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This project is a generous garden room extending an Arts and Crafts house in a walled garden. It is about making a home with a significant relationship to nature, expressed through a repeating series of pale brick arches, which connect house and gardens. The aesthetic of weighty, crafted brick structures, outside and in, carve out a space which shapes light and shadow and generates an atmosphere of calm and space in the new kitchen extension.
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The project is located on a leafy suburban street in County Wicklow, which was set out from 1860 onwards, and maintains its particular character of large family properties set back from the road, with stands of mature trees giving a calm, landscaped setting. Eight Arches is a detached house on a large site, probably built in the period 1890-1910. The rear gardens are open in character. The existing planting and hedges, which divide the garden into a series of compartments, have been reinforced with new planting. The new room is directly accessible to the garden without a level change.
Works include a deep energy re-fit to the entire fabric, which has improved the performance of roof, walls, floors, windows and airtightness. A green roof was constructed over the new kitchen to improve attenuation and assist drainage, gravel drainage layers assist through the terraces and in the garden. Air source heat pumps and underfloor heating throughout the ground floor distribute even gentle heat, with upper floor radiators. Original fabric was retained and reused wherever possible, together with matching salvaged material. Timber windows in the existing house were double glazed with slimline units, while thermally broken steel windows were installed to the new spaces. All paints used were breathable. Natural materials – stone, brick, timber - were used for finishes throughout.
This project is a generous garden room extending an Arts and Crafts house in a walled garden. Beginning with the idea of creating a central heart in a house which has many lovely features and lots of small rooms, but none of them supporting a modern family lifestyle. Planimetrically today we like to live together, yet individually and spatially free - creating complexities in plan and section which break out of the cramped intimacy of Arts and Crafts room planning. Our brief was to create spatial possibilities for the family to live and breathe, in a materially rich environment. Fundamental to this was the idea of letting the brick speak, sensing a material surface, expressing depth of structure through the double wall of internal and external load-bearing brick. Flemish bond lays down a solid language of weighty forces. Arches were constructed by great craftsmen by hand, using centring timbers. Steel windows keep frames light and bring the garden deep into the kitchen and snug.
Our new rooms extending the house into the garden create a spacious sense of inhabiting the garden rather than looking at it. Internally views to different spaces are carefully considered to connect all spaces together while allowing the older parts of the house to retain their own integrity and Arts and Crafts detailing, scale and proportion. We worked extensively with the architects to create together a place we are very happy to be in.
McCullough Mulvin Architects is a Dublin-based practice. We combine contemporary insight with highly developed conservation skills to create sustainable projects that fully integrate old buildings with new architecture. Our approach is thoughtful, our way of building applicable in any culture and society, with award-winning buildings both in Ireland and internationally.
Together with other long-term collaborators, we work at a range of scales, including cultural buildings, housing projects, hotels, offices, libraries, healthcare, schools and university buildings. We extend our practice through research, writing, films, and exhibitions, exploring the themes that inform our work.
The practice has been acclaimed internationally with awards including recent RIBA International Award for Excellence 2024, Overall Winner of The Plan Awards Italy 2021, DETAIL Readers’ Prize 2020 (Thapar University Learning Laboratory), and World Architecture Festival Finalist 2023 (Printing House Square).
