Wraparound House is what happens when you go on holiday to Highland Perthshire, and it rains, constantly. Unable to contemplate yet another card game, we watched rain sheet down onto the loch beyond, and started idly drawing shapes on the windows. The hills were gentle, the site of our cottage grassy flat, with land rising up behind. Trees all around, big skies, and loud winds. We were warm and comfortable inside, squabbles about Uno notwithstanding. But we couldn’t see that much of the landscape from our spot at the kitchen table. What kind of holiday home would we self-build, if we had the time and (modest) means?
The feel we wanted was easy – a house that would sit lightly on this lovely plot, wrapping around us like a hug. Long views to the outside, obviously. But we wanted uninterrupted views inside too: streamlined design that would make the most of a relatively compact footprint. Because architects don’t have pipe dreams, they have sketch dreams, and the scaffolding for those dreams is reality. We wanted a scheme that would exude ‘clean warmth’ – tactile materials that encouraged everyone to sink into the space; while being stress-free to look after. Living in a traditional house has many perks, but dust collects in cornices; in this fantasy new build we wanted polished concrete, brick, walnut. A place to work, a place to hunker down, and a place to socialise.
With these priorities pinned down the site started speaking. We were always going to want windows running around the property, so planned for glazing and gazing. A sink with a view at one end, a snug with two at the other. Between them, a double sided fireplace breaking up the ground floor, with feature shelving for our unmanageable pile of design and engineering books.
So far, so good, what else? Second homes in Scotland have to work hard, they need to feel cosy when it’s just two of you, and spacious when there’s a crowd. So we mapped out a double height entertaining space, affording enough room upstairs for three bedrooms.
From there it was straightforward to block out a concealed pantry and utility to hide away mess, the other side of which stood a nook for tidier, professional work. Over that ran a self-supporting staircase picked out in the same wood as the minimal kitchen cabinets, which themselves led right up to the ceiling (so as not to snag the eye). Flow not friction, when we design for ourselves we use the same principles as we do for our clients. And we’re inspired by our clients’ properties too. We’ve loved using larch on several recent residential builds, so we specified that for ourselves: in wraparound (that word again) form. Large sliding doors, triple-glazed bronze-coloured aluminium frames and hidden gutters keep the form simple and reduce visual clutter. The brick-clad chimney gives the proposal its anchor. It brings weight and texture to the otherwise lightweight envelope, marking the fireplace as the warm centre of the house.
Wraparound House remains unbuilt, for now. But the exercise has developed from a wet-weather sketch into a fully worked concept: a modest rural new-build shaped by landscape, material warmth and the practical routines of family life.
