The original house dates from the late 18th century and is a whitewashed villa style cottage situated in the pleasant green lands just south of Limerick city. The house is turned away from the road, and is turned at 45 degrees in the northeast corner of a courtyard, which is competed by a range of farm buildings and two high stone walls. The client wished to reinforce particular aspects of the character of the house - the view over the wider landscape, the view into the courtyard, the courtyard as the outside room and the sense that the house was floating in a bigger walled meadow within the landscape. 

 

The solution was to build the north edge of the courtyard which related to the courtyard in terms of level, form and materials (timber windows, plaster, corrugated metal roofing), and to make the most public room of the house - the kitchen - resolve the geometry of the new meeting the old at 45 degrees. A long gallery space provides circulation to the bedrooms in this new courtyard building, but is made wide so that it acts as another living space opening into the courtyard. The gable of the new wing and the north wall are much more solid, facing west and north into the meadow. A new corner window from the living room is excavated out of the original house looking south over the courtyard and into the landscape beyond. The result is a light filled interior, maximising the south facing orientation and making a series of views and relationships with the landscape.

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