Set on the Causeway Coast, just outside Portrush, these 3 contemporary homes replace a 1980’s bungalow and have been oriented to offer an unobstructed view of the Atlantic Ocean.
The main living spaces face south to the garden and north to the the sea - the latter is achieved by raising the living room one storey above ground level to ensure clear views over street level activity.
The houses are rendered shades of white with a pitched slate roof – a simple yet familiar form reminiscent of coastal cottages which have had a presence in the Irish landscape for hundreds of years.
The 'look and feel' of the proposal was initially inspired by the hilltop cottages that sit in the background of Irish artist Paul Henry’s Kinsale Harbour painting – a contemporary interpretation of traditional forms to help place these houses in a meaningful way on what could be described as heavily settled and architecturally fragmented stretch of the Causeway Coast.
Client
Private
Location
Portrush, Causeway Coast
Status
Completed May 2020
Contractor
M&A Development
Photography
Nick Patterson, Sync Imaging
The Mission To Seafarers is a charitable organisation within the Port of Belfast, providing invaluable support to merchant crews of many nationalities and faiths who frequently dock at the port. The Mission’s primary objective, both in Belfast and worldwide, is to offer vital assistance to these seafarers.
Mark Todd Architects were invited to explore the possibilities of adapting and enhancing the existing facilities at 1 Prince’s Dock. The existing 1980s building that The Mission occupies has few windows, is discreet and easily missed by passers by.
The idea of a lighthouse, albeit abstract, is something that was considered at the outset of the design process - insofar as the ‘Light’ announces the presence of help at night and the ‘House’ offers shelter from the elements.
A lighthouse inspired ‘lantern’ glows softly at night and aims to enhance the presence and identity of The Mission To Seafarers, improve wayfinding and provide 24hr access to visiting seafarers.
Client
Mission To Seafarers
Location
Belfast Port
Status
Planning
The extension and refurbishment of this detached Victorian house in South Belfast intends to introduce a more open plan way of living for a young family of four. The additional space on the ground floor provides a generous kitchen, living and dining area with large sliding doors that establish a strong connection between the house and it’s long and impressive south facing garden.
Although the modern addition might appear different from the main house, there is a deliberate sense of familiarity in both it’s materials and arrangement. The use of facing brick, exposed timber and the reproduction of room proportions have all taken their cue from the existing house. Windows and roof lights have been carefully positioned to provide natural light deep into the plan. The refurbishment of the new house remains traditional in detail, whereas the extension itself is a contemporary with a subtle nod to the past.
Client
Private
Location
Belfast
Status
Complete
Structural Engineer
Haworth McCall
Contractor
Warner Johnston Building and Joinery
Fitted Furniture
Obin Joinery
This project in the Mountsandel area of Coleraine proposes two new homes within the grounds of a large Victorian Villa some 40 meters away.
Each house is carefully oriented; facing inwards to private amenity space and outwards towards the canopies of the mature trees that obscure the site from the main road.
A cantilevered porch offers cover and an invitation to the entrance. The houses mirror each other and are arranged over two floors. Rooms for living are on the ground floor and rooms for sleeping and washing are on the first floor. Both floors are evenly organised and served by a central stair.
Client
Private
Location
Mountsandel
Status
Planning
Proposals for a Garden Pavilion in South Belfast connect a new sitting room and outdoor dining area to an existing 1930s Art Deco house. The new pavilion intends to be familiar to the existing building in both its materiality and proportions.
The outdoor elements of the proposals feature a summer kitchen and dining area complete with an open fire and pizza oven. Intended for use in warmer months, the pavilion offers a sheltered, shaded area that faces back across the south facing garden. The internal elements of the pavilion offer a sitting room with wood burning stove, a library and long gallery that connects to the house.
With the simple concept of 'solid and void' in mind, the pavilion has working spaces and storage that occupy the 'solid' elements. In turn the 'void' or spaces between the 'solid' form the habitable areas.
Client
Private
Location
Belfast
Status
Design
This small project explores the opportunity to serve food and coffee to hundreds of passers by from an existing window in a listed Victorian warehouse.
In 2021 Crown Creative reimagined ‘The Hill Street Hatch’ as “a pop-up space that offers a creative partnership for entrepreneurs in the Belfast hospitality scene who are looking to test and launch new concepts and ideas.”
Crown Creative’s venture featured in Condé Nast Traveller & The Guardian & was the winner of the Belfast Telegraph’s award for ‘Best Start-Up’.
Client, Branding and Visual Identity
Crown Creative
Location
Hill Street, Belfast City Centre
Photographs
Ryan Crown
Client Press
Condé Nast Traveller
The Guardian
In light of the well-known hospitality restrictions of 2021, this project explored how an existing doorway on Hill Street could present an opportunity for serving street food with a unique and entertaining identity that encouraged people to re-visit the empty and pandemic stricken city centre.
Occupying an empty doorway with a type of ‘pop up’ architecture suggested the most practical and cost efficient solution to brief. Whilst this approach removed the need for any alterations to the outside or inside of the building, the challenge then was to create something that was beautifully simple yet robust and practical enough to be pushed into place by hand.
The design took the form of a Kiosk that fills the open doorway and immediately addresses Hill Street. The colour, proportion and rhythm of the kiosk all take its cue from Crown Creative’s branding which draws upon the architecture of traditional telephone boxes, post boxes and even carefully curated film scenes (see Wes Anderson’s ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’) that have a distinctive visual narrative.
After falling eerily dormant, the Toast Office seems to have resuscitated Hill Street by drawing people in their (socially distant) hundreds back to the heart of the city centre. Lunch became somewhat of an uplifting event on Hill Street, creating a hint of a continental atmosphere with a distinctive Belfast twist, reminding us all of more normal times to come
Client, Branding & Visual Identity
Crown Creative
Location
Hill Street, Belfast
Client Awards
Restaurant and Bar Design Award
IDI Award
Press
Condé Nast Traveller
The Guardian
Photographs
01 Ryan Crown
02+ Mark Todd Architects
Proposals to reorganise and adapt this Victorian terrace in East Belfast are complete. The ground floor has been altered to better connect the main living spaces and new openings allow the house to engage with the planted yard in a way it was previously unable to do.
Client
Private
Location
East Belfast
Status
Complete 2022
This new art gallery occupies the second floor space of what was once a 1980s office building in central Belfast.
The design proposals concentrate on simplifying a much disrupted space by way of existing columns, beams and some redundant service voids that are left over from the building’s previous life.
The concept from the outset was to sub-divide the existing floor plan into 4 simple exhibition spaces and hide the presence of interrupting columns, beams and new services by encasing them within deep walls - a once disorganised floor plan now appears simple and subservient to any work on display.
The gallery will exhibit both contemporary and traditional art exhibitions and participatory events throughout 4 intimately scaled gallery spaces within the heart of Belfast.
Client
Commercial Court Inns Ltd.
Location
Belfast City Centre
Status
Completed 2017
Nestled at the foot of the Antrim Plateau, this row of new homes is rendered white with pitched roofs and prominent chimneys – intentionally reminiscent of rural cottages which have had a presence in the Irish landscape for hundreds of years.
As with previous residential projects, the practice looked for a meaningful application of form and once again drew inspiration from the Belfast born artist Paul Henry. In Henry’s ‘Cottages of the West of Ireland’ a row of whitewashed homes nestle in the low-lying landscape while the distant darker mountains and grey clouds suggest a shower of rain is not far away - an all too familiar feeling in Ireland.
A cantilevered porch offers cover and an invitation to shelter in the landscape. The arrangement of all the elements of the house: the porch, chimney and roof are intentionally reminiscent of the past, albeit within a contemporary context. Rooms for living are on the ground floor and rooms for sleeping are on the first floor. Both floors are evenly organised and served by a central stair.
Client
Private
Location
Cairncastle, County Antrim
Status
Planning Permission Granted
Paul Henry, Cottages in the West of Ireland Landscape, Oil on board, 12cm x 14cm
The refurbishment of an 1980's office building into a mixed use development has created the opportunity for this client to introduce a new 2 bedroom apartment within the heart of the city centre.
The newly refurbished apartment offers a generous floor to ceiling height and inherits a terrace from the building's previous use.
A calm and restrained choice of materials and finishes allows the character of the new apartment to be determined by the client’s distinctive taste in both furniture and artwork.
Tall solid wood windows allow natural light to fill this small but intimate space and offer generous views across the rooftops of Belfast city centre.
Client
Private
Location
Belfast
Status
Completed 2018
In 2021 Mark Todd Architects carried out a condition survey of the existing stone setts and pavers that form the majority of the hard landscaping within the Cathedral Quarter, Belfast. The survey was specifically limited to Hill Street, Gordon Street, Commercial Court, Exchange Place and Waring Street - all of which lie within a designated conservation area.
The survey recorded 81 instances where existing stone setts and pavers, deemed to be of historic interest, had been removed and replaced with a bitumen based material. It is understood that the instances in question have been created by various statutory bodies when undertaking works to the existing infrastructure.
21 of the recorded instances were areas of Whinstone Setts and 60 were areas of Caithness Stone Pavers. In all, approximately 100 square meters of historic fabric has been removed and replaced with a bitumen based material. This accounts for around 3.7% of the hard landscaping within area surveyed.
The report was issued to Belfast City Council and the relevant MLAs by local hospitality businesses who wish to preserve and promote the significance of historic fabric within the Cathedral Quarter.
Client
Pro Bono
Location
Belfast, Hill Street
Status
Complete
Blackfriars Priory dates from the early 13th Century and is considered to be the most complete surviving example of a Dominican Priory in England. Following years of under use, the clients ambition was to make the necessary alterations to the North Range so that it could be used as a venue by the local community to hold various events and festivals.
To achieve this a series of steps, ramps, balustrades and doors had to be introduced to help negotiate the varying levels throughout the building. Trench heating and high level lighting were also carefully introduced to allow the North Range to be used for a variety of events.
This project involved close and thorough consultation with English Heritage, Natural England, Gloucester City Council and the South West Redevelopment Agency.
The contemporary interventions are sensitively placed within the Priory and intend to clearly articulate the passing of time - thereby contributing a new layer to the already complex tapestry of the Grade I listed building.
Mark delivered this project whilst working at RIBA award winning practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios.
Client
English Heritage
Construction Value
£500,000
Location
Gloucester
Status
Completed June 2011
Photographs
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
In December 2013, Mark entered an open design competition for Cebada Community Centre which invited architects to offer design ideas for an existing market space in Madrid.
The site had great potential to become a node within the city that generated both economic and social activity.
Inspired by a medieval market space that was once present on the site, the design concept offered a community centre that was arranged around a new public square - encouraging people to meet and gather in the district and as well as providing a place for public events.
The community centre that surrounds the new plaza is held one storey above street level by a series of wide spanning arches which in turn allow the ground floor to be permeable from all sides.
The new centre houses a care home, library, internet cafe, coffee shop, theatre, hostel and city baths under a public square - people of all ages share common spaces which encourages them to meet and helps reinforce the idea of a community.
Brick was the dominant material in this project not least because of its thermal mass properties, but it also allows the new building to become physically subsumed into the history of the La Latina District and acknowledges the origins of medieval Madrid through its material.
Client
Cabada Community Centre
Location
Madrid, Spain
Status
Competition Entry December 2013
In January 2013 Mark entered a European wide design competition for a new £7.4 million visitor centre and youth hostel within the Northumberland National Park on behalf of FCBs.
The design concept was based upon the narrative of a walled settlement with a central courtyard acting as a focus for social activities. The shared courtyard was envisaged as a lively and vibrant component of the new building that would physically and socially connect the youth hostel with the visitor centre.
Thick thermally massive walls made of rammed concrete created a sense of permanence reminiscent of roman settlements. Locally sourced aggregate within the concrete intends to physically subsume the new building into the 295 million year old landscape.
Client
Northumberland National Park Authority and Youth Hostel Association (England and Wales)
Project Value
£7.5 million
Location
Northumberland National Park
Status
Competition Entry January 2013
