The Kennels, Contemporary house design

The site for this new house, currently under construction, is on the edge of Minnigaff. An existing stone built, single storey building on the site was the former kennels for Cumloden House. The kennels sit next to a steep bank, which leads down to a lower area of land adjacent to Penkiln Burn. The back of the kennels also takes in the view of the burn from the bank, the existing trees and also up the glen towards Cumloden House.

The proposal is to convert and extend the kennels to form a house. The strategy for the house is to retain the kennels building unaltered and use all the existing openings for windows and doors. The existing stonework would be repointed in lime mortar and the derelict roof would be replaced with a new slate roof.

The second part of the strategy for forming the house is to construct new wings of accommodation to the rear (north) and the end (west). These new wings are separated from the kennels by a glazed hallway / gallery to express the junction between old and new. The kennels and the new west extension form the private bedroom spaces and the new north extension forms the public rooms to take in the view. The new wings are situated at the top of the bank to make the most of the view.

The external expression of the house continues the above strategies by leaving the kennels unaltered and forming extensions, which are clearly new and subservient to the existing. The roofs are mono-pitch, clad with standing seam zinc and the walls are clad with self coloured render and panels of zinc. The public rooms to the view are extensively glazed. The mono-pitch roofs have clerestory glazing, which allows south light into the public rooms and east light into the master bedroom.

The house will be insulated to a high standard and constructed to reduce air infiltration. The heating system is likely to utilise a ground source heat pump connected to the underfloor heating system with a wood burning stove as back up.