Irish island holiday home embraces its windswept setting

Cruit Island – roughly three square miles of rock, just off the coast of Donegal – has a necessarily intimate relationship with the Atlantic. Connected to the Irish mainland (and the nearest shops) by bridge, and with a population hovering a little under three figures, this windswept spot is perhaps an acquired taste as a holiday destination.

But its raw qualities spoke strongly to local practice Pasparakis Friel, founded in 2018 by partners in life Sosie Pasparakis and Ronan Friel, and based an hour’s drive away in Rathmullan. When a friend’s family approached them to replace a small holiday home overlooking one of the island’s beaches, they embraced the opportunity. ‘We both grew up in rural contexts,’ reveals Pasparakis, ‘so have an affinity for these sorts of sites, seeking them out because they give us most joy. So, we immediately fell in love with the place and began feverishly researching its history and geology, and flora and fauna.’

The original bungalow, built 60 years ago by the clients’ parents, had been cherished for its cosiness, flexibility and utilitarian qualities. ‘The site had a spirit – a lot had gone before in terms of memories,’ recalls Friel. ‘Sandy toes, times on the beach, getting together, long days spent in the outdoors, coming back exhausted.’ Growing families, however, require additional space, and 12 grandchildren were now in tow.

Commissioned to assess the existing structure’s suitability for adaptation, site surveys revealed that the foundations, literally built on sand, were not fit for purpose, thus a new home had to be built from scratch. In addition, removal of two distinctive rocky outcrops nestling the bungalow seemed a prerequisite for expansion. However, the architects felt that these could help to mould the house in form, plan and aesthetic. ‘We were adamant that they informed the character of the site,’ says Friel, ‘and could inform the experience within the house as well.’

As a result, rather than competing with its surroundings, the new cottage hunkers down within the rocks, which both shape its footprint and accommodate outside spaces.

‘We were able to have this play between the outcrops and the building,’ says Pasparakis, ‘using them to funnel people towards the entrance, and to create external living areas. When you step outside, you have a series of intimate spaces where you can dwell.’

As well as creating convenient areas for washing sand away, and storing the paraphernalia of holidays – wetsuits, surfboards and the like – the encroaching rocks have a particular appeal for the younger generation. ‘We know that the grandchildren are going to climb up the rocks, sit on them, explore them,’ explains Pasparakis. ‘They should be able to roam free among the layers, experiencing the house from different heights. On one side, climbing up, you get a glimpse over the roof down to the beach and beyond to the bay, which is quite lovely.

Seen from the sheltered beach below, Cruit Island House is a clean modernist form, a single storey with a low-pitched roof and an expanse of glazing. It sits atop a granite cliff within a multilayered landscape, rising from the sea and marram grass, all the way to Errigal, the highest mountain in Donegal, in the far distance. To the road, however, it presents a blank facade, with a single deep recess, sitting quietly amid the rocks and shrubs.

‘This is largely agricultural territory,’ says Friel, ‘where the most successful buildings are often simple structures – barns, or older Irish cottages with a blank gable wall to the road, becoming at one with the landscape as they gain patina over time. We both enjoy the sense that buildings say something of the landscape they’re set within.’

Similarly, the textures of the surroundings – the rocks and sand, the grasses and flowers – are echoed in both the building’s facetted form and its rugged materials. The roughcast rendered walls, corrugated fibre cement roof panels, and sandy-coloured path to the doorway all express ‘an aesthetic of rawness’, as Friel puts it. ‘It’s not a very wide island, it has sea on both sides, it’s wind-blown and rain-battered and sun-bleached. There’s a certain futility to painting buildings in these contexts, so this is a pragmatic response to the brief, but also a poetic response to the landscape.’

Yet bright green window frames and doors provide unexpected flashes of colour, echoing the heathers and mosses growing from the cracks in the rocks: ‘Some of the younger generation weren’t convinced, but the client was definite that he wanted at least some colour,’ Friel adds.

Inside, the enveloping rock ‘bookends’ give privacy to the more intimate areas of the plan and some protection from the winds coming in from the Atlantic. But some of the previous cottage’s cosiness has been relinquished in favour of a minimalist aesthetic, with expanses of matt white emulsion, clean birch joinery and grey rubber flooring. That decision was in part driven by the clients’ functional mindset, with space for rapid decluttering a priority.

‘They wanted to be able to tidy away all the board games at the end of the night,’ says Pasparakis, ‘so every nook and cranny has storage in it, whether underneath the seats, or in the partition between the skylit hallway and the main living space’.

That latter partition also incorporates an update on a 1960s-style hatch – offering glimpses of comings and goings, arrivals and departures—that echoes the earlier home, as do the easy-to-clean surfaces and hard-wearing materials, minimising maintenance during and between holidays.

The key aspiration, however, was a large communal area, allowing the extended family to eat together and spend time together. This open space provides a flexible gathering point, given life by its inhabitants, and by the floor-to-ceiling window, which welcomes the morning sun, and frames the view across the bay, at its most evocative when lit by the evening sun.

‘The landscape is the experience,’ says Pasparakis. ‘That is the picture, so there was an idea to keep it calm, so that the interior didn’t detract at all. The materials are natural oiled woods, rubber floors and woven fabrics that complement the tones outside.’

That glorious view is shared by the master bedroom, but will it be quite so appealing on a stormy January morning?

‘It will be beautiful, absolutely beautiful,’ she says. ‘During the construction phase, going out at different times of day, the light was really wonderful – even when it was completely lashing, it was still quite magical. Donegal gets a bad rep in terms of rain levels, but it changes all the time. That’s the joy of it. You can see the rain clouds in the distance, but you can also see the sun.’

Friel adds that the evolution from its single-glazed 1960s predecessor, with its minimal insulation, makes this new home a different proposition, and those January visions more credible: ‘That cottage was very much for seasonal use, whereas now it’ll be comfortable all year round,’ he says. ‘You can happily spend a cold, cold winter here, and nip out for walks when the sun comes out – because invariably it does come out if you’re there, and you’re suited and booted.’

Integrating a modern home into a traditional environment, and one bordering protected natural habitats, required a close working relationship with personnel at the local authority, building mutual respect and involving them in the design and construction process.

‘We were deviating from the norm in some ways,’ says Friel. ‘There is a sort of code of practice that requires a black roof and white walls in rural landscapes, derived from traditional cottages. We don't necessarily feel that it’s always the right approach when scales are increased. It can have a jarring effect against green backdrops, whereas more muted tones can work successfully, both from a distance and up close.’

The evident quality of this overtly modern cottage is a source of interest and pride for the local community, as well as a calling card for the practice, proving its ability to craft projects that exist naturally within their specific landscapes. The two partners had previously spent a decade or more with London practices – including stints at Grimshaw for both – and moving to Friel’s childhood home was a risk, taken for both lifestyle and professional reasons.

An early feasibility study for the regeneration of Rathmullan’s Napoleonic gun fort established a strong relationship with the council, keen to harness the expertise of architects with proven experience on large-scale projects. Those skills have since been employed locally across small residential projects and larger regeneration strategies, with the result that a substantial proportion of the practice’s workload has been within Donegal, somewhat to the pair's surprise.

On a personal level, that geographic concentration means the projects and, in particular, the regeneration strategies ‘hold a bit more meaning, because you’re closer to them,’ says Friel. ‘You have a vested interest; everyone in our own little village will be talking about them. So everything we do will be important not just in terms of our enjoyment, but also for the economy, for jobs, and as public space for future generations.’

With its graceful approach to the surrounding landscape, as well as its resilience as a domestic space, Pasparakis Friel's Cruit Island House definitely achieves those standards of significance, and fully merits that sense of pride and investment, on the part of architects, clients and community.

IN NUMBERS:

GIFA 182m²
Predicted on-site renewable energy generation 6,253kWh/yr
Actual annual gas usage 17.77 kWh/m²/yr