KDP Offices, Hillside House

Kearney Donald Partnership acquired a 2-storey house in 2005 with a view to converting the building into new offices for themselves. The main building is a 2-storey stone built villa with a  dual pitched slate roof. The building dates from the early 1800’s but had been extended over the years. We demolished the various extensions and added a new 2 ¾ storey timber frame extension to the east end of the house.

The building is adjacent to a Grade A listed Church. We were encouraged by the Highland Council Conservation Officer to make a modern statement with our office extension. We required sufficient floor area that dictated a 3-storey extension but with a relatively small footprint with 2 no. projecting 1^st floor bays providing additional floor area.

The larger bay to the front is “hung” from the 2^nd floor joists and tied back at first floor level. This led to a lightweight external construction of 100mm thick timber frame clad with Siberian Larch on battens.

We wanted to create a strong geometric panel arrangement and therefore introduced rebated 70 x 70mm larch posts at 1150mm centres. Individual 22mm x 150mm bevelled edge Siberian Larch boards were fixed with a 10mm shadow gap all round.

The projected bay is roofed with code 5 lead with the soffit of the bay finished with the Siberian Larch boarding. Lighting is incorporated into the soffit of each bay.