Spey Building & Joinery Ltd

The Visitor Hub building was required by the residents of Canna to help cater for the influx of summer visitors either from the sea or by the ferry through provision of toilets and showers and industrial laundry and to provide a surgery room housing the peripatetic Doctor and other consultants on their island rounds.

There was also an additional requirement for a rangers' base and store and a meeting point to help enable nature tours and educational walks and talks.

The standalone building was strategically located at the start of the only road on Canna to capture the influx of visitors from the harbour.

Rural Design, who as the name implies, were the architects and are well versed in working in remote and challenging situations. We have previously worked well together and this project highlights and showcases the collective experience and skill sets of the two companies when combined.

The primary objective of this project was to demonstrate how small, highly sustainable homes could be designed to suit Scotland's remote and environmentally sensitive landscapes. Inspired by the Nordic tradition of remote summerhouses, huts, and cabins, the project embraced timber structures that sit lightly on the land. The design aimed to meet the most stringent standards of the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, a goal that will now be tested with the building in use.

Thomas Fitzgerald, Project Architect at WT Architecture, explains:

“Our design for Taigh na Coille (House of the Woods) reflects a deep response to the site’s topography and climate. Building on our experience with Scotland’s wildest landscapes, it exemplifies our ambition to create timeless buildings rooted in their materiality and context.”

The main objective was to create a family home through the refurbishment and extension of a traditional home in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. A key driver for the brief was the replacement of an adjacent steading with a contemporary extension, which could fit within the existing topography whilst seamlessly enlarging the home to be suitable for the client's family. The extension building envelope is super-insulated, and the whole project is heated by an air-source heat pump. The design was created by Brown & Brown Architects.

The principle aim was to refurbish and repurpose the original packing shed of the families shellfish export business.

Second generation family members were now looking to repurpose the packing shed into a multi-use building.

The building was to provide usable space to operate as a design studio as the Client was also the Architect, a workshop to cater for the creative moments and a gallery come showroom where the end results would be eventually displayed.

The material selection was to be as low impact and user-friendly to both installer and end user and the environment.

The project was designed by the Client, Phinn Manasseh, who is an Architect and is in the process of relocating to the area.