Ardentinny House

The clients wanted to live in the wood, not look at it. The house is three blocks set between the trees that were already there.

House of stacked blocks in larch boarding, brick and dark stone, set on a grass slope among tall pines. — From the wood. The upper block holds the bedrooms.

Front of the house, brick on the left, dark stone block on the right, a stepping-stone path across the lawn. — The approach. The path follows the old forestry track.

A wall of tall glazing looking out into autumn birch woodland from a dark interior. — The living room glazing, facing north into the birches.

A family house in a birch wood, in brick, larch and dark slate, on a plot with no mains drainage.

The plot is a clearing in a birch and pine wood above Loch Long, with a forestry track through it and no mains drainage. The clients wanted to live in the wood rather than look at it, and asked us not to fell a single tree.

The house is three blocks set between the trees that were already there: a brick block for the kitchen and hall, a dark slate block for the living room, and a larch-clad upper block for the bedrooms. Each block is sized to the gap it sits in, which is why none of them is the same.

The living room faces north. That is the wrong way by every rule of house design, and it is the right way in this wood: the birches are lit from behind in the morning and the room never overheats in summer.

A timber frame on a concrete raft kept the excavation shallow enough to spare the roots. Built in fourteen months and handed over in June 2023, £18,000 under the tender figure.

“The fee for every stage was on one page before we signed anything, and it did not move. The architect who measured the plot was the one who signed off the last snag.”

Ruth and Calum Fraser, Homeowners · Private client

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