Keen biker takes a real shine to metal house

Just north of Smithfield, near Dublin city centre, there are sweet streets of pastel-painted 1950s homes in the style that eschewed ornament-free Modernism. On one such street, where houses wear the typical adornments of porches and gingerbread-house style barge boards, there is a silver home that is so flush and free of twiddly bits that, set beside its pitched roof neighbour, it seems as if someone took the facade off it and left an undercoat. That is just what the client wanted and – despite the home’s understatement – the design brings bravery in its materials: it is coated in anodised aluminium. “I wanted something very modern and I like the idea of having new and old side by side,” says the owner. Having spoken to a few architect practices, he eventually commissioned Odos. “They were the only people who really understood what I wanted and I liked the work they had done but I felt I had to give other people a chance and some of the designs were absolutely incredible. One architect came up with a Swiss cottage. I don’t know where they got that idea from because the brief was fairly tight.”

The Irish Times