Going green in the family back garden

The builder of this eco house wanted to create a practical family home and not something designed to win architecture awards, writes EMMA CULLINAN

A LARGE energy-efficient house in Kilteragh Drive, Foxrock, Dublin 18 is one of a pair built by Jens Kuechenmeister of Meisterwerk builders in the garden of the house he grew up in. When the garden became too much work for his parents, Kuechenmeister suggested that they build the two houses rather than sell the land to a developer.

The result is two very glassy, generously scaled homes that sit in leafy gardens. One of these, called Aisling, is for sale at €1.75 million through Lisney.

It was designed by Kuechenmeister with architect Boris de Swart. “I wanted a practical, comfortable house and not something designed to win awards. I was a real daredevil and decided not to have a flat roof,” says Kuechenmeister who went to work with two innovative builders in Germany (who had also trained as architects) after he left school in Dublin.

Then he studied architecture at UCD. “It took me two months to get rid of the baggage of thinking, when I designed something, could I build it?” This was the 1980s, says Jens, and on the first day professor of architecture Cathal O’Neill told his students not to expect to get jobs as architects when they left college. And so it came to pass that Jens ended up being a builder after all.

His first job was to make dividing screens at the Ark children’s centre, working with architect Shane O’Toole. He then designed secret doors for a leading businessman whose Georgian offices had an apartment on the top floor that was kept hidden by a bookcase/door made by Jens.

Jens worked for some of his former UCD architecture tutors – many of whom were members of Group 91 including Grafton Architects and O’Donnell and Tuomey.

Meisterwerk began to specialise in sustainable design and the house for sale has French limestone floors that act as a heat store, good insulation, solar panels to heat water, heat exchange ventilation, passive solar gain through the large glass windows/walls and the home is constructed from a timber wall system.

“Not timber frame,” says Kuechenmeister. Instead it is made from a panelled system which includes various layers and has airtight joints and sealed pipework. “The building is airtight but breathable,” says Kuechenmeister, “whereas many timber frame buildings in this country are basically a plastic bag and are ridiculed on the Continent.”

He is referring to the fact that warm humid air leaving an interior should condense near the exterior of a building but – to prevent moisture condensing beside a timber frame (and rotting it) a layer of plastic is put close to the interior wall.

The ground floor of the 317sq m (3,400sq ft) house, lit by glass walls, has a vast open-plan area combining a Bulthaup kitchen and living/dining space.

The ceiling is a generous 1.7m high. At one end of the living/dining area is a two-sided fireplace. On the far side of this is a small room which links to the main space through a high doorway – yet a wooden panel can close the smaller room off.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms and a main bathroom. One of the bedrooms has an en suite and a gallery, accessible by a ladder, on which children can sleep, play and invent adventures. The main bedroom has a large en suite. The bedroom’s front wall of glass is protected by blinds, sandwiched between panels of glass, that control sun levels. A window high up allows for sky views from the bed. The interior upstairs follows the steep pitch of the building and the landing has diffuse natural light coming in from windows high up.

A central room downstairs acts as a games room – for table tennis or snooker – and borrows light from the rooms flanking it through glass panels at the tops of the walls. One of the outer rooms is wired for entertainment and even has cinema lighting in it. This has a terrace with outside steps back up to the garden. There are also two bedrooms at this level with access to a sheltered sunken terrace.