The shapes and proportions of local agricultural barns informed the design and style of this monochrome house in Northern Ireland, developed by British company McGonigle McGrath (+ slideshow).
Situated just outside Newcastle in County Down, Home at Maghera is a large residence for a loved ones of five. Their brief was for a brilliant and spacious residence that would not feel out of spot in its rural village setting.
To attain this, architects Kieran McGonigle and Aidan McGrath designed a house comprising two wings, every single with gabled profiles. The ends of these blocks encounter the street, just like other buildings in the village.
The pale grey walls are also intended to reference nearby constructing traditions, as considerably of the nearby architecture has masonry or rubble stone walls that have been coated with a layer of light render. The developing is topped with a zinc roof.
“The proposal is conceived as contributing to the context of the village, by its representation as a collection of classic types, casually placed and derived from the positioning and spatial geometry of the structures of the village,” stated the architects.
Associated story: McGarry-Moon updates a classic stone barn with a steel-framed living area
“Gables step in program to accentuate the motion and change of course of the street, and to reveal glimpses of the landscape past,” they added.
The two blocks are at angles to one another, framing an informal courtyard at the entrance to the site. They are joined by a little volume housing a music room, which is encompassed beneath the two pitched roofs.
“The roof pitch of the link imposes itself on the smaller element, making asymmetry in its gabled type and establishing the thought of the roof as a folding plane,” said McGonigle and McGrath.
The very first of the two blocks includes two storeys. Its lower level accommodates a kitchen and dining space, as properly as a separate lounge – following the current trend for “broken-prepare” rather than open-strategy living.
4 bedrooms are found upstairs: a master suite and 3 equally sized bedrooms for the kids. An en-suite guest bedroom is found in the single-storey block to the north of the site, along with a garage with room for two cars.
Two types of flooring had been selected for the interior: grey-toned terrazzo and timber. Nearby granite was also employed throughout the constructing, in the detailing all around the doors, as nicely as for a series of customized-made benches.
Large windows frame views of the Mourne Mountains to the south, and sliding doors let residents to open their living spaces out the pastures. Frames are wooden, but are painted black to complement the monochrome palette.
“High-quality detailing and components, generous ceiling heights and tall internal doors, thick walls and warm terrazzo and timber floors, include to the airy comfort and sense of gravitas,” added the architects.
House at Maghera was 1 of 7 properties shortlisted for the RIBA Home of the Yr award, along with a London townhouse featuring walls of bricks and bronze, and a residence in a repurposed stone mill.
Judges described it an “eminently habitable and sustainable property”.
“That which might have been the mere consequence of the contingencies of website and fit is right here elevated to a taut and charged relationship of kind, scale and alignment,” they mentioned. “There is real talent and judgment at work right here and a deftness of hand that goes far beyond a re-imagined vernacular or the pedantry of formal diagram.”
The overall winner of the award is a house with rugged flint walls, by London studio Skene Catling de la Peña.
Photography is by Aidan McGrath.
Location program – click for larger image 
Ground floor strategy – click for more substantial image 
Very first floor strategy – click for more substantial picture 
Roof program – click for bigger picture 
Section one – click for bigger picture 
Segment two – click for bigger image 
Segment three – click for larger picture 
