The first thing that strikes you about the exterior of Grainne Foy and Ken Bulter's new house in north inner city Dublin is that it is essentially a brown wall. The building closes the view at the end of a long street and from afar it resembles a low-rise industrial building, tucked in among single-storey cottages. Close up, it's obviously more carefully considered, with its slatted timber end - mimicking a garage door - and its neat opaque glass window beside the front door at the other end of the house. The external shape is taut and sharp and, if anything, borrows from the outline of the flats in the complex behind the house. But its spirit is lighter.
