Duns Housing, Scotland Homes Photos, Project, Award, Design, New Property Images

Todlaw Supported Housing, Scottish Borders

Contemporary Scottish Borders Building – design by Oliver Chapman Architects

17 Nov 2010

Todlaw Two

Design: Oliver Chapman Architects, Edinburgh

Date: 2010

Photos: Michael Collins

Todlaw – Phase Two Duns, Berwickshire, Scottish Borders

Todlaw – Phase Two has recently been completed and augments the adjacent award-winning Supported Housing development (Todlaw Phase One featured in ‘AJ’ 19.06.08 ‘Model Homes’)

The project comprises twelve flats for affordable rent, arranged into three blocks each of which contains four flats. The project was commissioned by Berwickshire Housing Association’s Development Director, the late Alan Stuart, and is located across the road from Oliver Chapman Architects’ RIBA Regional Award winning supported housing for the same client in 2008.

The earlier scheme is characterized by its inherently simple forms, recessed eaves detailing and controlled material palette. These elements reappear in this second phase, but adapted to suit the two storey blocks

All flats have private gardens, with living rooms directed towards the garden in each flat’s ownership. Kitchen windows look into the external stairs and out across the agricultural landscape beyond.

The gable ends are articulated by external stairs to the upper flats with sheltered landings providing an opportunity for good neighbourliness. This feature is evident in many traditional Scottish coastal towns, as well as the sought-after colony houses in Edinburgh.

The external walls of each block are treated as two interlocking shells; an outer shell of dark blue engineering brick facing the open landscape, and a softer larch clad shell (relating to the supported housing across the road). The brick and timber surfaces are separated visually by the stairs to the first floor.

Cars are tucked between the gable ends thus allowing space for soft landscaping in front of the houses. In this way, the unsightly arrangement of cars crowded along the pavement edge is avoided.

The houses are timber framed construction incorporating mineral wool insulation within timber joist and a dry lining system forming separating floors and walls. Ground source heat pumps provide both space and water heating to further reduce annual carbon emissions:

Annual CO2 emissions:
First floor flats- 15kg/m2
Ground floor flats- 15kg/m2

Most architects’ repertoire of house types often include flats, terraced, semis and detached houses but the unimaginatively named ‘four in a block’ typology is rarely plucked from any mental ‘pattern book’. It was commonplace fifty years ago but rather neglected ever since, however, this new development reminds us of the good neighbourliness engendered by such carefully interlocking private boundaries.

Todlaw – Phase Two Duns – Building Information

Client: Berwickshire Housing Association
Architects: Oliver Chapman Architects
Project Architect: Michael Collins
Engineer: McKay and Partners
QS: D I Burchell + Partners
Contractor: James Swinton & Sons
Contract Value: £1,080.000

Previously:

Todlaw Housing

Oliver Chapman Architects, Edinburgh

Date: 2007

Photos: Angus Bremner

RIAS Best Building in Scotland Award Finalist 2008

RIAS Citation

The strategy of using a housing rather than an institutional model for the care of people with substantial disabilities and illnesses has been carried out with clarity and has produced a piece of housing which would be admirable for any occupation. The occupants feel that they are living in the town in the same way as everyone else. Clearly this is a project of great significance to its users.

This is a project with an extremely low budget yet the architects have achieved buildings of quality and beauty. Economy is achieved in the repetition of built elements but distinctions are achieved through shifts in colour and orientation.

There is a delicate play between consistency and variation. The arrangement offers beautiful vistas and composition.

Todlaw Supported Housing – Building Information

Todlaw Supported Housing, Station Court, Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland, UK
Architect: Oliver Chapman Architects
Client: Berwickshire Housing Association
Contractor: J Swinton Ltd
Contract Value: £1.4million
Date of completion: October 2007
Gross internal area: 1,120 sqm

Todlaw Supported Housing was one of 5 Scottish 2008 RIBA Award winners

Oliver Chapman

Location: Duns, Scotland, north western Europe