The Glasgow-based studio’s proposal, jointly designed with landscape architect Dan Pearson, features a ‘modest’ single-storey private house on a remote hillside site in the Morar, Moidart and Ardnamurchan National Scenic Area, on the west coast of Scotland.
The 30ha undeveloped site sits roughly half a mile south of Commando Rock, where Brown & Brown have proposed a controversial Modernist house for McCartney. The practice defended its scheme against a slew of objections last week.
Loader Monteith’s design, lodged with The Highland Council, is for a two-bedroom house with a central open-plan kitchen and living area, a spacious south-facing terrace, and space for car parking.
The low-lying hillside house, which curves into its landscape at either end, would include a timber, glass, and random course stone wall façade, a green roof and landscaping including low-carbon concrete terraces and steps.
Loader Monteith and Dan Pearson designed the home and landscaping for client Dan Holliday, who chairs a London-based, employee-owned content agency, Not Actual Size.
Source:Alex Mackison/Axson Office/Loader Monteith
Loader Monteith’s Highlands house
Holliday told the AJ that Loader Monteith and Dan Pearson had ‘prioritised treading lightly in terms of environmental impact’ in the design, which was developed with a local ecologist, Upland Ecology.
While Brown & Brown’s proposal for McCartney has recieved more than 50 objections, Loader Monteith’s house for Holliday has only received three.
Holliday explained: ‘We sense most of the tensions being generated by the [McCartney] plot are to do with the amount of trees lost, the impact on [an alleged] otters den, and the restricted access to a public beach.’
He added: ‘On a personal level I’m a big fan of the bold aesthetic of the building design they have proposed [but in my opinion] it could just be more sensitive to the immediate surroundings.’
Source:Brown and Brown Architects
Brown & Brown Architects’ proposals for the nearby Commando Rock
Loader Monteith also expressed its support for Brown & Brown’s McCartney proposal, saying that it ‘seems to have been met with an unfortunate amount of objections for such a rigorous scheme, which is a great shame’.
The practice told the AJ its own design represents a ‘thoughtful, sustainable, and highly contextual architectural response’ to the Roshven area, using new construction in a way that focuses ‘on landscape and materials as much as client and community’.
And Dan Pearson said the house was designed ‘to be subservient to the landscape’, with ‘a light touch and low intervention’.
Pearson said to achieve this the designers used an existing drive and ‘already established footprint’, with ‘minimal removals’.
He added: ‘By comparison, the site is also inland and less visible from the sea than the McCartney scheme.’
Interventions listed in a landscaping plan by Dan Pearson Studio include controlling the invasive rhododendrons on the site and regenerating native woodland, including birch.
Loader Monteith Architects, set up by Matt Loader and Iain Monteith in 2016, was featured in the AJ’s Glasgow’s new practices, six years on series earlier this year.
Source:Loader Monteith/Dan Pearson Studio (Taken from planning documents)
Plan and landscape approach