PICTURES: North west Sutherland home wins top prize and is hailed as an 'examplar' for future buildings in battle against climate change
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A TWO-BEDROOM, modular home in north west Sutherland has won a top architectural award.
An Cala, which overlooks Loch Nedd, scooped the Scottish Forestry/Wood for Good Award, a special category award of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland’s (RIAS) Award.
Planning permission was in place for a conventional, white-walled, slate roof house on the site.
But designers Dunkeld-based Mary Arnold-Forster Architects wanted to respect the surrounding landscape of rocks, heather, peat and grass.
Instead they opted for a low, single-storey house lifted up off the land using lightweight timber construction to avoid a concrete slab or disturbing any of the rock beneath.
The house was designed on a fixed grid that related to the size of lorry that could navigate the tortuous road leading to the site.
Contractor Carbon Dynamic built the home’s 13 modules in their factory near Inverness, before these were delivered to site and erected in just four days.
Each module is built of fir-lined, cross laminated timber, with a wood fibre external insulation and a charred, thin, larch rain screen cladding – an interpretation of the birch in winter.
Inside, a timber-lined corridor linking the three main living spaces ends in a framed view of Loch Nedd.
An Cala’s construction means that it could potentially be taken down and moved, while the larch cladding panels can be lifted off with no fixings for easy repair or reuse.
RIAS president Christina Gaiger: “It would have been so easy to build another white-walled bungalow on this site – so all credit to Mary-Arnold Forster Architects and their clients for daring to do something different.
"The result is outstanding – a truly beautiful home that demonstrates the incredible versatility and environmental benefits of building with wood. An Cala is a real exemplar – demonstrating that low-energy and low-impact timber construction will be fundamental as we tackle the climate emergency, without any compromise in terms of architectural quality or comfort."
