An Leabharlann (The Library)
Client: Private
Type: Renovation and Addition
Gross Internal Area: 28 sqm / 301 sqft
Status: in Construction
Location: Co. Kerry
Date: 2024-
A library and writing retreat is sensitively embedded into the hillside, carefully grafted onto the side of a traditional two-storey stone farmhouse.
The new addition draws formal and material inspiration from the single-barrel-vaulted hay barns once typical of Kerry’s rural landscape. These modest agricultural structures—roofed in corrugated steel and often located adjacent to farmhouses—played an essential role in daily life. Though increasingly rare, their typology remains deeply embedded in the collective rural memory. This project reinterprets that elemental form, reasserting it within a contemporary architectural language and on a site where hay was once traditionally piled into a coca féir.
The library will be clad in stone salvaged from the client’s grandmother’s birthplace, now a ruin, in nearby Doonshean. These weathered stones, rich with personal and cultural resonance, will anchor the new structure in both memory and place.
A glazed internal stair forms a light-filled junction between old and new, creating a transparent threshold that links past and present. Within, a sequence of naturally lit, enfilade spaces offers layered sightlines through the structure and out toward the surrounding fields and distant Atlantic horizon. The vaulted ceiling amplifies verticality and fosters a contemplative atmosphere.
The material palette is deliberately restrained and tactile. Bespoke oak shelving and low cabinetry line the interior, accommodating the client’s extensive book collection while acting as both functional storage and integrated architectural detail.
A deep window seat, oriented toward sun and sea, offers a place of pause and introspection—a quiet observatory for the shifting rhythms of light and landscape.
Project Collaborations:
Main Contractor: Gearóid Misteal + Team
Stone Mason: Aidan McKenna + Team
Client: Private
Type: Renovation and Addition
Gross Internal Area: 28 sqm / 301 sqft
Status: in Construction
Location: Co. Kerry
Date: 2024-
A library and writing retreat is sensitively embedded into the hillside, carefully grafted onto the side of a traditional two-storey stone farmhouse.
The new addition draws formal and material inspiration from the single-barrel-vaulted hay barns once typical of Kerry’s rural landscape. These modest agricultural structures—roofed in corrugated steel and often located adjacent to farmhouses—played an essential role in daily life. Though increasingly rare, their typology remains deeply embedded in the collective rural memory. This project reinterprets that elemental form, reasserting it within a contemporary architectural language and on a site where hay was once traditionally piled into a coca féir.
The library will be clad in stone salvaged from the client’s grandmother’s birthplace, now a ruin, in nearby Doonshean. These weathered stones, rich with personal and cultural resonance, will anchor the new structure in both memory and place.
A glazed internal stair forms a light-filled junction between old and new, creating a transparent threshold that links past and present. Within, a sequence of naturally lit, enfilade spaces offers layered sightlines through the structure and out toward the surrounding fields and distant Atlantic horizon. The vaulted ceiling amplifies verticality and fosters a contemplative atmosphere.
The material palette is deliberately restrained and tactile. Bespoke oak shelving and low cabinetry line the interior, accommodating the client’s extensive book collection while acting as both functional storage and integrated architectural detail.
A deep window seat, oriented toward sun and sea, offers a place of pause and introspection—a quiet observatory for the shifting rhythms of light and landscape.
Project Collaborations:
Main Contractor: Gearóid Misteal + Team
Stone Mason: Aidan McKenna + Team
