The home office conversion. Picture: Janice O'Connell, f22

Whether we pulled up our chairs to kitchen tables, bedroom lockers or living room desks during the remote-working boom of the past couple of years, the home office as a go-to workspace is here to stay.

Now that many companies are blending work-from-home and back-to-the-office models, we’ve all become curious about ways we can magic up that essential real estate in our existing square footage.

One dynamic design duo in Cork turned their little-used spare bathroom into a vibrant workspace.

The husband-and-wife team of Dr Marc Ó Riain, an interior design architect, and Deborah Ni Riain, an architect, lecturer and urban designer, live in a restored 16th-century cottage in Kinsale with their 12-year-old daughter.

And in January 2021, they gave a bathroom in that cottage a whole new lease of life.

It now serves as the home workspace for the couple, who established RUA Architects, Kinsale www..ruaarchitects.ie.

“I have to say the bathroom was to die for, but if we didn’t manage to get a private space to do some work in the house we might have all killed each other,” says Marc.

“The room was previously a bathroom with a huge claw-foot bath which had always been in the house but was rarely used.

“As there were two of us homeworking and we needed a practice office we decided to make better use of the large bathroom space.”

They had fully revamped the interior almost two decades ago. “When we purchased the house in 2003 the interior was very poor so we had renovated it in 2004 with reclaimed parquet floors throughout, and wall panelling which seems to be coming into vogue at the moment,” adds Marc.

What is their key advice for those of us embarking on that dream quest to find that prized extra room that’s right under our noses?

Look at the spaces in your house that are under-utilised

“For us, it was a second bathroom which was pretty big and under-used," says Marc. 

"It made more sense to convert it into an office. For anyone doing this, I would make sure that you have natural light, and I would have it really insulated for sound.

“We have plenty of storage which is really needed. We have a lot of sound-absorbing materials which helps sound absorption.”

Marc and Deborah set up Rua as “a small bespoke architectural practice which focuses on deep retrofit”, adds Marc.

“We build no new buildings. We also have a specialism in commercial interiors. Our projects wave been lucky enough to win multiple national and international design awards,” he says. Sustainability and good design are the key principles of their practice, so both played a part in their home office conversion.

“We have used all mid-century recycled furniture, the flooring is reclaimed from an abbey in Scotland,” he adds.

“All our energy comes from sustainable sources. This year we plan to add solar PV to become net zero.”

The wall panelling was also reused in their home office. “We gave it a new deep matt blue colour and contrasting this with a very strong yellow solid surface bespoke desk,” says Marc.

“The desk was made for us by us by S&R Furniture in Glounthaune. The desk is cantilevered off the wall so there are no legs to get in the way and it’s optimised to take three people.

“We used a dark navy fabric acoustic pinnable panel on the end wall so we could stick up work and materials that we were working on for projects.” Eyestrain is a major factor in our increased time in front of the screen especially with online meetings, notes Marc.

“We used two Artemide Tolomeo wall lamps to give us adjustable lighting and to be able to task areas of light around the space as general lighting would have created more screen glare, which I personally find quite stressful on eye strain.

We sourced vintage string shelving originally designed by the Swedish architect Nisse Strinning in 1949, from Bettyslounge. You can still buy them new but I like recycling stuff and giving it a new life.”

As for their favourite spaces in their home’s new/old addition?

For Marc, it’s by the record player and for Deborah, beside the window.

“The acoustic sealing that we did on the door really means that you can shut the rest of the world out when you get some solid work done,” says Marc.

“We play records and generally enjoy the space.

Waterford native Marc moved to Kinsale 20 years ago. “Having worked for large practices at a senior level and I decided to go back and do a PhD in zero energy retrofit in 2009 and start lecturing at Munster Technological University (then CIT) and set up RUA Architects with my wife,” he says.

“We focused at an early stage on sustainabilityand passive designs but probably became morerecognised for our interiors.”

A former president of the Institute of Designers in Ireland and an internationally award-winning interior design architect, Marc was head interior architect of building interiors like the Cliffs of Moher in Clare and the Architecture Factory in Cork.

In the latter, he also enjoyed a taste of sustainable office-conversion, in an office space in a reused shipping container.

Dr Marc Ó Riain and Deborah Ni Riain lecture at Munster Technological University (formerly Cork Institute of Technology) in Interior Architecture and Architecture respectively.

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