Strachan house, Banchory home, Aberdeenshire property, Building, Northeast Scottish rural architecture

Strachan House in Banchory

Contemporary Residential Property in Royal Deeside. Northeast Scotland home design by Moxon Architects.

Design: Moxon Architects

Location: Banchory, Lower Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Northeast Scotland

New Banchory home is anchored to Scottish hillside overlooking the Water of Feugh

11 Feb 2016

Strachan House near Banchory

Set in the rolling landscape of Lower Deeside, Strachan House is a contemporary family home set into a steep landscape, made up of a series of connected volumes that utilise the banked terrain. Although the house is largely a linear composition, a slight angle in the line of the building creates a courtyard entrance, providing shelter from the prevailing wind.

Internally, the primary living spaces are used to form connections between rooms, reducing the need for corridors and allowing for a compact built form. The ‘ground floor’ is broken up into four different levels that drop down in line with the gradient of the site.

The house is visually anchored to the hillside by a terrace area built from drystane granite walling and matching an existing dyke that runs along the south of the site. In contrast, the middle portion of the house is formed of untreated timber and large windows taking in a sweeping view of nearby Clachnaben. Above this, a gently formed zinc roofline changes the material palette once again. This outline reflects the shape of distant hills, while the eaves pick up the slope of the site.

Architect Scott Gibb said: “this house is the product of a number of constraints, which we have enjoyed exploring immensely. Material selection and the compact nature of internal spaces mean that this house is working incredibly hard for the owners.”