newbuild
Three examples of new houses are included below. Two are completed; one at Linsiadar on the Isle of Lewis and one on the West Coast at Arduaine, in Argyll. The third, on the north shore of Loch Voil in the Loch Lomond Trossachs National Park, sadly remains unbuilt but is included here to illustrate a design process in sketches and drawings.
Also, some carefully designed rural housing for a site in West Calder together with the prototype, built for the Highland Housing Expo, just outside Inverness.
And finally an example of a small community building in north Glasgow
Linsiadar
the house is on the west side of Lewis, looking across Loch Ceann Hulabhig to the stone circle of Calanais.
responding to a tough climate and local resources the house uses straightforward details and a palette of smoky-stained larch, slate, galvanised steel and good quality windows. Its unique character derives largely from its form; a tapering plan and rising ridge that reach back beyond the island’s thin 20th Century building stock to its older history in the iron age settlement of Bostadh, the brochs and the blackhouses of Carloaigh.
Calderwood
designed as a model, low-density settlement type to form part of a larger rural development in West Lothian. Boundary walls, home working other outbuildings crucially shape and shelter external space. In connection with this, a prototypical pair of houses was designed and built as part of the Highland Housing Expo at Milton of Leys, near Inverness. A light, insulative envelope surrounds a heavy masonry core of stair, bathrooms, kitchens and plant, all warmed by a big southerly window.
Tigh na Dobhran
the site lies just above the high tide line on the Argyll coast, facing across Loch Melfort toward Shuna, Scarba and Corryvreckan - a dramatic location amongst sand, rock and driftwood. As well as the marvellous views, the house captures spaces that range from tingling exposure to sheltered cave. The House was shortlisted for the Doolan Prize for the Best Building in Scotland, 2008
Balquhidder
A small stone house on the north shore of Loch Voil which was sadly never built, the owner falling ill just weeks before construction started. This was a fine lesson in building a little bit less in order to build really well. The result is a tough wee dram of a thing, understated and nestled into the wooded hillside above the local road.
Balornock
a new clubhouse pavilion for a bowling club in Glasgow which won a Civic Trust award for its architectural and social contribution to the local community. A very straightforward building, economical of means, which simply takes the measure of the green along its western edge and celebrates that pristine spread of lawn
credits:
good buildings always involve collaboration: thanks are due to Helen Baldi, Helen Campbell, Tilo Einert, Gareth Morris, Chris Platt, Ian Taggart, Margrit McLeod, Davy McAllister and Neil MacKay for their hands in the above
photography: Keith Hunter