tóg

Building or renovating your own home should be one of the best things you ever do. In reality, for many people it becomes a process defined by what they didn't know to ask — decisions made too early, opportunities missed that can't be recovered, and a finished house that could have been so much more.

That's the problem I set up tóg to solve.

Every site has something to give — a view that opens up from an unexpected angle, a change in level that creates a natural threshold, an orientation that could flood a kitchen with morning light. Most houses ignore all of it. They present a façade to the road and leave everything else on the table. I don't work that way. Every project starts with a serious appraisal of what the site is actually offering, and the design grows from that — not from a template, not from what worked on the last job.

I'm an RIAI and RIBA registered architect and a certified Passive House Designer, working primarily across the northwest of Ireland and Belfast. I work with a small number of clients at a time — that's deliberate. It means I'm the person you're talking to from the first conversation to the day you get your keys.

Before establishing tóg I worked with McGonigle McGrath Architects and MMAS, among others — practices with a serious approach to design and making. The RSUA Bronze Medal for my undergraduate thesis and a nomination for the RIBA Silver Medal for my Masters gave me an early grounding in rigorous design thinking that I've carried into practice.

If you have a site, a house you want to transform, or just a question you don't yet know how to ask — get in touch. That first conversation is where it usually starts.

Ivor Hession.

RIBA and RIAI registered, Ivor established tóg following experience at several of Ireland's most awarded practices — McGonigle McGrath, MMAS, and ArdMackel Architects — where he contributed to projects including Lessans House and the Sportlann at Coláiste Feirste. He has lectured at the Belfast School of Architecture at Ulster University across design, construction technology, and drawing production.

Ivor holds the RSUA Bronze Medal for his undergraduate design thesis and was nominated for the RIBA Silver Medal for his Masters dissertation, Context [is everything].