McGonigle McGrath Architects

McGonigle McGrath are an architectural practice based in Northern Ireland, established by Kieran McGonigle and Aidan McGrath. From their studio in a former mill building in Belfast, they undertake a range of project types, but the single family home is a central theme in the practice. Their built work is informed by a sensitivity to context and place, a consideration of form, materiality and craft, and an understanding of the quality and simplicity of buildings well made. The influence of modern painters and photography, the resource of mapped lines, and a sense of the memory of rural architecture background a work methodology which uses composition, enclosure and profile within a developing language which seeks to articulate spatial relationships between form, volume, and landscape. A key interest threading through the work is the relationship of architecture to the ground. They make close observations of ‘place’ through models, drawing and photography, and much of the work is developed from having a profound understanding of the found condition of the site. Each project is considered as a unique opportunity, a collaboration between architect, client and site.
The work of the practice has been recognised with success in the RSUA, RIBA and AAI Awards programmes, and the built work of the practice has been widely published. The practice recently won the RIBA House of the Year competition, for House Lessans, a reinterpretation of rural forms in a single dwelling in the rolling countryside of County Down, which was featured on the Channel 4 ‘Grand Designs’ programme, and in 2020, they received the BD Architect of the Year Award, in the Individual House category.