Two Houses, Scotland's Housing Expo, Inverness

Competition, 1st Prize

Scotland's Housing Expo, to be held in Inverness in 2010, is an opportunity to present innovative new housing typologies, demonstrating innovation in housing design, construction and sustainability.

The practice is developing proposals for two of the twenty-seven sites: plots sixteen and twenty-one, each of which seeks to develop a spatial language appropriate to the Scottish Highlands in the twenty-first century.

For sixteen, internally, the plan levels are reversed from the typical suburban home, with living accommodation on the upper level and bedrooms located below. The partitioned lower floor forms a rigid structural base, allowing the formation of a large open plan arrangement of living spaces above to take advantage of distant views. A skew in plan, to comply with the frontage requirements of the stipulated design code, leads to a spatial distortion and an asymmetric roof 'vault' spanning the entire upper level.

Client: Highland Housing Alliance / O'Brien Properties

Cost: £600,000

Area: 360 sqm

Status: Completion due spring 2010

Twenty-one develops from a traditional organisation (living accommodation at ground level, bedrooms above) but explores the potential of a spatial continuum between interior and exterior - minimising boundaries and drawing landscape and building into one spatial discipline. A detached studio building is also provided to allow home-working.