{"id":332141,"date":"2025-08-10T03:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332141\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T03:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:24:34","slug":"the-best-layout-for-a-family-home-by-a-leading-irish-architect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332141\/","title":{"rendered":"The best layout for a family home, by a leading Irish architect"},"content":{"rendered":"

A single-storey extension inspired by Elizabethan long galleries helped to open up the social spaces in Rathdown, a Thomas Stringer-built, 1930s, semi-detached red-brick in Dublin 6, and create strong connections with the garden. It also secured a third consecutive win for the Dublin-based Scullion Architects in the Living: House \u2014 Adaptation category at this year\u2019s Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) awards. <\/p>\n

Declan Scullion, the director of the practice, says that the ambition for the project was to complement and live up to the quality of the original house, as well as improving various connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very well-built housing stock with attractive details, little flourishes around windows and doors, and good-quality materials,\u201d he says. \u201cThe issue was the quality of life for a modern family. The houses, while wonderfully well built, don\u2019t offer social spaces around kitchens and dining in a way that has become much more a part of how we live in family homes. <\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/p>\n

The kitchen and dining area<\/p>\n

JOHAN DEHLIN<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to build something that made strong social connections for the family, positive connections with the garden and complemented the detail, colour and appearance of homes of that era. Without being pastiche.\u201d <\/p>\n

The result is the long and narrow gallery-style addition with a wall of glazing on the garden side that runs the breadth of the back of the house, linking to rooms at the front and comprising a new kitchen\/dining room and, three steps up, a living area. A utility room off the kitchen can be accessed from the front and back gardens. A tall lightbox over the kitchen pulls light into this northeast-facing space throughout the day. <\/p>\n

The pared-back materials used include porcelain flooring that continues out to the garden, timber cabinetry and slatted panelling. <\/p>\n

On the outside the glazing is framed with thin metalwork in dark green. \u201cIt\u2019s like a Wimbledon green and has associations with 1930s architecture. I wanted it to read as something delicate that harmonised with how conservatories were built on the back of houses of that era,\u201d Scullion says.<\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/p>\n

The living area in Rathdown is three steps up from the dining area<\/p>\n

JOHAN DEHLIN<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a replica of a 1930s conservatory but it\u2019s picking up on the atmosphere of it, which was these light traceries draped on to the back of a solid brick home,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what we were trying to give the house. We wanted to give it a space that felt different from the static traditional rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The RIAI award for Rathdown follows wins in the same category for Charleville, a reimagined artisan cottage in North Strand, in 2023, and last year for Scullion\u2019s own home, Apple Tree Terrace, a Victorian mid-terrace red-brick in Ranelagh. <\/p>\n

The most recent award was the most surprising, he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure there was a winner in it, so I was delighted when Rathdown won. I put two entries in this year and one of them got nowhere. You could have a different group of people judging and you might get a different result. So I don\u2019t take it too seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accolades such as these have, however, had a serious impact on the practice, which Scullion set up in 2016, after graduating in 2001 and working for some years in London for David Chipperfield \u2014 who was awarded the Pritzker Architecture prize in 2023 \u2014 and for McCullough Mulvin Architects back in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/p>\n

Declan and Anna Scullion, owners of Apple Tree Terrace<\/p>\n

BRYAN MEADE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has improved our ability to convince clients we can do a good job for them. Clients are looking for reassurance of the quality of the work you\u2019re going to deliver. There\u2019s a big leap of faith on their part. They\u2019re about to ask you to create something for an awful lot of money. We have got better at picking up work, not solely because of this, of course \u2014 it\u2019s a combination of things \u2014 but it has contributed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clients are also more trustful of the process. \u201cPeople have more faith in you. Not always, but it has become easier to convince people to do the unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of what clients typically want from their projects, Scullion says most are looking for an improvement in their family life. \u201cConnection to the garden is one of the things, but also a well-planned, well-organised home where the mundane functions of life are taken care of and where the spaces to socialise and hang out are comfortable and places you want to spend time in. People are consistently finding that their home has a deficit in some way, usually to do with the quality of family life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe design solutions should be seen as ways of sustaining good family life \u2014 a bright room, a room connected to the garden, one that\u2019s acoustically comfortable. A house that\u2019s easy to look after. These are all things that make family life better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/p>\n

Apple Tree Terrace won an RIAI award last year<\/p>\n

JOHAN DEHLIN<\/p>\n

On the flipside are checklists of requirements that are \u201csupplementary signifiers of success\u201d rather than aligning with what\u2019s actually needed. \u201cBecause a neighbour, a friend or a relative has had their entire house decked out in integrated audiovisual systems or has a boot room, a utility and a pantry, some people think they need it too. As opposed to asking, what does my family need and what would be adequate?\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of his role, he says, is to challenge what people say they want. \u201cI often say to clients, you must be very careful about me giving you exactly what you want. If I blindly just serve you what you\u2019ve asked me for without interrogating, challenging you, without reframing the question, I think you\u2019re going to be fundamentally disappointed with the service you\u2019ll get. Now, as the practice has become more established, people are willing to hear you out when you challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Budget is almost always a big consideration. \u201cWe always sweat the plan down, make it compact, make it efficient, make it enough to do the function. Where there\u2019s opportunity for generosity we give it, but in the spaces we\u2019re only in for a few hours a day we try to make them compact. You\u2019ve got to be efficient, and you\u2019ve got to be compact because of the market we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/p>\n

Charleville, a reimagined artisan cottage in North Strand, was Scullion\u2019s winning project in 2023<\/p>\n

FIONN MCCANN<\/p>\n

The scale of the projects is increasing as the practice becomes more established and, going forward, Scullion says he\u2019d love to do more public sector projects and has always wanted to work on a theatre. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the most exciting challenge I can think of. And housing \u2014 large-scale housing. I would like to put what we\u2019ve learnt on individual houses to work on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy intention with housing is always that the quality of the lived experience in the house is the best it can be. The means by which you can do it on social housing or multiunit housing has to be strategic. You\u2019ll have to do a couple of really good simple moves in order to improve the quality of what otherwise would be developer-led, ordinary, bland housing. I\u2019d be very interested in seeing how efficient could we be with what we would bring to multiunit housing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A single-storey extension inspired by Elizabethan long galleries helped to open up the social spaces in Rathdown, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-332141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115002335175726677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}