2011 RIAI Irish Architecture Awards

No photos yet.
(I suppose there’s no chance of a video on each entry.)
Will you be posting an alert whenever these photos will become available ?

What a load of bollox.

Less than 4 weeks on the RIAI website — if you knew about it and could access it.
Real buildings to be judged by people from RIAI photographs on the internet.
Of course we have damn all else to do bar motor round Ireland a-Sundays to see
all of them in the month of June . . . .

Then softly, sweetly, honey-in-your-tonguely RTE tells us of Prince Healy’s coronation.

Ain’t that cute !
Who needs democracy when the RA mandarins are running things . . .

Winner of the one-off house category. Designed by O’Donnell Tuomey Architects:

really? Didn’t know they did things like that?

I particularly like the clothes line near the left-hand boundary towards the rear – a nice rustic touch counterpointing the stately magnificence of the Residence, itself a jewel in the landscape.

Marks out of ten for spotting the understated porch overhang and the subtly implied location of the main entrance hall.

Forensic Architecture, folks.

To my eyes, it looks like the original dormer on the right (you’d often see worse) has been extended to accommodate the home of a son/daughter + their family.
Now, why they’ve done it as they have is a curious one.
From the shadow line, it appears that the south side of the house is at the leftmost (ugly) gable.
And it seems that sunlight into the bay-window room was a ‘design imperative’, as they say.
Now, the rest of the ugly end I am not sure of.
It may be that the original intention was to set all the new block at right angles to the existing dormer.
That would ‘explain’ the Dutch hip above the bay window room — “in sympathy” to the dormer’s roof pitch.
But then they must have wanted more space than a decent length would allow; so they then just fattened the new block by extruding out the mid-section giving Mam + Dad sunlight up there through most of the day.

It’s classic architectural technician in its features. Few arch techs would have produced as poor a ‘solution’ to the spatial arrangement problem though. In that way it’s more reminiscent of the old designed by its builder type farmhouse seen across the country from WW2 to mid 1970s.
It was not necessary at all to have such a high garage and the Dutch hip on that, to me, makes the whole sight even worse. Car access from the rear would be better too.

I’m pretty sure this is not the work of O’Donnell Tuomey.
I assume you are vexed at some of their work in rural villages, e.g. Galbally.

http://www.odonnell-tuomey.ie/webpage/gab/gal_vista1.htm

Reminds me of the Park Hill estate in Sheffield.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3383/3503334387_952e6f6746.jpg

c’mon folks, jjooookkkee .. O’donnell Tuomey didn’t design that, nor did it win an award (¬_¬)

Haha.

And teak i love your confidence that the form of the house could only result from an extension enlargement.

‘Confidence’ born of experience seeing this ‘form’ rise up.

There’s hardly a builder in the country who isn’t a dead assured designer on the fly.