The main living area consists of two interconnected cubes. This has oak floors and a fireplace at one end, flanked by sliding doors, which open on to a terrace. Walls on one side of the room are constructed from translucent cast glass.

The kitchen is at the other end, with a worktop creating a dividing line. The solid walls are white.

Apart from this, oak boards, cast glass and stainless steel are the interior’s key materials.

The bathroom and sleeping spaces are in the final cube. Rooflights, windows and glass walls allow plenty of light to flood the living area. According to the architect’s description, it is “like a Roman house; its life is focused inwards or to a particular vista”.

Brady says: “I thought it had a sense of originality and of style about it that was just a little different from everything else I’d seen.”

McCullough Mulvin is a firm more used to winning prizes for larger projects. It is responsible for a number of prominent public buildings, including the new Ussher library in Trinity College Dublin, which it designed with Keane Murphy Duff, and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Hall, which was designed with RKD.

Trinity’s new library has been almost universally acclaimed and won the Downes bronze medal, the top prize in the AAI competition.

The firm initially caught the public’s eye as a result of projects such as Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and Black Church Print Studio, both of which are in Temple Bar.

More recently, schemes in the west of Ireland such as the Model Arts and Nil and Gallery in Sligo and the restoration of the Sligo courthouse have garnered positive critical noises. One of its more unusual projects was a purpose-built monastery for the enclosed Dominican sisters of St Catherine of Siena. This was built on a greenfield site outside Drogheda in Co Louth.

Recently, it designed apartments on Grafton Street for the developer Johnny Ronan, including an ultra-modern penthouse overlooking College Green.

Just one other one-off housing project was given a special mention by the AAI judges. This was Precast Lines, a private house for an artist designed by Dominic Stevens. Aside from Angela Brady, the panel of judges comprised two other architects, plus the artist Corbin Walker and Deyan Sudjic, the architecture critic.

As is the case with all contemporary architecture, there is the risk that the winning entry might not stand the test of time. Brady says: “Yes it will probably look a bit dated in 10 years’ time or so, but this is the case with most contemporary architecture. I think this one broke a little bit of ground. It got away from that rash of cedar boarding we’ve seen in recent years.”

But whether or not this little house is still one of the trendiest kids on the block a decade from now, it cannot get any more square.

An exhibition of the winning entries will open on April 28 and run until May 2 in the Atrium at the Office of Public Works, 51 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2

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