The challenge was clear for architect Kieran McGonigle. To deliver a precisely detailed and high quality building within a modest budget. RIBA clearly thinks McGonigle McGrath delivered on this ambition and awarded the architects with the House of the Year 2019 award.
RIBA President, Alan Jones, eplains: “House Lessans demonstrates that life enhancing architecture does not have to cost the earth. Executed with incredible clarity and restraint, McGonigle McGrath have used simple and cheap materials to create a truly bespoke home that resonates with its owners and its context.”
The house is located in the rolling hills of County Down, Northern Ireland, on a former farmstead. McGonigle McGrath chose to spread the program over a configuration of two rectangle shed-like volumes, perpendicular to each other. They housed the bedrooms in the first volume and placed a double-height living room in the second.
The shape and materiality McGonigle McGrath derived from local agricultural outbuilding vernacular. The pitched zinc roofs on top of masonry walls embedded with a concrete plinth refer to the barn located next to the house.
McGonigle McGrath receive praise by the RIBA for achieving a newly built home of outstanding quality on budget of just 335,000 pounds. They managed to limit the costs through the application of basic materials, cost-saving hacks and a simple arrangement of the spaces.
