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    Kingston Lafferty Design includes “sensual” red quartzite kitchen in townhouse renovation

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    Dublin studio Kingston Lafferty Design has transformed the architecture and interiors of this family home in Cork, Ireland, which features 1970s-style shapes and colours informed by the work of designer Verner Panton.

    Positioned on Lovers Walk hill overlooking the city of Cork, the townhouse – called Lovers Walk – was renovated by Kingston Lafferty Design.
    Kingston Lafferty Design completed the renovation in CorkThe studio originally planned to just update the interiors, but decided that a more extensive architectural transformation was needed after discovering structural instabilities in the home.
    Kingston Lafferty Design removed all of the floors, which lacked foundations and insulation in their concrete slab, and completely reconfigured the two-storey property’s layout.
    Rooms on the ground floor were designed around an oak-lined hallway”As the building was originally built in the 1970s, we wanted to return to its roots,” studio founder Róisín Lafferty told Dezeen.

    “We thrived on inspiration from Verner Panton with his use of strong clashing colour, playful shapes and oversized elements,” she added.
    One of these spaces is a “sensual” red kitchenThe ground floor was adapted to include an open-plan kitchen defined by a counter, island and splashback finished in veiny red quartzite.
    Ruby-toned timber was used to create the geometric cabinets. When layered with the quartzite, “it sounds like a disaster, but it’s a delight,” said the designer.
    The living room follows a similar design to the kitchenThe space, described by the studio as a “sensual red-toned jewel kitchen”, is one of several rooms on the ground floor of Lovers Walk that were designed around the central, oak-lined hallway.
    “We used the hallway as the core of the house, which grounded the space with pops of colour stemming from it. Each room leading from the core appears like a framed view or window of colour,” explained Lafferty.
    It includes a green feature wall that takes cues from Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Barcelona PavilionThe living room includes blue velvet sofas and a green feature wall clad in swirly book-matched marble, which was fitted with an alcove reserved for a subtle fireplace.
    When creating the polished stone wall, the studio took cues from the seminal Barcelona Pavilion, completed in 1929 by modernist architect Mies van der Rohe.
    A floor-to-ceiling headboard takes centre stage in the main bedroom”We used green as an overall thread throughout the house, inspired by the surrounding landscape,” added Lafferty.
    “Although depending on the time of year, the colours tend to change and so we were able to add in other rich colours that anchor the green such as burgundies and bright oranges,” she added.
    Stonework also defines the en-suite bathroom”One would assume this mix of colours would clash, but we choose the tones and textures of each to ensure that all of them would blend harmoniously,” Lafferty said.
    Upstairs, the main bedroom and en-suite bathroom were dressed in the same eclectic interiors as the communal spaces. A floor-to-ceiling headboard, finished in diamond-shaped green tiles originally designed by 20th-century architect Gio Ponti, frames the bed.
    A playful bed was added to the bedroom created for the occupants’ childBalloon-like coloured glass vases were positioned on two bedside tables, which were topped with the same slabs of Rosso Levanto marble as the geometric vanity desk.
    The bedroom designed for the occupants’ child features an alternative bed – a playful green structure with two stacked levels and half-moon openings that reveal a cosy sleeping area on the bottom level.

    Kingston Lafferty Design creates “otherworldly” interiors for Dublin skin clinic

    Other accents featured throughout the home include burl wood, terrazzo, plaster and brass. The repetition of 1970s-style thick pile carpets emphasises the dwelling’s textured material palette.
    Lovers Walk is the studio’s “closest nod” to the work of Panton, explained Lafferty – “down to the selection of every tile, light fitting and exquisite piece of designer furniture”.
    Deep blues characterise the guest bedroom”Although there is such an array of materiality, it is balanced by repeated colour, shape and form,” she said.
    “Every space in this house is an assault on the senses, in the best way possible.”
    Lovers Walk was informed by the work of Verner PantonFounded in 2010, Kingston Lafferty Design has completed projects ranging from a Dublin restaurant with oversized lollipop-like lamps and a co-working office in Belfast that includes a yoga studio.
    The photography is by Ruth Maria Murphy. 
    Project credits:
    Interior architecture and design: Kingston Lafferty DesignWoodwork: DFLStonework: Miller Brothers

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      Kingston Lafferty Design creates “otherworldly” interiors for Dublin skin clinic

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      A palette of plaster, marble, terrazzo and stainless steel was chosen to create interiors that customers want to “reach out and touch” in this Dublin skin clinic by Kingston Lafferty Design.The local firm was commissioned by the Fitzgerald Private Clinic to capture a sense of calm, quiet luxury while maintaining the cleanliness expected from a surgery.

      Top image: the Fitzgerald Private Clinic has a marble-clad archway. Above: its retail space features marble counters
      “The service offer is premium and luxury, and the spaces that encapsulate it were designed to echo that at every touchpoint,” Kingston Lafferty Design founder Roisin Lafferty told Dezeen.
      “We wanted to design a space that was tactile and all-encompassing with a sense of otherworldliness, incorporating associations of sterility with a balance of warmth.”

      Kingston Lafferty Design plays with scale inside Dublin restaurant Cinnamon

      Spread across two tight, 46-square-metre floors, the Dublin clinic houses retail, storage and waiting areas on the lower level while the first floor encapsulates three treatment rooms, a toilet, staff room and secondary waiting area.
      “It is a very small space, so we needed to be clever when designing the layout to get the absolute maximum use from the space,” explained Lafferty. “Every element is jigsawed together to double up, offering both functionality and beauty.”

      The interior of the arch is finished with terracotta-coloured tiles

      Customers enter the clinic through a street-facing, pink-hued retail store with a micro cement floor and a curved wall lined with plaster tubes. According to Kingston Lafferty Design (KLD), these were designed to resemble putty and made from multiple layers of warm-toned plaster that were built up within a custom mould.
      “We wanted the different surfaces to be tactile and combined in unexpected ways, almost calling for people to reach out and touch, and for everything to appear as though it was formed from the structure of the building, as though it was all meant to be there,” said Lafferty.

      The clinic’s undulating pink plaster wall has three inset shelves
      Set with three brass shelves, the undulating wall doubles as a retail display area and also conceals added storage space behind a fully tube-clad door.
      The entrance area is anchored by a black and white terrazzo reception desk that sits under an Acquasanta marble archway. The underside of the arch is clad with zig-zagging matt red tiles that complement the tone of the marble.

      The walls and floor of the waiting area are covered in black and white terrazzo
      “The arch is the strongest element that frames the clinic experience,” the designer explained. “It highlights the sales and reception desk while encasing and concealing an existing structural beam. We built the arch to align with the depth of the custom reception desk, focusing on materiality both on the front facade and the inner depth.”
      The skin clinic, which sits beyond the arch, contrasts with the soft pink tones of the store. It features a stainless steel staircase and black and white terrazzo flooring, with the archway marking the junction between the two.

      Treatment rooms are clad in stainless steel
      “The staircase was the only structural element that we kept in the design. We sought to make a feature of its angular form and framed it in steel and glass, the steel providing both a tactile wall covering and a vital storage bank with additional retail display for product,” Lafferty said.
      An intimate waiting room wrapped in terrazzo and housing a bench seat upholstered in blue leather is located on the other side of the store’s curved, undulating wall.

      Brass accents in the toilets add an element of warmth
      On the first floor, mirror- and walnut-clad boxes create a series of interconnecting treatment rooms and corridors.
      “The treatment rooms needed to be highly clinical, sterile and very easy to keep clean,” said Lafferty. “Hygiene was of the utmost importance to the client. So we wanted to find a balance so that it didn’t feel cold and unwelcoming.”

      Blue terrazzo counters the sterility of the stainless steel
      Lozenge-shaped mirrors were added to disrupt the rooms’ clean lines and add softness, while subtle colour changes were introduced through a blue tone in the terrazzo and a hint of green in the textured plaster walls and ceilings.
      A seamless, full-height wall of walnut wood was added to the corridor outside the treatment rooms to contrast against the steel cabinetry and add warmth to the upper floor.
      Health and self-care was a central theme in another of KLD’s recent refurbishment projects. Earlier this year, the studio incorporated green walls, a yoga studio and rooftop terrace into a co-working office in Belfast to help workers unwind.
      Photography is by Ruth Maria Murphy.

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      Kingston Lafferty Design plays with scale inside Dublin restaurant Cinnamon

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      Oversized lollipop-like lamps and a “dollhouse-effect” entryway feature inside this restaurant in Dublin, Ireland, which Kingston Lafferty Design has completed with whimsical interiors. Cinnamon is situated in the city’s lively Ballsbridge neighbourhood and takes over an empty retail unit. Kingston Lafferty Design set about transforming the characterless space into a “celebration of playfulness and humour”, […] More

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      Clancy Moore Architects converts Dublin warehouse into family home for a photographer

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      Clancy Moore Architects has overhauled a Dublin warehouse, creating a light-filled home and studio for photographer Fionn McCann and his family. Organised around a double-height atrium, the Avenue Road home retains the spacious feel of the former industrial unit, but also includes some more intimate, cosy spaces. Architectural details, from round internal windows to diagonal beams, […] More