Ryan W Kennihan Architects has completed a bold yet sympathetic extension to a Victorian terraced house in Dublin.

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Shantanu Starick

Designed by local practice Ryan W Kennihan Architects, Lindsay House is a striking domestic renovation and extension project located in Dublin. The character of the rear garden extension arises from a study of the typical Dublin ‘backlands’, writes RWKA. The Victorian neighbourhoods of Dublin are filled with back lanes and densely packed linear gardens. These spaces are used for everything from manicured gardens to auto repair shops, and are therefore filled with a huge variety of structures.

The backlands are a warren of buildings comprising a full range of styles across the last two centuries, including pitched-roof architectural stone mews buildings, turn-of-the-century concrete and corrugated sheds, well-proportioned 1940s temple-like concrete garages, and 1990s off-the-shelf steel sheds. This mix of styles is found across the city hidden behind the public-facing front buildings. The formality of these backlands buildings tends to diminish the further they are from the front of the house, from orderly and sometimes self-conscious facades connected to the house, to utilitarian and informal conglomerations to the rear.

“Our design for this renovation and extension of an existing redbrick terraced house draws from this rich, if haphazard, building culture,” says the architect. “Materially, it resonates with and reconfigures the ordinary ‘stuff’ of the backlands. Concrete, corrugated sheet, metal hoppers and downpipes are made into a formal façade close to the house with symmetries shifting from the interior to the exterior orders. While it appears as a somewhat foreign addition to the existing house, it is right at home in the hidden world of the city.”

The project came with the usual difficulties of looking for some spatial generosity, while supporting an existing return structure. The clients have a collection of furniture and art with a consistent tonal mood and wanted the house to feel harmonious with their collection.

Light and structure became the anchors of the design. By setting the side walls of the extension one-metre off the boundary walls we were able to open side-facing windows at clerestory level to bring in changing light from the east and west over the course of the day.

Concrete columns and beams support the first-floor return, creating a datum between upper and lower worlds. The upper world of folding white planes and windows create framed spaces to catch the light, while below the moody palette of mahogany and green.

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