This site is on a small side street in the middle of Rathmines, in Dublin’s southern inner suburbs. The brief was to accommodate two dwellings and a commercial use all to Passive House standard. Additional complications were that a six storey building was directly to the south, and that the scale changed dramatically from the rear garden of a two storey house on one side to a four storey office building on either sides of the site.
The massing of the building we designed responds to the scale of surrounding buildings. We designed a café or local office to face the street with two car ports and hall doors for two apartments behind entered off the side street. Above this podium are a southwest-facing triplex and duplex apartment looking across their roof gardens to the afternoon light.