On an Irish estate, a down-to-earth addition reveals inner drama

Few buildings can be described as simultaneously domestic, agricultural and celestial. However, a new gate lodge peeking over hedgerows in the Irish countryside deftly melds typologies, references and family life.

A striking red pyramidal roof, capped by a rooflight, tops a single storey. Corners have been eroded away to form a cruciform plan and four porch spaces. No front is obviously distinguished, and the facade seems to repeat and rotate as you walk around, refusing to turn its back on the landscape. 

Palladio’s Villa La Rotonda, Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House, Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, local gate lodges and farm outbuildings all influenced the design – but none so much as the clients.

Needing to be closer to elderly parents, clients Belinda and Peter – with daughter, Stella May – wanted a new home on the family estate in County Meath. A2 Architects proposed a site at the threshold, which offered passive surveillance, easy road access and the opportunity to create something unique. 

‘They have this idiosyncratic life, where one is a farmer and one is in the high arts,’ the practice’s director Peter Carroll tells me. ‘It’s an impressive coupling.’ Remarkably, Gate Lodge’s design attends to these distinct occupations, and to a shared love of music.

Porch areas create sheltered pockets for removing muddy boots, storing wheelbarrows and sitting outside. Interiors are simple, robust and muted – using plasterboard, plywood, painted MDF and polished concrete – meaning that it doesn’t matter if some of that mud makes it past the front door.

A pragmatic layout – with a striking central oculus

‘There’s a pragmatism around the layout of the house – aside from its inner drama,’ prompts Carroll. A kitchen, living room and bedrooms occupy the perpendicular wings, with a dining table positioned centrally. 

Here, a sweeping oculus reveals a mezzanine level above and a roof tapering to a glowing, square skylight. It’s mesmerising, but not overdramatic. The light is soft, dissolving across walls and filtering down to the ground floor. 

‘Even in the summer, it’s not a Star Wars moment where you get this beam coming down onto the dining table,’ Carroll reassures me. ‘Our task was to ensure that that everyday comfort was not going to be overwhelmed by this rather spatially charged interior.’

Up in the mezzanine, music is listened to, composed and performed. Sitting below the rim of the oculus, you can be immersed in another world. It’s an escape from the domestic and work spheres below, but one where you can still be called for dinner.

There is no accident in the clarity and confidence of shapes throughout the project. A2 painstakingly suppressed extraneous details: recessing windows, clipping sills, hiding smoke alarms and resisting the temptation to add more rooflights to the mezzanine. ‘We wanted to be in command of the overall form and a family of details,’ asserts Carroll.

Gate Lodge is essentially a bungalow with a lofty attic, but one reimagined in evocative and attentive ways. Bold internal gestures far exceed expectations of the footprint and budget and, despite all of the precedents it draws on, I’ve seen nothing quite like it.

IN NUMBERS

Total contract cost €394,000
Area 141m²
GIFA cost per m² €2,800
Predicted on-site renewable energy generation 2700kWh/yr 
Actual annual electricity usage 3800kWh/m²/yr