Before
After
When we visited the clients they already had a good idea where the new building was to be sited since they wanted the existing structure replaced. The brief was to maintain the existing trees, make the best of the view and the available sunshine and to provide a compact room that would serve both as a sunroom and an occasional bedroom.
It was important to them that any building must fit into the natural landscape as best as possible and must not obscure the limited view from the house. To this end we used natural materials and designed the structure to be compact and of minimum height. The orientation of the structure was determined both by the view down the loch side and also the sunlight available with regard to the existing trees.
Access to the site was good so we installed a concrete slab base which was completely hidden at completion by a timber skirt. The surrounding garden ground suffered minimal disturbance and very little work was required on completion to make good the site.
The windows were custom built by Treecraft Woodwork and incorporated our panoramic option to make best use of the view and the available sunlight. The added benefit of these windows is that they catch so much thermal energy that the structure required very little heating.
The exterior cedar was left natural so that it would require no maintenance. Of course there is an option to oil the cedar which maintains it’s original look but does then require an annual re-coat.
The project took a total of four weeks and was featured in a national magazine - Move or Improve magazine which is a sister magazine to Homebuilding and Renovating.
