Reflective Surfaces Add Intrigue To A Fashionable Dublin Home

Dublin’s southern suburbs have an enviable stock of handsome semidetached houses—pairs of single-family dwellings that share a common wall. A couple living in one of these two-story homes bought its neighbor a few years ago, hoping to combine them someday. Now, with two teenage children and a steady stream of guests, that time had come.

“They’re a hospitable family who loves hosting dinners and having people stay,” begins designer Róisín Lafferty, founder and creative director of her eponymous firm, which collaborated with Ambient Architecture on merging the two properties—but not necessarily permanently. As Ambient’s founder and principal Stefan Hoeckenreiner explains, “The idea was that it could convert back into two separate houses to accommodate different family configurations or even be passed on to the children.” With that in mind, each half retained its entrance and staircase, while openings in the dividing wall were kept to a minimum and made reversible. An existing one-story extension at the back of the original home was matched by an addition to the new one, “creating a central courtyard that opens up the view to the rear garden,” Hoeckenreiner continues.

How Róisín Lafferty and Ambient Architecture Transform A Dublin Home

For Lafferty, the challenge was achieving “a seamless blend of the two properties” while retaining “a lot of the proportions of the existing houses,” which could have meant “a lot of rooms and a lot of doors,” she says with a laugh. So the designer banished traditional portals, moldings, and baseboards, instead specifying a series of plain floor-to-ceiling doors that integrate seamlessly with the surrounding walls whether open or closed. This, Lafferty confirms, “was one of the biggest investments of the entire project,” but essential for the sense of “free flow” she was adamant the interiors possess. The former front parlors, now connected by a full-height doorway, illustrate the strategy. The back wall of both spaces—dubbed the reading and music rooms, respectively—features a continuous, blue-painted bookcase, making them feel like a single volume when the door is open. And since the oversize panel is the same color as the shelving, it appears to be part of the built-in millwork when sitting flush against it.

Along with the two front rooms and stair halls, the residence includes a sitting room, dining area, kitchen, and media room on the ground floor, plus four bedrooms, a homework room, and an office upstairs—4,400 square feet in all.

Garden Views Balance The Home’s Neutral Palette

Another priority was “maximizing views of the garden from the main living spaces,” Lafferty continues. What might have ended up a narrow corridor at the rear was ingeniously turned into the airy sitting room. A deep book-lined recess, outfitted with a built-in sofa, faces an imposing marble fireplace, flanked by glass walls framing the verdant backyard vista. “We knew it was premium real estate for looking at the garden,” the designer observes. “But it was also the point of connection between the houses, and we wanted to celebrate that.” This included cladding the room’s upper walls and ceiling with bronze-tinted mirror—an unexpected choice that creates a feeling of height, space, and, by reflecting the outdoor greenery, being in nature. Lafferty admits the clients weren’t convinced at first, fearing “mirror would be too glitzy,” but she persuaded them to stay the course. “For me, mirror is magic,” she says, and in fact uses it throughout to enlarge rooms or bring in natural light. “It’s not a decorative finish but very much part of how you experience the spaces.”

The base palette is fairly neutral: floors of polished concrete or limed oak, also found on some walls; subtle greens, blues, and taupes, especially in the main bedroom suite, which Lafferty describes as “an oasis of calm.” But in many areas, the chromatic intensity is deliberately turned up. “I was looking to capture the family’s energy and sense of fun with additions of saturation,” she acknowledges. Primary colors and vivid tones appear throughout, sometimes in small flourishes, like the crimson dining table, and sometimes much bigger ones, like a whole room painted a single shade. “I’m very impressed they allowed me to make the office bright red,” she says of the second-floor workspace, a true study in scarlet. In the main bathroom, however, hues and textures are layered: The swirling reds, browns, and coppers of the Brazilian quartzite sink and floor are complemented by ochre-toned polished-plaster walls and patinated-brass cabinetry.

Artworks enliven several spaces, not least the music room, where a large print by British artist Elsbeth Shaw is a commanding presence. A pixelated image of a model in a catwalk show, its symmetry, palette, and style consciousness all spoke to Lafferty. “I think art, fashion, and interiors are all super connected,” she says. “Fashion is about color combinations and sculptural forms, but also about contrasts and playfulness, which informs my work.” She concedes that the ethos of couture is reflected in how the project’s details and finishing touches are as carefully considered as its larger, more architectural elements. The combined layout shows rock-solid planning, but the splashes of levity, novelty, and boldness are never an afterthought.

Tour This Dublin Residence by Róisín Lafferty + Ambient Architecture

RÓISÍN LAFFERTY: AOIFE SHINE; IMAD HUSAR. O’GORMAN JOINERY: MILLWORK. P.D. MARLOW: PLASTERWORK. MILLER BROTHERS: STONEWORK. M.J. DUNCAN & SONS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT NINE: SIDE TABLE (MUSIC ROOM). SAZERAC STITCHES: SCONCE. RUGVISTA: RUGS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM). THROUGH ACQUIRED: CHAIRS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM), TABLE LAMPS (MUSIC ROOM, SITTING ROOM), CHAIRS, RED VASE (DINING AREA), ARMCHAIR (SITTING ROOM). ROCHE BOBOIS: CONSOLE (ENTRY). LIGHT COOKIE: SCONCE. ROCK HILL: VASE (ENTRY), CHAIR (OFFICE). HAY: PENDANT FIXTURE (ENTRY, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). ANOUR: LINEAR PENDANT FIXTURE (KITCHEN). RÓISÍN LAFFERTY ESSENTIALS: VESSELS (KITCHEN), PLINTHS (MEDIA ROOM, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). DAVIDE GROPPI: PENDANT FIXTURE (DINING AREA). LOFTLIGHT: PENDANT FIXTURE (READING ROOM). AUDO COPENHAGEN: PENDANT FIXTURE (MAIN BEDROOM). MOROSO: ARMCHAIR (MEDIA ROOM). KAVE HOME: COFFEE TABLES. CC TAPIS: RUG. EDRA: SOFA. RANSOM AND DUNN: LAMP. NEMO LIGHTING: SCONCE (OFFICE). PULPO: GLASS SIDE TABLE (SITTING ROOM). EERO AARNIO ORIGINALS: WOOD SIDE TABLE. SERAX: VASE (DAUGHTER’S ROOM). SIMONE & MARCEL: SCONCES. SWEDISH NINJA: SCONCE (SON’S ROOM). ETHNICRAFT: SCULPTURE. GHIDINI 1849: SCONCES (POWDER ROOM). GRANLUSSO: TUB (BATHROOM). HOTBATH: TUB FITTINGS, SINK FITTINGS. TATO ITALIA THROUGH 1STDIBS: PENDANT FIXTURE. KAIA: SCONCES. THROUGHOUT TRUNK FLOOR: OAK FLOORING, OAK PANELING. STONE SEAL: CONCRETE FLOORING. FLEETWOOD PAINTS: PAINT.

DesignLed Creates a Theatrical Interior for a Dublin Home

After spending the early part of her career as a documentary film director, Dublin resident Lisa Marconi pivoted a decade ago to become a self-taught interior designer. As principal of DesignLed, she has cultivated a practice informed by her visual-arts background but with a strong focus on client collaboration and input. Due, perhaps, to her outsider’s perspective, Marconi’s approach to each project is especially accommodating. As she says, “I’m not someone who has very strict rules about what you can and cannot, should and should not do.”

No surprise, then, that Marconi enthusiastically accepted the challenge when a couple came to her with a residential project full of highly specific requests—dark teal walls, among them—as well as some fundamentally contradictory ones. The clients were tearing down a 1970’s house to build something more modern yet modeled after the Irish capital’s famed Georgian architecture. U-shape in plan, the 4,500-square-foot home would span two stories and include formal and casual living areas along with five bedrooms, all connected by broad corridors, yet it needed to feel cozy for a family with small children. DesignLed’s brief was to make the interior as striking, even showstopping, as possible while still being friendly and welcoming to the guests the family frequently entertains. The spaces Marconi and her team created address those issues by embracing eclecticism and playing with color, scale, and detail.

How This Home Interior Reflects Dublin’s Georgian Architecture  

A key element in the designer’s overall strategy is something so subtle it’s hardly noticeable at first, despite the fact that it begins the moment you walk in the front door: the use of custom wall paneling to visually bridge the gap between the residence’s late 18th century–style facade and its contemporary interior. Vertical panels, inset with pale tonal wallpaper depicting herons, backdrop the twin staircases on either side of the double-height entry hall, where a giant bubble chandelier and oak parquet de Versailles flooring add to the immediate wow factor.

In the formal sitting room, the molding is more pronounced and traditional, despite the fact that the walls are color-blocked in aqua and the requested teal, the paintings are modernist-inflected acrylics by the contemporary Irish artist John Redmond, and the furniture is, as Marconi observes, “a motley crew of uber-modern and vintage” that includes such up-to-the-minute pieces as a maroon Terje Ekstrøm chair and a purple Sacha Lakic sofa juxtaposed with a pair of 1960’s oak armchairs the clients already owned. “We really liked that contrast,” she notes. The molding also performs another traditional function, which is to camouflage a cabinet bar set into the wall and a door to the adjacent study.

One Design Detail: Hidden Doorways

While Marconi takes plenty of stylistic risks, she acknowledges she was spurred on by her adventurous clients. “They weren’t looking to play it safe,” she reports, noting that the couple found DesignLed through Instagram and specifically approached the firm because of its fearlessness. “Our designs are dramatic,” Marconi admits, “though I wouldn’t describe what we do as ‘out there’ or ‘wacky’—it’s just about making an impact. Playing with shapes and colors or putting something into a room that’s theoretically too big for it but somehow works, that’s our brand.” Showstopping indeed.

Patterns and Bold Colors Make This Home Design Pop 

designled: sarah drumm.

varier: maroon chair (sitting room).

e15: side table.

sovet: coffee table.

rockett st george: sconces.

roche bobois: gold chair, sofa (sitting room), throw (main bedroom).

floor story: rugs (sitting room, study, main bedroom).

through april and the bear: vases (sitting room), lamp (entry hall), pendant fixture (bedroom).

ca design: chair (study).

through acquired: desk (study), nightstands (main bedroom), sideboard (entry hall). hay: stools (kitchen).

rothfels: pendant fixture.

jonathan williams kitchens: custom cabinetry.

tecnografica: wallpaper (entry hall).

doherty flooring: parquet.

zoffany: chaise lounge fabric.

&tradition: side table.

mullan lighting: chandelier.

hartô: pendant fixture (main bedroom).

through vinterior: vanity.

oliver bonas: mirror.

marks & spencer: stool.

through etsy: shelves.

linwood fabric company: bed fabric (bedrooms).

fossil stone specialist: wall tile (powder room).

dusk lighting: sconces (bathrooms).

lusso stone: vanities.

drench: sink fittings.

italian tile & stone: floor tile.

feathr: wallpaper (dressing room).

love your home: bed (bedroom).

west elm: nightstand.

cc-tapis: rug.

farrow & ball; fired earth: paint.

Kingston Lafferty Design Infuses a House in Cork, Ireland With Soothing Shades of Green

When the design history of the pandemic is written, it will be told with tales of firms completing projects without ever physically meeting clients, setting foot inside job sites before they’re finished, and other protracted, unexpected developments. Lovers Walk—a residence in Cork, Ireland, by Kingston Lafferty Design—is one of those stories. “It started as a small decoration job for us,” founder and creative director Róisín Lafferty recounts. “But it grew legs and ended up as a substantial design project.” The two-story, four-bedroom suburban house was purchased by a couple looking to return to Ireland from abroad to raise their young son. As the pandemic struck and timelines extended, the scope kept evolving to encompass every element of the house. “We had to think on our feet,” Lafferty concedes.

At first, the house looked solidly built, but project collaborators Kiosk Architects discovered that the structure had major issues with energy efficiency. Original flooring needed to be removed, and the exterior required extra work to meet current standards. “The clients put a lot of trust in us,” Lafferty says, “which was bold and brave considering that we didn’t meet in person until the end of construction.”

The house was built in the 1940s. What attracted the homeowners—and informed KLD’s concept—was the central staircase, part of a ’70s addition and somewhat in that era’s style. Lafferty loved its warm, almost orange-toned oak joinery, which creates a strong impression on both levels. “It’s quite dominant,” notes the designer, to whom the clients had first turned for her firm’s signature look. The 11-year-old practice has earned a reputation for experimenting with bold swaths of solid color, mostly in paint: blood-red walls for a café in London; a deep-blue theater for a corporate office in Skerries, Ireland; and, most notably, a widely published Victorian house in Dublin with blue walls, a green ceiling, and a ruby-red dining table.

The house, located on a cliff overlooking the city, is surrounded by large oak trees. “We wanted to bring in that depth of green,” says Lafferty, who, along with KLD lead designer Fiona Stone, went beyond paint to inject the rooms with warmth and color that complemented the site. Hence much of the living room is wrapped in moss-green marble; forest-green heavy wool curtains hang in the child’s room, which is painted a similar shade, his favorite color; and the primary bedroom’s headboard wall is clad in jade porcelain tiles (by Gio Ponti, no less).

The layout of the living room, which had been fussy, was streamlined. A sofa upholstered in deep-navy velvet adds punch to the space. Similar jewel tones were chosen to balance the room’s marble-rich palette, which reminded Lafferty of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. “We needed a poppiness to jar against that,” she notes. Adding another layer to the mix, the clients allowed their contemporary art collection—mostly playful, abstract works—to be positioned throughout the house as the design best allowed. “They weren’t precious about it,” Lafferty reports.

To add drama to the journey from the entry hall to the kitchen and dining area, Lafferty and Stone inserted a tunnellike portal lined with red finger tiles between the spaces. The clients didn’t want the kitchen to be overwhelmed with storage cabinets, so the designers kept them at base level, covering the countertops, island, and two wall-size backsplashes with pink quartzite that’s “like rock candy,” Lafferty says—a move that places added emphasis on the above-sink picture window and its view out onto nature. While Lafferty admits some might consider the rosewood-veneer cabinetry to be outdated, she relished the idea of pushing the materials so they’re “almost on the cusp of clashing.”

Upstairs, each of the three bedrooms—for the couple, their son, and guests, respectively—has its own color story. Riffing off the ’70s vibe, the guest room juxtaposes cobalt blue curtains against walls painted a buff pink called Dead Salmon; a navy shaglike carpet adds to the theme, which Lafferty describes as “almost disgusting.” The designers are particularly proud of the primary bedroom, “a small space that needed to look sleek and effortless,” Stone notes. Access is via a wide, open passageway with chevron-pattern oak flooring and three large, angled skylights set into the sloped roofline. A vanity of burgundy marble is tucked under the eaves on one side of the room; a walk-in closet and the bathroom lie behind the opposite wall, which is faced in lacquered walnut-burl veneer that abuts the green tile of the headboard wall around the corner. “It’s like a jewelry box with so many materials used,” Stone continues. “But it feels incredibly calm. There’s almost a nostalgic air about it”—a verdict with which the clients agree. It seems their trust in KLD’s boldly unconventional aesthetic has paid off handsomely.

Kiosk Architects: architect of record

herrick electrical: mep

dfl: woodwork

miller brothers: stonework

cameleo: plasterwork

rose construction: general contractor

arflex: sofa, ottoman (living room)

modern hill furniture: orange chair

oluce: lamp

moore o’gorman joinery: custom cocktail table

fest amsterdam: side table

urban nature culture: vase

muurla: gray bowl

hkliving: blue bowl

Juanma Lizana: chandelier

jover: curtain fabric (living room, kitchen)

flos: pendant fixture (kitchen)

miele: cooktop, ovens, r­e­frigerator

Blanco: sink

quooker: sink fittings

cinca: finger tile (portal)

astep: pendant fix­ture (entry hall)

wow design: vanity front tile (main bathroom)

rmc: shower wall tile

through 1stdibs: chair (guest bedroom)

Hay: pendant fixture

edmund bell: curtain fabric

scatter box: bedspread

jacaranda carpets: carpet (guest, child bedrooms)

driade: chair (child bedroom)

muuto: pendant fixture

kvadrat: curtain fabric

trunk floor: custom wood flooring (child, main bedrooms)

&tradition: sofa (dining area)

yarwood leather: banquette upholstery

zava luce: sconces (dining area, portal)

Courtesy of Gubi: vanity chair (main bedroom)

natuzzi italia: bed, nightstand

salviati: sconce

tal: spotlights

teamwork italy: wall tile

louise roe copenhagen: vases

mason editions: pendant fixture (family bathroom)

crosswater: towel ring

nic design: sink (family, guest bathrooms)

astro lighting: downlights

stone seal: concrete flooring

cork glass center: bathroom glass, mirror, shower screens

vos: bathroom sink fittings

minima home: furniture supplier

farrow & ball: paint