The Ark, completed in 2024, is a new ecological timber-based, sustainable semi-detached house built as part of a rural multi-generational community for an eldery couple in Dalmally, Argyll, Scotland.
This new house sits adjacent to an elderly couple's previous dwelling as a fully accessible building with rigorous insulation and heating needs met. It nestles against the West gable, with complimentary proportions and natural hard-wearing materials. The previous dwelling has been retained in full, now housing the couple's children in order to help care for them as they age.
The design resonates with a rural Scottish vernacular, wrapped in locally sourced Douglas fir cladding that will weather to a natural silver over time. The project was driven by a desire to produce a warm, light, comfortable internal architecture appropriate to the climate. The building is approached by the North elevation, which balances the environmental desire to be closed off with a need to create a welcoming face, using a long covered threshold to mark the transition with the wider outdoors.
The building pioneers design principles implemented at a frugal low-cost housing level that combine low energy in-use with low embodied carbon in construction. The use of timber frame, Scottish Hemp insulation, wood-wool and a wet lime-hemp plaster in the interior are carbon-sequestering but also work to enhance thermal mass and lend a kind acoustic feel similar to older buildings, as well as passively managing internal air humidity and maintaining the breathability of the fabric.
Throughout the project intends to prove that we can build low carbon, low-cost, contextual rural housing that results in significantly better interior and exterior architectural quality to mainstream modern house-building without bursting the bank.
The use of local, low-carbon materials, primarily timber, and careful attention to sizing and proportion of windows and the roof overhangs play a large part creating an architecture that is climate sensitive, inviting and a bit fun.
As an ecological new build house, the Ark represents a response to the requirement to create close-knit and sustainable rural communities in a part of Scotland that has been depopulated for a long time, something Croftworks is passionate about.
