Highland Retreat
Highland RetreatKnightsbridge ApartmentLittle Chester StreetSuffolk FarmsteadGarden StudioCarriage HouseNorth VatBrick HouseChelsea Art StudioKensington ApartmentWhite Eagle HousePocket LivingPiccadilly HotelBelgravia TownhouseKensington TownhouseHans Town ApartmentSartor HousePimlico TownhouseWandsworth HouseSouthwark HouseFormer EmbassyCorner CottageNotting Hill TownhouseArtist’s ResidenceReading ProjectBryggen HytteAmbassadors HotelElephant & Castle ProjectDorchester ParadeBrandsby Hall
Offering generous views over Glen Affric in the Caledonian pinewoods, our proposed Highland Retreat provides a place of refuge and repose away from the pressures of the city. It is designed with reference to the topography of the hill and the silhouette of the mountains beyond. As such, it not only engages with, but contributes productively to the natural terrain, its sedum roof and reflective glazing collapsing the binary between organic and synthetic.
An expansive sitting room area faces westwards from an upper storey to provide an incredible panorama, while an advanced thermal spa facility frames the dense native vegetation from the floor below. Roof and base slabs expressed in visual concrete provide a neutral base from which to observe the loch. In building on a v-shaped plan visibly projecting from the hill, our practiced architects afford their work an ethereal quality. Reaching for and reflecting the ever-changing deciduous woodlands, it is at once present and absent, in a constant state of flux.
As with the principal building, the massing and materials of the neighbouring boathouse is restrained and in-keeping with the existing cluster of buildings on the working agricultural estate. It comprises a pair of pitched roof pavilions, each generously glazed, clad in durable locally sourced timber, and resting on an exposed concrete plinth.
