The Irish Times

A butcher's former cold store in a busy village has been turned into a contemporary office without upsetting the planners or the client. "We painted the building black because, as it was north-facing, we wanted to celebrate that fact and embrace the darkness," says Orla O'Callaghan, architect of a small office building at the rear of a butcher's shop in Dalkey, Co Dublin. Persuading the client took some doing - and pacifying words such as "deep charcoal grey" were used - but, as Orla O'Callaghan says, with a building of this size you can try such things and re-do them if they don't work. Painting the exterior of this office costs €200. The building is small, it has a sun-lacking aspect and sits in a backland but therein lies the part of its success. Schumacher's oft-quoted comment about the beauty of small things applies here and shows that even a minute construction, costing less than €160,000, might as well be done well.