RIBA National Award winner and House of the Year award.
Lochside House looks as though it's grown out of the ground.
It's a small-scale, sustainable home made from local materials, which sits on the edge of a lake in the West Highlands.
“This building has been tailored to its site. It’s been stitched and woven… seamed in to the tapestry of this place, and it is so much the better for it," said Kevin McCloud.
The house is formed of three finely-crafted buildings, huddled together, and a separate studio for the owner who is a ceramic artist.
The buildings are tucked into a natural fold in the landscape, clad in burnt Scottish larch and protected by a traditional drystone wall. They appear almost camouflaged.
Each has been carefully designed around established trees with roofs that echo the mountains in the distance.
Lochside House is perfectly integrated into this wild, rugged, rocky and windswept landscape.
Due to its remote location, the house is completely off-grid: all energy comes from the sun and water is pulled up from a borehole. It leaves the surrounding environment as undisturbed as possible.
"It wasn't straightforward," said
Tom Miller, the architect of Lochside House. "It was only possible because we had a client with the uncompromising determination and vision to keep pushing us to achieve our best, and a contractor’s team for whom we have enormous respect - they seemed to thrive on the unique challenges posed by building on such an exposed and inaccessible site."
Inside, the rooms are comfortably sized with a pared-back aesthetic.
Walls are lined in white oiled timber, surfaces are skimmed with a rough textured plaster and large windows at varying heights capture the stunning views.
This Lochside home was designed by Haysom Ward Miller and built by Spey, who were already known as winners of the master builders prize for Scotland.
The beautiful house is now a winner of a RIBA National Award and RIAS Award in 2018 for its sheer excellence in detail, material use and situation.
Congratulations to everyone involved.
See it on the
RIBA website.
© Richard Fraser Photography
