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House Magazine
Spring - Summer 2005

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

How do you reconcile the need for light and space – including a large open-plan area for living, dining and preparing food – with a narrow garden plot that faces ‘north’? Yet, the decision to build on the north side of the house was predetermined by the fact that this house on Dublin’s tree-lined Griffith Avenue forms part of a consistent ‘edge’, which had to be respected by the project’s architects of Box Architecture. They decided to keep the form of the building intact, when viewed from the road. But, at the back of the site, the house has been transformed with a daringly modern extension.

On approaching the house through the front gate, a new side access becomes apparent, which imitates the conventional garage door arrangement. This produces a spatial enclosure on two edges with the new entrance screen. Vertical timber louvers are used to prevent views into the building. The interior can only be glimpsed, when one steps onto the limestone plate of the entrance. This is the point at which a ‘threshold of understanding’ is achieved. This arrangement also allows for the passive surveillance of the entrance from deep within the house.

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