Houses in the suburbs tend to conform to suburban conventions like having front gardens, cars parked in front of houses and projecting dormers and entrance porches. Houses in rural Scotland however can ‘let their hair down’ more than those in the suburbs.

These are prototypes for rural houses where typically there’s more land going spare so all the rooms can be at ground level and the houses can be directed towards the view with less concern about privacy from passers by in the street. They have been designed with a budget similar to those used in the affordable housing sector.

The bedroom and kitchens face one way, living and dining areas face the other to make the most of the different directions of morning and afternoon sun. The plan’s ‘L’ shape means that the houses be arranged so that they interlock forming a small entrance courtyard which shelters the recessed porch from prevailing winds. The skewed roof ridges continue the twisting and pivoting effect of the composition and the ceilings within the houses themselves rise and fall to create a dynamic spatial arrangement.

Three layers of overlapping Cedar shingles, which have a natural pleasant aroma, shed rain water off the walls and roof into aluminum rainwater gutters and pipes.

The construction is a development of timber frame, prevalent in the Scottish Housing building sector, that uses waste woodfibre boards on the outside of the framing to greatly improve heat retention through the walls and roof. These boards replace the standard plastic breather membrane. A service void on the inside face of the walls greatly reduces the heat lost through unnecessary penetrations for services such as electricity socket boxes and extract fans. Overall, the houses demonstrate how energy efficiency can be achieved by simply adapting a technique such as timber frame used extensively in Scotland without the need for importing building systems from abroad.

We think its best to get the basics right first before resorting to adding renewable energy devices to supply hea so our focus has been to get the best energy performing building ‘envelope’ that we can within the modest budget and then have a renewable source for supplying heat only when really necessary. The walls and roof construction are A+ rated according to the Building Research Establishment’s Green Guide to Specification. High energy efficiency benchmarks were set by OCA at the outset to ensure these elements achieve considerably improved heat loss values compared to Building Standards at the time of application:

Roof +42%, Walls +25%, Windows +22%

An air exhaust heat pump exploits the temperature differential between inside and outside by exchanging heat in the air to heat in a water circuit. This is used to heat the rooms via underfloor heating and hot water for the taps.

Client: Highland Housing Alliance

Completion summer 2010

Awards

Won in international competition 2007