restored. It is visible from the main living spaces, the study and the front balcony. Lit from below at night it creates a dramatic feature tying the new house into the existing built forms and landscape.

Custom joinery has been designed and manufactured for all rooms.

Materials used include salvaged limestone, natural Bangor blue slate, lime render and low-carbon concrete. Cut Ross Limestone features such as window cills and cappings have all been sourced from a local quarry. Detailing has been kept simple with many local material and skilled craftsmen being used.

Both sides of the original single stone arched entrance were carefully dismantled and the stones numbered and stored to be reused to form two new arched openings.

The project has been sensitively designed as an exemplar rural house - Refer to Meath County Council’s ‘Rural Design Guide’ which positively encourages the application of good siting and design principals to new single house development in the countryside. Single house developments constructed in the countryside of an excellent standard, will compliment the landscape of the County of which they will form a part and will contribute in a positive manner to the built heritage of the County.

What is the nZEB standard?

The European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive Recast 2010 (EPBD) requires all new buildings to be nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) by 31st December 2020 and all buildings acquired by public bodies by 31st December 2018.

This means that any buildings completed after these dates should achieve the standard irrespective of when they were started. This is quite different to the transitional arrangements for previous building regulations revisions.

‘Nearly Zero – Energy Buildings’ means a building that has a very high energy performance, Annex 1 of the Directive and in which “the nearly zero or very low amount of energy required should be covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including energy from renewable sources produced on-site or nearby“.

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New Suburban Dublin House Extension Project

Suburban House Extension & Alterations, South Dublin.  

The brief for this project was to extend an existing semi-detached house to the side and rear to create an enlarged open-plan kitchen, dining and lounge area to be the heart of the house with an enhanced relationship wiht the rear garden.  

A study that could be transformed into an additional spare bedroom for visitors along with a new utility room and downstairs shower room was also included.  The design is flooded with light from sliding glazed doors and large frameless roof lights.  The side and rear extension roofs are carefully designed to fit between tall separating brick walls.  

The project included the design of the kitchen and a range of other custom joinery units such as a study wall-mounted desk, a hidden fold-down bed, a corner storage unit with a dog bed built-in below and floor to ceiling wardrobes.

In Praise of Shadows

A bunch of us were out cycling this morning in the Wicklow hills and I got talking to a lighting designer about the critical importance of light in an architectural project.  It is as important as the physical materials we build with - yet its intangible, delicate and takes real feeling, skill and experience to handle.  

We got on to talking about how important the shadows and darkness are too.  You can't feel, sense and appreciate one without the other.  It brought me back to one of my favourite little books - In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

Comparisons of light with darkness are used to contrast Western and Eastern cultures.  The West, in its striving for progress, is presented as continuously searching for light and clarity, while the subtle and subdued forms of oriental art and literature are seen by Tanizaki to represent an appreciation of shadow and subtlety, closely relating to the traditional Japanese concept of wabi & sabi. 

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The type of detail a sensitive eye notices...

The book itself is a little gem - Amazon Link.  (You can find a PDF of it pretty easily online too).

If you are looking for an architect with a sensitive eye for detail - get in touch!  We'd love to hear from you.

Spacious - RIAI registered architects and interior designers.

Our contact details.

New One Off House Design - Rural Co. Wicklow

We have recently completed designs for a new one-off rural family dwelling to be sited in a designated "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" in Co. Wicklow.  The client's have established local needs as they run a business in the immediate area.  The designs have been prepared to be highly site and context specific, to take full account of the stringent planning requirements for such an area and to respond fully to the local authority's rural design guidance for planning applications.

House design

The high quality design of the proposed house has been developed with detailed consideration of the site, its rural context, the adjoining houses and minimizing its impact on the environment (visual and sustainable).

The linear form of the single storey house is broken and stepped slightly approximately one third along its length.  This step in the elevation and roof differentiates between the living and sleeping areas of the house.  It allows for the simple modeling of the form to produce two different roof planes and a differing plane in the front elevation, thereby reducing scale.

The single-room depth of the main part of the house has been incorporated to ensure that the roof mass and ridge heights have been minimized.  This form also results in carefully proportioned gables to both ends that are in keeping with traditional rural vernacular buildings.  This language is combined and balanced with highly considered and subtle contemporary detailing.

The narrow plan depth allows maximum sun, daylight and natural ventilation penetration.  Bedrooms are positioned where they will receive sunlight in the morning and living spaces are arranged to receive light throughout the day and evening and benefit from views.

The main entry to the house is located between the front linear volume and the rear volume of the family lounge.  This positioning responds to the existing entry driveway and allows the avoidance of a suburban form of dwelling - where entry and parking are usually located to the front.  The front of this house will be characterized by natural landscaping consisting of meadow grasses, wild flowers, native trees and hedgerow, and the existing stone/earth berm to the boundary.

The family lounge room takes on a more contemporary form with its zinc roof sloping up towards the west.  It is entirely screened to the rear of the more traditional main volume.  It is also set back from the gable end of the Living/Dining/Kitchen room and leads out to a sheltered and semi-enclosed outdoor space.

The main roof areas of the house (including the rear return) are to be double-pitched with high quality natural slate (blue/black) at 35 degrees.  The lounge room roof is to be monopitch with natural standing seam zinc at a slope of 15 degrees.  Solar panels are not proposed as our preliminary BER assessment concludes that an air-to-water heat pump will provide a more suitable means of reducing primary energy consumption.  This means that the slate roof slopes can be kept free of less visually appealing equipment installation.

Materials and windows have been carefully selected and detailed for the location.  All main elevations (front and gable ends) are to be faced with coursed rubble granite stone, which will be largely, or entirely taken from stone already piled on the adjoining land.  The heavy, solid walls will tie the house to its site.  Window and door openings have been proportioned and spaced to respect the required solid-to-void ratios typical of load-bearing stone walls.

 Materials specified include:

·      Coursed rubble stone walls

·      Stone lintels and sills

·      Blue/black natural slate

·      Mill-finished alu. gutters – vernacular detailing.

·      Alu-clad timber windows

·      Standing seam zinc roofing / fascia

·      Off-white self-coloured render

·      Low stone walls

·      Vertical self-coloured cladding boards (family lounge)

 These materials have been chosen for their appropriate visual appearance and also because they will weather and age gracefully over time.

Download Wicklow C.C. Rural Design Guide here.

Contact us with your queries relating to building new dwelling or extending in rural and high amenity areas.