To exhibit 64 A3 artworks mounted on foam board in a 1,830 square foot double height studio space in daylight.

The images consisted of 48 pieces of cover art and 16 portraits from online magazine Le Cool Dublin. Collectively Le Cool now reaches over 300,000 people every week across Europe (Barcelona, London, Madrid, Lisbon, Budapest, Istanbul and Moscow).

Concept

The concept came from the combination of the size of the art work in relation to the large exhibition space, and our observations about how the public engage with art, and each other, in a gallery.

The response was to make a gallery structure within the larger space that would contain the art work as well as provide a sculptural object that would respond to the scale of the room. This gallery, 900mm wide and 2100mm high internally with art work stacked on both sides, means the viewers must enagage with each other as well as with the art work.

The concept references a 1970’s installation by Marina Abramović & Uwe where visitors to the ‘show’ must squeeze between the 2 naked artists in order to gain admittance. We inverted this by making the spectators the ‘artists’ whose experience of the art is tempered by their interaction with each other within the structure.

Execution

A cut-out is made from a standard sheet material, 18mm MDF. The 150mm borders make a series of structural ribs, and the cut-outs form all the internal surfaces – walls, floor, roof. This economy of construction leaves 0% waste from the raw material. This strategy is then extruded to form a 6.3m long corridor, pivoting or ‘snaking’ on the module of 2100mm, the length of the cut-outs

The structure is internally lit making the Nathair Nimhe a lantern within the otherwise blacked-out space and so the structure and the art becomes the focus of the space. The open nature of the structure also allows for some innocent voyeurism as people on the outside watch the legs of the people on the inside who are looking at the art.

The installation featured work from the following artists/stylists/painters/illustrators/photographers/collectives: Keith Walsh, Ruan van Vliet, Lauren Crothers, Gaetan Billaut, Aidan Weldon, Loreana Rushe, Mario Sughi, Shane O’Driscoll, Jon Cheung, Isabel Reyes Feeney, Brian Coldrick, Niall Sweeney, Synth Eastwood, Richard Gilligan, Dave Comiskey, Paddy Lynch, Stephen Ledwidge, Dragana Jurisic, Stephen McCarthy, Alan Clarke, Gary Farrelly, Jamie Saunders, Trevor Finnegan, Faye George, Raul Arantes, Eleanor Reilly, Fergal McCarthy, Aaron Brady, Justine Le Guil, Niall O’Brien, David Turpin, Owen Kane, Aisling Farinella, Tamara McCarthy and studioseventyseven photography.

We’re very grateful for the assistance of Cillian Johnston Joinery in the construction of this installation.

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The 2 shots are ‘giveblood.ie’ and a blood droplet which is the logo for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. For the shoot we ultimately prepared 2 drawings which on the morning of the shoot were staked out onto the sand with bamboo. For the giveblood.ie shot the position of every umbrella was tagged and numbered.

The site is Sandymount in Dublin which has an extensive tidal area of very even gradient. The photo’s we’re all taken approaching hightide with the water level increasing at a rate of 220mm for every half hour so both of the final shot’s involving over 150 volunteers we’re taken within a half hour.

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Recently completed, progress photographs above, will hopefully have finished pictures shortly. (gc)

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Refurbishment of 1840’s seafront villa. New green technology is carefully integrated into with the original fabric, maintaining the character of the original dwelling while providing an airtight ‘green’ house and upgrading the energy rating from G to A/B.

Contractor: Oaklawn Construction

Landscape Architect: thitythreetrees

Ecological Consultant: Jay Stuart of DWEcoCo

Our clients had recently bought a small two up two down house in the heart of the Blackpitts and had simple requirements – a ‘sustainable’ home with more space and more light.

On the ground floor the existing walls were removed and the rear extended so the longest dimension of the site reads from front to back. The rear of the house faces south, so rather than extend across the back of the house we wrapped the extension around 2 sides, allowing natural light to penetrate into the centre of the plan, and letting the kitchen and living room borrow an increased sense of space from the new external courtyard. A continuous floor material and fully-glazed sliding doors allow the interior and exterior to become the same space

The stairwell and master bedroom were opened up to the roof line, exposing a real treat in the slender original 1923 steel roof trusses.

A sustainable building strategy included new insulation throughout to some 150% of the Building Regulation recommendations, as well as a Sedum roof to the extension to provide a garden over the kitchen, and a solar panel for water heating.

The simplicity of the design was accentuated with interior design finishes by Eavan English, www.eedistudio.ie, and we were privileged to work with Desmond Rae-O’Kelly, engineer and architect of Dublin’s Liberty Hall who assisted us in the Structural specifications.

We also gained planning permission for a full width porch to the front, effectively allowing the house to be also extended to the front should they require more space.

This conversion Victuallers to Hair Salon, in conjunction with Kaye Rice Partnership Interior Design, pushes the ancillary spaces up or out, to create a single flowing space for the salon from front to back. At the shop front end we instated a curved glass corner and stripped the facade of a plethora of utility wiring to allow the Modernist Terrace to shine.

The existing shop had an external rear yard and reinforced freezer room with the shop itself split into the customer area and cutting room. The design for the salon, in collaboration with KRP, required the rebuilding of the rear areas to form an open plan space from back to front of the entire site, with the programme arranged around the long axis of the new space. Due to the specification for the salon a plant room with 10,000 litre storage tank and water heating plant is hung above the space, helping form the large roof light which allows natural light penetrate throughout the space, a feature mostly lacking in contemporary salon design.

‘making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.’ Charles Mingus

The Protected nature of Dublin’s Georgian heritage is a double edged sword for a start-up company; you get the gravitas and the postal address but you’re effectively not allowed to do more than polish the brasses without planning permission.

22,742 pieces of Lego make a boardroom table for a new advertising agency in Dublin

The recently formed Advertising agency Boys and Girls approached us with this problem, a gorgeous Georgian house with high ceilings, great spaces and original joinery, but décor that was decidedly solicitory. The brief was succinct; playful but not juvenile, they gave us the Mingus quote (above) too.

We recommended that all traces of solicitors be removed from the building – carpets removed, floors stripped and all 90’s paint colours whited out (if only the rest of life was this simple). If we could make the space like a small contemporary art gallery, it would be more flexible for giving presentations the ‘wow’ factor.

Our proposal also included for a 1.2 x 2.7metre boardroom table (4ft x 9ft) made out of Lego. A monolithic slab made up of a random pattern of the instantly recognizable lego pixels, with the company’s logo is built in relief into the table top, falling away under a glass surface. Architects don’t normally work as contractors so it was hugely rewarding for us and financially efficient for our client when we decided to build the table ourselves.

The table consists of 22,742 pieces clicked together with traditional lego construction techniques (no glue), a 136mm grommet is located in its centre. It sits on a polished Stainless Steel square hollow section structure built by B.A. Engineering of Prussia St and is topped with a 10mm sheet of toughened glass manufactured by Action Glass.

We made a viral of the project too with the help of Artist Cormac Browne, using tripods, clamps and magic arms from the wizards sleeve of camera equipment to take over 8,000 photos for a 2 minute stop frame animation of the construction and installation.

Where is prefabrication located in the History of Architecture?

Until the likes of the Shomera came along prefabrication probably had a fairly rotten (no pun intended) reputation, so we were delighted to be commissioned by a Dublin based photographer who wished to relocate his photography studio to his back garden but was determined not to have his home life interrupted by a lengthy build.

The answer? Prefab.

We worked with the client on a scheme design and took the result to Ecospace UK, working with them to go off-piste from their set menu of orthogonal prefabs and to create, using their system and detailing, a asymmetrical studio with a butterfly roof which more particularly serves the client’s needs and responds directly to the tight terraced site. Ultimately the site preparation took 2 days and the installation took 4 days. After the ground works the studio arrived in carefully numbered and orientated prefabricated SIPS (structurally insulated panel systems) on a Monday, and the studio, (including Western Red Cedar cladding, Erisco Bauder Sedum Roof, Birch veneered walls, stainless steel flush-plate sockets and switches, electrically fired underfloor central heating and digital thermostatic controls) was completed by Friday lunchtime.

Meanwhile, the window opening of the living room was amended to become new french doors for a clear access line from the main house to the new studio.
Prefabulous.