Project: Braidhaugh Woodland Home
Location: Scottish Borders
Type: New-build

Settled in a sloping woodland site near Bonchester Bridge in the Scottish Borders, this new-build home takes its cues from the robust, weathered agricultural sheds on adjacent farms. Pale Scottish Larch and rusted metal sheets are proposed for their ease of construction and low embodied carbon, as well as to complement the tonality of the surrounding Birch woodland. The building’s form translates and simplifies traditional rural motifs: a steep roof pitch with concealed gutters, a fireplace in larch rather than stone, and a porch which becomes an overhang carved out of the primary volume.

The new home is to facilitate the return of the site to it’s historic function as a coppiced woodland, with the harvested wood to be used in the education of woodwork and bushcraft techniques locally. The development footprint is to be minimal, and is sited to avoid the removal of any trees, with further native tree and ground cover species to be planted to increase the biodiversity of the site.