The Cundy House, Ravelston Dykes Lane Property, Edinburgh Development, Scotland Architecture
The Cundy House, Edinburgh
Contemporary Scottish Property – design by APD Architecture
29 Jul 2013
Ravelston Dykes Lane House
Design: APD Architecture
Location: Ravelston Dykes Lane, Edinburgh, Scotland
APD Architecture receives planning for new-build house on Edinburgh’s seventh hill
APD Architecture have secured planning permission for a contemporary detached house on the edge of Edinburgh’s Corstorphine Hill, an area designated with ‘Great Landscape Value’ status. This is a neighbourhood of woodland, golf courses and one-off houses – each built in the contemporary styles of their day – but, due to the protected natural character of area, permission for newer buildings has been infrequent in recent times.
image : Dalgety Design
The house sits on a private road, Ravelston Dykes Lane, and will replace an existing bungalow on site. The client brief was for generous living spaces that would take advantage of the mature gardens that enclose the site, along with fi ve bedrooms and off-street parking.
Neil Taylor, Director of APD Architecture, explains: “The building has been designed as a sequence of three volumes – two side pavilions and a central ‘tower’ – separated by glazed, recessed slots that run from front to back of the house. Each volume is offset from the other, allowing the house to be read as an informal cluster – refl ecting the lack of uniformity in the street frontage of the neighbouring buildings and mitigating the scale and mass of the new building. Angled roof planes to the two side volumes reinforce this approach, drawing from the undulating topography of the surrounding wooded hillsides.”
images from architect
A single-storey garage projects forward, topped with a planted roof which provides a foreground to the main body of the house beyond. The front garden is crossed by a ‘cundy’ (or open water channel), and this has been incorporated into the landscape design, broadening to a pool in front of the house. A simple bridge forms a new access route from the lane, leading to the garage and a projecting canopy at the entrance to the house.
Inside, the open plan living spaces – lounge, kitchen, dining room – have a southerly aspect overlooking the gardens, with the slots between each pavilion creating double-height voids within. These create thresholds between each discrete space, but also open up views between internal levels and outside onto the landscape. Upstairs, two bedrooms are placed in each of the side pavilions, while the master bedroom occupies the central tower.
The restrained palette of materials chosen for the house refl ects the sensitivity of the context and APD’s preference for simple, durable fi nishes appropriate to their setting. White rendered walls contrast with timber window frames and cladding panels. The roof planes are clad with zinc in subtle contrast to the wooded surroundings and the green roof of the lower level garage.
The Cundy House – Building Information
Project name: The Cundy House
Address: Ravelston Dykes Lane, Edinburgh
Planning permission granted: July 2013
Anticipated start on site: TBC
Area: 360sqm
Total cost: confidential
Client: confidential
The Cundy House images / information received from APD Architecture
North Edinburgh Architecture Tour
Buildings / photos for the The Cundy House – Edinburgh Architecture page welcome