I organised an afternoon of CPD talks last week entitled ‘Breathability and low energy retrofit’. The session, organised for ECAN and a joint event with CIBSE, was held at the RIAS, in Rutland Square Edinburgh and attended by about 30 architects, engineers and academics. It turned out to be a thought-provoking afternoon with some excellent speakers (see
Last week I spent another glorious day surveying trees in woodland near Abbey St. Bathans in the Scottish Borders. These are to be used as posts and beams in two new buildings that I am designing for Happy Days, a nursery in Dalkeith. But we’re not just looking for any old posts and beams – we’re
Last night the Thousand Huts campaign launched its ‘New hutting developments: Good practice guidance on the planning, development and management of huts and hut sites’ at the Scottish Parliament. It is a comprehensive document with many seductive photos of huts, both old and new, to help planners and hut builders respond to the emerging opportunities for
Halvorsen Architects was recently granted planning permission to enlarge Happy Days nursery near Edinburgh, for a design that reinforces the pre-school facility’s green ethos. The client, Genesis, which owns and operates several nurseries across Scotland’s central belt, chose Halvorsen Architects after seeing our timber building projects with local primary schools. Genesis promotes a healthy lifestyle
New build at Eco-Nursery using natural materials Read More »
I was slightly disappointed when the 2015 RIBA House of the Year was announced in December last year. The winner is worthy – Flint House by Skene Catling De La Pena – but I was seduced by the less iconic but more subtle short-listed Vaulted House in Chiswick, London. At first glance it is not so alluring
A recently completed extension to a Victorian house in Leith, Edinburgh, this project was designed to maximise the light coming in from the client’s south-facing garden. It’s a large, single room for sitting, dining and showing films. The new multi-purpose room is pulled away to the rear of the original stone building with a three-metre wide link,
Marijuana may be great for getting high, but the architectural value of cannabis is in the industrial hemp that forms a vital ingredient of products including hempcrete. Hempcrete is low-tech natural building material made from the chopped stalk of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder. It is carbon-negative in that it absorbs carbon dioxide
As part of the wood workshops I run with Stephanie Walker, Wooploft was one of the most ambitious. Pupils from Tynewater Primary School’s P7 class designed and built the structure in one year year under the auspices of International Year of the Forest, and with a grant from the Forestry Commission. The aims of
I am delighted to learn that Assemble has won this year’s Turner prize. Assemble is a London based architecture collective carrying out innovative low-cost work with local communities and arts organisations. There has already been some discussion about is this art? Bearing in mind some of the conceptual art that has won the prize over the past 20 years
As co-chair of Gorebridge Community Development Trust I sent this letter to the Midlothian Advertiser. Unfortunately it seems that nothing can be done now to change the council’s mind but a lot of people are very angry. Dear Editor, Gorebridge Community Development Trust is dismayed and troubled by the recent decision by Midlothian Council Local Review
Disappointing planning decision by Midlothian Council Read More »
Marco Biagi MSP, minister for local government and community empowerment, visited Gorebridge Community Development Trust in August. It was a valuable meeting and gave us the opportunity to quiz him about the Scottish government’s Community Empowerment Bill and also to share some of our frustrations regarding our new community hub. We explained the problems we have had
Here are a couple of recent extensions to sandstone Georgian houses in Midlothian, both using a timber frame, timber cladding and large areas of glass. Both use Siberian Larch as the external cladding, but in different arrangements to suit each particular building. Siberian Larch is a popular cladding material with architects because of its durability, cost
Last year a colleague asked me to join her in designing an installation that represents DNA and it’s unchecked mutations that can lead to cancer. She is a poet and wanted a sculpture related to her poetry and also a place where one could listen to the poetry. Excited by this interesting proposal I met
This is an article that I wrote that appeared in the latest issue (No. 36) of AHSS – The Magazine of the Architectural Heritage of Scotland. I was asked to write an article that covered the history and architecture of hutting presumably in the wake of the recent change in planning laws to define a
Work has started on the new £2m Community Hub in Gorebridge, Midlothian! After six years of brain storming, planning, consultations and negotiations with all the stakeholders we have finally arrived. There have been many set backs along the way mainly due to timing. We embarked on our, possibly over ambitious, project early in 2008 when
It is Spring, or so we are told. I have had the best skiing in Scotland for a long time. Who needs the Alps. I have just returned from visiting Wooploft with two of my children to see how it fared in the Winter. Wooploft is the ‘den’ that we made with my son’s primary
One of the highlights of last year for me was working with P7 pupils from Tynewater Primary School on a community project to build a wooden ‘hut’ which cantilevers over the banks of Allan Water at Wooplaw Wood. More about this in a later blog. Another event worthy of celebration was completing the funding package
Edinburgh Chartered Architects Network (ECAN), the largest network of small architectural practices in Scotland, held an exhibition at the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The exhibition was held at RIAS in Rutland Square in October to celebrate the group’s achievements over the previous decade and incorporated a selection
