Sunny extension

Sunny house extension in leafy Portobello (work in progress).

Wood Awards Talk

Kieran gave a talk this week, together with Old School Frabrications and structural engineer Forshaw Gauld. Available on You Tube.

Modelling angled, stepping extension

Model of a small timber clad house extension, stepping down to the garden.

Lunchtime Talk May 10th, 1pm

Kieran is giving a talk on the practice’s Greyfriars Charteris Centre, Wednesday 10th May at 1pm. Along with @oldschoolfabrications and @forshawgauld

More info here:

Deep Retrofit

This residential project is an innovative look at renovation and retrofitting practices.

The brief was to renovate an unusual 1970s detached house, using Enerphit principles and standards: meaning lots of insulation, airtight construction, and on-site renewable energy. The client, themselves an environmental structural engineer, had a demanding brief with minimum demolition and maximum re-use of materials to maintain the existing embodied carbon in the house. We are also implementing passive heating and cooling techniques in line with the highest standards of Enerphit practice.

Our design makes extensive improvements to the house’s existing thermal performance; the original walls are retained, whilst being wrapped in a layer of natural insulation: cork at the 1^st floor and cellulose elsewhere. We have also developed a system to re-use the stone slabbing from the property’s extensively paved garden as cladding on the ground floor: working to make as close to a zero-waste project as possible. Solar shading and deep reveals to the South & West facing elevations help mitigate against overheating. And new works are low carbon, natural materials. More info on the project page here.

Technical design with Allt Environmental

Homes & Interiors Scotland

10 page article on our Marlborough Street extension & refurbishment in Homes & Interiors Scotland this month.

Thanks to words by Caroline Ednie & photographs by David Barbour.

Silecroft construction progress

Work has started on our competition-winning seafront cafe in Silecroft, Cumbria. The cafe will enhance the already beautiful beach location by providing cafe and business facilities with a stunning views of the sea and landscape.

The contractors, Roland Hills, are working hard to bring the vision to life, with a planned opening in late summer 2023. The cafe is expected to become an important part of the community.

Artist Collaboration

Konishi Gaffney has collaborated with the internationally renowned and Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Boyce on a new café and visitor centre on an exceptional beach-front site, in the Lake District National Park.

Boyce is best known for his innovative sculpture and public artworks that explore the intersection of art, design, and urban space. His work has been exhibited at venues around the world, including the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. His approach, inspired by 20th Century Modernism, often sees work that incorporates language, pattern, and repetition of form.

The artist / architect collaboration led to sliding external shutters that provide weather protection and a distinctive pattern motif for the building. The shutters are being crafted in Glasgow by Scott Associates Sculpture & Design using marine-grade stainless steel with intricate details and will provide an ever-changing pattern of dappled light and shadow inside the building and out.

The building is the result of a national architectural competition in 2019. Boyce’s commission is part of a public art programme, Deep Time: Commissions for the Lake District Coast which was commissioned by Copeland Borough Council. It is curated & produced by Aldo Rinaldi and funded by HM Government’s Coastal Communities Fund, Sellafield Ltd.’s Six Social Impact multiplied programme and Arts Council of England.

Architektur Fachmagazin

German / Austrian Architektur Fachmagazin article on Greyfriars Charteris Centre

Grand Designs Magazine

Grand Designs have published a lovely 10 page article written by Caroline Ednie on our Marlborough Street Villa.

Daniel Yanez-Cunningham

Welcome to our new part 1 intern Daniel Yanez-Cunningham.

Aberdeen University Talk

Kieran is talking today, Thursday 2.3.23 at Aberdeen University’s Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. https://www.instagram.com/fiftyseventen/

Silecroft Site Start

We won a national architectural competition for a new café on the beach at Silecroft Beach in the southwest corner of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria. After several covid-related delays we started on site in February 2023.

The site is overlooked by Black Combe Fell to the north and gives spectacular views across the Irish Sea towards the Isle of Man!

Picture of setting out 27th Feb 2023.

RIAS Awards 2023

Shortlisting for the RIAS Awards 2023…

Our project for the Greyfriars Charteris Centre (a community reworking of the old church building on The Pleasance in Edinburgh) has been shortlisted for an RIAS Award for 2023. We’re really pleased, having also won one of these serious and prestigious awards for our Lockerbie Visitor Centre in 2022.

Full announcemnet on RIAS website

Photograph by the brilliant Nanne Springer

Architects’ Journal Retrofit Awards

The AJ Retrofit Awards are announced.

We’ve been shortlisted in the Health and Community Category.

The full shortlist is as follows:

Ulster Hospital Macmillan Unit by Avanti Architects

RSBC Centre by EPR Architects

Maidstone Bus Station by Felix Lewis Architects

The Africa Centre by Freehaus

Charteris Centre by Konishi Gaffney

Kinning Park Complex by New Practice

Jubilee Pool by ScottWhitbyStudio

Low Line arches by TDO

Detail Magazine [German]

We’re published in DETAIL Magzine.Was once our ambition to be published by DETAIL as they publish a great magazine and books, but they published our dormer project in 2015.

(Kieran used to be able to speak German, living in Berlin for three years in the mid 1990s, so is very fond of German language and culture).