Using the value of scenic landscape of the West coast of Ireland, the project proposes a construction of the new type of territorial tourism, called the Grand Motel. The Grand Motel explores the idea of luxury. It does so through the XIX century Grand Hotel- type and the grandeur of landscape as an authentic form of Irish luxury, synthesised with the model of the Motel, articulated through a sequence of touristic architectures along the stretch of the West Irish coast.
The Grand Motel literally deconstructs an old model of luxury, as it was framed in the architecture of the Grand Hotel, through the context of Irish landscape. It is designed as a touring route composed of five self-sufficient day stretches around the remote county of Donegal. The vast lobby,
bar, pool, shop, private room and even the ballroom are seen here as the support structures for the experience of different types of physical landscape. These structures together with a new system of service aim to unfold the authentic Irish luxury, providing conditions for an active process of engagement with nature.
What does luxury mean for architecture today? It has no fixed formal definition. Thus, it is interesting to rethink its meaning yet again. “Elegance is refusal”, argued Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. And I think I agree. In these terms, true modern luxury could be seen to reside in an appreciation of its absence. Its idea is not about extravagance, but rather about reduction. And in this way, the Grand Motel takes a critical attitude towards the shifting ideas of luxury, landscape, service and economy.

By considering the forces and events that cause individuals and families to move from one household to the next, between the city and the country, between one country and another, this project examines housing in Ireland, seeking to understand how these events feed back into the design and provision of housing. Seven key moments are identified in the Ireland's housing- past, present, future. This is narrated through the story of an extended fictionalized Irish family and is explained through the drawing of a family tree across seven generations. Seven house types are identified to discuss significant changes.
The first four house types, moments are historical– the agrarian cottage, the Anglo-Irish big house, Suburban semi-detached house and the one-off. The survey of these first four moments results in the territorial artifact of the rural Irish village, consisting of a mix of these types. The project specifically addresses such villages along the Atlantic corridor and speculates new forms of communality through the three new types introduced. The fifth house is reactivated as productive space for working. Within a new social reality where individuals work from home this new type creates a large enclosed village green with a perimeter of single houses. The sixth house is a self-build house within a dense allotment system, designed to contain sprawl and protect agricultural activities. The seventh moment re-designs vacant houses around a cul-de-sac within the existing suburban estates converting them into sheltered housing and co-working spaces.
It is within these house types – past, present and future that the story of the family operates in. Projective designs will be layered within this framework and subject to the same analyses and presentation techniques as their historical precedents. Placed alongside one another, the method of the project seeks to collapse, or at least interrogate, traditional divisions within the production and representation of architecture: technical and narrative; as-built and as-used; historical and contemporary etc.