Plot 1 – Scottish Housing Expo – Stealth House

How does an architect design housing in the landscape and how can the interiors, even in simple dwellings, relate to a sense of space within?

Built as part of the Highland Housing Expo in Inverness, the building known as Stealth Terrace (named so because it is clad in a black rubber skin) built for Cairn Housing Association examined the idea of a new form of vernacular architecture. The new terrace comprises four 2/3 bedroom houses with flexible living spaces on the upper floors.

Each house has a double height volume in the living room and hall spaces. These double height volumes link to other living study/spaces where families can have degrees of privacy or the option to interact with each other. All living volumes are south facing for light and solar gain. With its black rubber cladding and ivy clad walls the Stealth Terrace aims to have a subtle presence in the landscape.

Date

2010

Client

Cairn Housing Association

Value

£650,000

The Challenge

Our three aims in this project were to explore the issues of form, materiality and space. On form, one of our aims was to explore the language of hips, gables and dormers which in many instances is often undervalued or utilised to ‘dress up’ standard developer house types.

The Solution

The house is constructed from timber and bricks set on a highly insulated JJI timber frame construction. This allows us to fold the roof like a mini landscape and respond to the different site approaches.The roof and walls are clad in an EPDM membrane which allows us to achieve the unusual geometry whilst maintaining the performance integrity of the building envelope.