Pond House by Technique Architecture & Design

Raised up on a plinth over its steeply sloping site in Kilmalcolm, Pond House is a stylish single storey villa, taking its place alongside genteel neighbours which include Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Windyhill. The exceptional garden — already mature when the Client purchased the site — includes a pond at its foot, over which the principal living space of this house provides a lofty vantagepoint. The garden defines the organization of the house more broadly, with a mostly solid wall to the entrance elevation ensuring a sense of domestic seclusion for the house and garden behind.

The exterior of Petersen brick and vertical timber is consciously drawn from the colour and texture of the rocky ground and the garden growing out of it. Internally a sequence of rooms is arranged off a spine corridor, each taking in glorious views across the garden to the Gryffe Valley, with the living room projecting further forward, making use of a naturally occurring projection in the contour.

At the most private end of the site an artists studio pavilion is separated from the main body of the house by a small courtyard: 'a wonderful space to work' according to the artist client, who’s influence in curation of an outstanding collection of art and the striking use of colour throughout the completed project brings further delight to the interiors. 

Campus Central, University of Stirling by Page\Park Architects

Arranged on wooded slopes around Airthrey Loch near Bridge of Allan, so picturesque is the Stirling University campus that on arrival it was remarked by the jury that it has the air of an alpine research institute. The estate includes outstanding buildings by Scottish practices Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall and Morris & Steedman, in both cases carried out during their mid-nineteen sixties pomp, and the masterplan as a whole represents a realization of C20th modernist aspirations for education and for architecture. Until recently however there has been a flaw at the heart of this masterplan: a ‘spatial knot’ of poor accessibility exacerbated by the presence of a bus terminal and roundabout.

Campus Central by Page\Park Architects has resolved this problem. Part new build and part extensive reuse of a 1970’s steel framed structure the building and its associated landscape by Raeburn Farquhar Bowen has brought generosity and simplicity to the circulation, and a welcoming central entrance to the wider campus. 

The architecture deals confidently with significant site constraints, resulting in a characterful and well executed new addition, but it is in the clever augmentation and marrying together with the old that a newly flexible and humane environment has been provided for learning, studying and pastoral support.

House at Diabeg by Dualchas

Overlooking the north shore of Loch Torridon the small village of Diabaig is located at the tip of what is one of the most remarkable landscapes anywhere in the British Isles. This appropriately robust and modestly scaled house occupies the top of a small promontory, with the visibly new part lodged between a rock outcrop and a re-positioned and reconstructed ruin. 

'I don’t have lots of stuff — I like to live quite simply' — the clarity and elegance of the client’s brief for this little house is exemplified by the consideration given to the rocky slab that the larch clad new volume abuts as a patio accessible from the kitchen — a natural outdoor room.

Materials and detailing are durable and well handled — with a satisfying consistency of approach that marries the elemental simplicity of the plan to the material resolution.

Pilmour House by Nicol Russel Studio

This is a courteous and well detailed project, reflecting the culture and corporate personality of the client, St Andrews Links Trust. The building hierarchy entails both conservative and progressive elements: sited in a famously and meticulously maintained landscape the building is, in the words of it’s architect, 'quietly grounded'.

This hierarchy carries through to the to the interior with an internal arrangement of foyer, circulation and cellular offices combined with more relaxed open plan spaces. It is most successful on the ground floor where a generously proportioned double fronted workspace takes in the surrounding landscape, from mature trees close by on the southern elevation to views northwards across the wide open links landscape to the Eden Estuary. 

A minor but telling detail: the interior upholstery in this space is wittily and accurately colour matched to the methodically watered greens. Pilmour House is notable for the neat implementation of a considered and tightly coordinated design: the result of a committed client and the clearly productive relationship on site between the Project Architect and the contractor, Robertsons.

Laidlaw Music Centre by Flanagan Lawrence

The University of St Andrews Laidlaw Music Centre caters for professional, student and community users alike. It is a considerate and well composed addition to the city’s ancient center, complimenting its listed neighbours. The plan meaningfully connects to the streetscape and the east elevation steps smartly in response to mature tree canopies. 

Close up the building exhibits an unexpected and appealing informality: musical instruments are visibly stored along a glazed edge of the ground floor, a balcony over the entrance provides for adhoc outdoor performances towards the newly defined quad below.

Alongside the suite of rehearsal and practice spaces contained within the building, the main performance space — the McPherson Recital Room — incorporates two world firsts for a chamber hall: a fully mechanized floor beneath it and a reverberation chamber above. These innovations allow the space to be tuneable both spatially and acoustically. The result of the latter, as demonstrated on the day of our visit by University Director of Music — and cellist — Michael Downes, is glorious.

RIAS/TSA Scotland’s Client of the Year Award

The commitment of St Andrews University to this project has resulted in a beautiful building that is generous and welcoming to the community while being highly sophisticated in its technical performance. 

'Uniting town and gown' the Laidlaw Music Centre hosts professional performers and local players alike. This openness to the community beyond the university faculty was a feature of the initial brief and is now evident in the operation of the completed building.

While this project delivers excellent acoustic and spatial performance throughout, the university’s dedication to excellence can be measured above all by the achievement of world leading innovations in the design and realization of the McPherson Recital Room. Bravo.