Kevin Sweeney

It will be interesting to see how good Chatgpt is at making this kind of kit. I've used it a lot in recent months when searching for interesting buildings to model.

My next build is Luggala. A beautiful gothic revival house in the Wicklow Mountains. I found archictects drawings on the planning portal, but i wanted to model the building as it apperared on the 1901 OS map. So l uploaded the map and the planning drawings to Chatgpt and asked it to untangle the 1901 building from the modern one. it came up with this set of drawings, which look great and will allow me to make a card mockup before I start the build. If these drawings are accurate I'm particulary interested in the curved roofs and the the bow walls. If Chatgpt got the geometry right I will be very pleased as maths is not my stongpoint and these kind of features take me a lot of time as I have to do it by trial and error. Time will tell, but the drawings look great. and even if the geometry turns out to be wrong I can still generate the texture sheets from them.

I've just finished a pair of semi detached art deco houses, which are in Glenageary. Although I just noticed looking at the photos I forgot to put the sills on the gable windows. My talk in the County Museum went well, good turn out and I got to display my collection of house models. My model of the County Museum is now on permeant display in a glass case in the museum. I'm planning to have my next exhibition "The Irish House, 900 to 2027" ready by the end of the year. I have 4 more models to make, a gothic revival house, an arts and crafts cottage, a bauhaus house in Ranelagh, and as a great centre piece Kilkenny Castle. A total of 35 models. The problem with my last exhibition is that it was all Cavan buildings, so once it finished in the County museum, there was nowhere else to go with it. The next exhibition can go to any county museum on the island of Ireland. I'm toying with the idea of moving onto Irish churches next.

I have lots of time on my hands. I find modelling is very theraputic. When I'm working on a model, my own troubles and the troubles of the world are far away.

Thanks Derek. I'm pleased with but it a much simpler model than many I have built, it's a great piece of neo classical archicture but it has very clean lines and not a lot of complex features.

Townley Hall is finished.

My latest project, Townley Hall, Co Louth. The glass cupola is one of the trickest things I've ever made. I'm doing a talk next Saturday in the County Museum in Ballyjamesduff, about the history of Irish houses. I will have about 20 models on display. The Evolution of House Dwellings in Ireland | Facebook

I'm back modelling after a bit of a hiatus. I'm in a Plantation of Ulster phase at the moment. I'm getting close to finishing a model of Tully Castle in Co Fermanagh. Built in the Scottish Baronial style in the early 1600s, it was captured by rebels in 1641, burned and never rebuilt. The two storey house is the Pendean farmhouse which dates from 1609. It is preserved in the Weald and Downland Living Museum, in Sussex. The cottage is a scaled down version of Peandan.

Getting close to a finish with this model. It's Carnalway Glebe House, which is near Newbridge, in Co KIldare. It's a tudor revival house built in the 1870s, with a well executed late 20th century extention on the rear.

I'm planning on a doing a land commission house at some stage.

A quick little modelling project, certainly simple compared to Navan Station. A Congested Districts Board cottage. Would be a suitable model for a west of ireland layout.

Navan Station is installed on the customers layout.

I often think Jack Fitzsimons and Richard Lovett Pearse were the two most influential architects in irish histoy. Fitzsimons stated the bungalow revolution and Lovett Pearse the Palladian revolution. Lovett Pearse designed among others, Castletown House, 9 and 10 Henrietta Street, the Houses of Parliament on College Green and Bellamont House. Lovett Pearse definetly wins on aesthetics.

This is the state of play with my next exhibition titled "The Irish House, 900 to 2026", I have set a deadline of October 1st to have it ready. I'm a bit more than half way there, as I'm planning to have 30 models, from a ring fort to a modern mansion. The bottom photo shows the development of rural working class housing from 1600 to 1990.

The roof is done with Scalescenes textures, so printed out, cut into stips and glued on.