Leitrim Lodge

23 Apartments in the heart of Chapelizod

“Is there a there there?”

Gertrude Stein famously said of her hometown Oakland CA that there was “no there there”

The meaning of the sentence is that she didn't find a sense of place, a centre, or really anything substantial or important enough to be warranted calling the town of Oakland some place by even a name.

The existing site in Chapelizod is a little bit like that. It has a series of beautiful features – Leitrim Lodge, the church, the school, the park wall and mature trees, however they swim in space, as boats float in a harbour.

Our project seeks to add a single element that serves to redefine the site and form a quiet backdrop to the existing features.

The building itself forms a terrace that shares its form and height with the neighbouring redbrick terrace of Martins Row.

1. We define a formal garden to the front of Leitrim Lodge, accessed by a tree-lined boulevard.

2. We establish a horizontal datum to judge the dramatic sloping site by.

3. Our building continues the line of Drummund House and Martins Row.

The South elevation accepts Martins Row as a precedence. We have done a careful solid and void study of the existing terrace and worked within that idiom, in this respect what is important to us is the rather random and varying nature of window disposition always present in Dublin architecture of this period, setting it apart from the more rigorously ordered terraces in England or Scotland of the same period. This is not pastiche, rather a contemporary reworking familiar form.

So often what is not successful in reinterpreting Georgian architecture is that their slender window sections are never matched. In our case we have a layer of narrow steel balcony guarding, painted white, to give this filigree layer to the composition.

This building sits a respectful distance from Leitrim Lodge and provides a clear context for it. The façade composition will take account of the lodge, its levels and materials, while remaining a clear abstract backdrop. The slope of the site allows us to visually remove the car parking from sight of the lodge.

The lodge itself will become a single house and be restored to its formal glory, sitting with in an historically appropriate designed garden.

Size:
23 Units

By:
JFOC Architects

Location:
Martin's Row, Chapelizod, Co. Dublin

Status:
Planning Received