T O B Architect: Practicing Scales

Interview - Thomas O’Brien and Michael K Hayes in conversation

Architect Thomas O’Brien is based in Dublin, Ireland and established his practice, T O B Architect, in 2013. He is a Design Fellow at University College Dublin, where he graduated in 2005 and currently teaches in the first and fifth year studios. To accompany this interview with Architecture Ireland’s editor Michael K Hayes, we have also added the practices’s J&R House, a reconfiguration and extension to a family home in Dublin to our archive here.

TOB There’s limits to what you can do as a solo practitioner in terms of the scale you can operate, or at least I believe in my case there is. I don’t want to sound like I’m not ambitious, but to some extent I’m quite happy doing that work, or at least I'm happy to make small things, be they private or public. Admittedly, there can be this doubt that I should be engaging more at the larger scale, 'building a piece of the city' but, personally speaking, I’m not sure I’d fare well in that world of large scale investment and development. It will come some day, but for now I quite enjoy the work I have, mostly. It’s good practice.

Architectural merit can occur at any scale and it really depends on the relationship with the client. By and large, I’ve been fortunate to deal with decent mix of people in that regard. One of the good thing about working at a domestic scale is that so much of that experience is applicable elsewhere. Really great public buildings carry through that humanity. I think it’s where small offices have an edge on more mercantile practices. Humanity… lol!

MH And how do you think working at that smaller scale shapes your own design process, versus, for example, if it was at a larger scale with a larger team?

TOB I’m probably going to directly contradict what I just said – that’s where it can get quite frustrating. My work fluctuates a lot; it’s a bit all over the place. There’s very little consistency to it. It may involve some degree of experimentation (which I do enjoy), but it can also feel sometimes like you’re making confectionary at the back of people’s houses. On my more cynical days, I’m totally fed up with it. I’ve started to reach out a bit more lately, collaborating with another architect Noreile Breen on a small domestic project. The work is better for it.

TOB I have had a lot of doubts about practice recently. The first six months of 2020 I was like: ‘fuck this’. And then COVID happened, and to be honest It gave me the time to re-evaluate things a bit.  There’s no point in sabotaging your career, but I do need to figure out: (a) how am I to build? and (b) who am I going to build for? Architecture is inherently entwined with the worst aspects of late capitalism and is undeniably environmentally damaging. I need to somehow resolve where I stand on that question. The best I can say fo myself so far is that my work is small and primarily involves the adaptation and reuse of existing buildings. It also tries hard to create respite from a market driven world.

MH And in your time in practice, is there any project that stands out as being particularly influential or instrumental in the way you design, or the way you practice now?

TOB The smallest project I did is the first one, Jeffry’s House, which might seem ridiculous, but I love that project. It was designed by Emily Mannion and myself; we hit the nail on the head in terms of what it should be in that context - Ards Forest Park in Donegal. And then the construction and the making of it – that directness is still something I’d be trying to get back to. Out of it came Killian and Katie’s House, or K&K House, which shared a similar of logic: light from above, expressed timber structure, corrugated cladding and limited means.

TOB I think it’s the best extension I’ve gotten to work on.  I think I lost my way then for a while trying to find a language, but I’m more and more now trying to get back to basics. The J&R House is trying to get back to that, but actually it cannot, everything is different of course; from the client, the economic context, the naivety present in K&K House. It is a different thing. It makes me a little anxious, but the client really enjoys it and there are plenty things about it that I really like also. There’s just a bit too much going on for such a small space. But that’s maybe a pitfall of small projects; you’re trying to cram in a lot of ideas.

MH Speaking of the J&R House project, how did it come about?

TOB Aisling McCoy, the photographer and architect, had done some work as a photographer for that client, and they asked her to recommend an architect. She was good enough to give them my name, and that’s how that job came about.

The project is located in a suburban estate built around the early nineties. The existing houses and the estate are very much of that time: they are  a typical kind of suburban terrace house in a middle class housing estate. It is quite small, it may have been developed as a ‘starter home’.

The client is a young family from the area who had asked themselves, ‘do we invest in this house or do we move?’ And with the market as it is, they decided to stay and invest in the house. So design-wise, the brief included the usual; more space, more storage. Briefs often start in a very simple, functional way, and then you throw something in to prompt a reaction. I had this idea about it looking like a petrol station forecourt. The back garden is very small and the extension largely takes its rough shape and plan from what was allowed in terms of exempt development. The petrol station forecourt idea takes the form of a timber frame structure pulled back away from the external perimeter; the boundary walls of the site effectively become walls of the room.

One half of the partnership is very involved in yoga, and so there was an idea of it being a kind of studio, where she would do yoga or maybe even a small class. That, I suppose, is why it has that sunroom feel. And then we refurbished the whole house; upgraded insulation, put in an air source heat pump, and did those more pragmatic tasks as well.

MH You mention the influence of the petrol station forecourt; I was also initially struck by a possible reference to Japanese architecture in the J&R House, both in terms of the detailing of its timber structure and the sense of threshold between the space that is occupied and the exterior. Would that be correct?

TOB That idea of engawa, of an edge between inside and out, is totally in the project. A lot of my projects will have something like this, I use it not so much as a reference, but to create a strong protected centre - a place of respite. There’s a pragmatic reason as well: You don’t want to feel exposed, so the extension adopts a threshold. But it’s also stealing from the Soane Museum, where there are rooms within larger rooms. It’s a really beautiful thing in those Soane rooms where you’re contained like that. So, there’s a few reasons for it. I suppose it is about containing the person, and them not feeling too exposed. Even though it’s only the thickness of a double-glazed sheet of glass, it’s actually the thickness of that boundary wall, the block wall, the planting within that perimeter, then the glass, then the ridiculous window concrete bench thing, and the timber structure above your head. It’s a concentric series of delineated boundaries. It’s also sunken, which drops you down below the garden wall so that no one can look over. You’re looking up at the sky, not out over your neighbours.

It was probably the first project where I made suggestions about planting in the garden; full of ferns and hydrangea and other nice plants. When it matures, it should be more lush. A lot more enclosed again. That landscaping aspect is something I wish I knew more about. It always gets stripped out of the budget, and I never have enough control over it, and not prioritising it lets you down in the end. I’m late in learning that you can’t look at the two (house and garden) in isolation from each other.

MH Given the simplicity of the brief, I’m wondering at what point do you meld your own architectural interests to those more functional requirements? You know, the client’s like, ‘I want to have more kitchen space’, and then essentially, as the architect, you’re like, ‘Okay, I will provide that, plus this sense of depth or domesticity’ ... maybe it’s about what you said about trying to raise or add dignity to a project.

TOB I get what you mean – like where are you having fun? I have recurring interests that I’m trying to figure out; like that petrol station forecourt, it’s the generator of a form. In the Normal House project, I wanted to play around with external insulation, to chop it, carve it ,and make forms. At the Killan farmhouse I wanted it to look top-heavy and awkward, so it had that big gutter. 

As students, we tend to be taught that you generate architecture from the context; context generates the project, and this sort of quasi-emprical programatic arrangement follows to generate a scheme - shuffling shapes around on a page. But that's just a method. It’s part of it, but you come to site with your own personality and context, and I’ve always tried to express my personality in the work. The architect has to have something to say and should be able to express themselves somehow,  otherwise you’re just a service provider, or you’re copying. All the decent work is by some weirdo, someone who is being themselves. The weird bits must come out because that’s why I got into the job in the first place. To have fun.

NOTES

Published October 28th 2020.

Many thanks to both Thomas O’Brien and Michael K. Hayes for their help in compiling this interview.

Photographs of Jeffry’s House by Thomas O’Brien and Emily Mannion.

Photographs of K&K house by Aisling McCoy.

Photographs of Killan Farmhouse by Aisling McCoy and Thomas O’Brien.

Other photographs and images by Thomas O’Brien.

This interview first appeared in Architecture Ireland magazine. It has been edited slightly for this publication.