House at Belladrum

IAA Best Building Award 2008 – Inverness Area

In this house at Belladrum large areas of glazing form one side of the living area. This makes for a strong connection with the surrounding garden and opens views to the Strathfarrar hills in the distance.
Striking a balance between introducing light and sun into the house and maintaining an economic and low carbon approach to heating can be a delicate matter which requires to be discussed fully with the client.

In recent houses we have used increasing amounts of glass balanced by greater attention being paid to insulating other parts of the house . This approach does reveal the increasing difficulty that we find with trying to emulate traditional buildings which are often unable to offer the same quality of light . These issues are best resolved by allowing constant interplay of ideas between client and architect and at Belladrum Mairi Ross certainly played a positive role contributing fresh ideas and offering a flexibility of approach which kept the design process moving