RICHFIELD

Location: Kilmore, Co. Wexford

Type: Dwelling restoration, conservation & extension

Role: Design & Planning

Stage: Complete

Our proposal is, simply phrased, to make an extension to the rear of the existing thatched cottage forming a new dwelling. Infused with the dwelling are new outbuildings to the north. These outbuildings are practical in terms of the client’s requirements for storage and the everyday workings of a rural household, but also form a fundamental visual anchor for the entire composition, particularly seen from the public road. The new buildings form a cluster, which are reflective of the forms, and the scales, of the vernacular buildings of rural Ireland. There is an implicit hierarchy to the cluster, with the smaller and lower buildings to the periphery, allowing the dwelling to remain the main subject of the composition, supported by the outbuilding visual buttresses to the left and right foreground.

The outbuilding directly to the north of the thatched cottage is a softer composition with a half-round roof, reminiscent of traditional barns in the rural landscape, and allows restricted views of the other buildings, or rooflines behind. This round roof building is softened again with a wet-dash render with the intention of applying a yellow ochre finish coat. The buildings to the rear – the dwelling extension and the A-pitched outbuilding – are considered as a backdrop for the buildings to the foreground in terms of mass and scale, and also in terms of colour. The specific colour isn’t yet fixed but, as we say, these buildings will act as a background for the others, and will be drawn from the palette of colours appropriate for these type of buildings in the rural landscape.

The ‘street and plazza’ morphology of the site is reinforced by the introduction of the new courtyard to the south, for immediate enjoyment of the house, and the ‘working’ courtyard to the north for vehicles and the day to day workings of the place as a family dwelling.