Breathing new life into an iconic piece of heritage landscape
Craighouse Campus
Client
Quartermile Developments
Progress
Ongoing
This masterplan breathes new life into these historically significant buildings and iconic landscape, enabling their long-term sustainable future.
The background
Oberlanders’ masterplan breathes new life into Craighouse, an estate dating back to the 16th century, sensitively transitioning the nationally significant buildings and landscape into a residential development which, in the 1880s, housed an institutional hospital owned by the NHS.
Craighouse is designated an 'Area of Great Landscape Value', with part of the site being a local nature reserve and conservation area.
The design approach
Classified as ‘enabling development’, the project secures the long-term sustainable future of the fifty-acre site, sensitively inserting new buildings within the landscape context, while reconfiguring the original seven category A listed buildings into sixty-four homes. Oberlanders are leading the masterplanning, full architectural design and visualisation of the existing buildings, from concept through to completion.
The oldest of the buildings, ‘Old Craig’, dates back to the 16th Century, and has been meticulously restored and converted back to a single private home, as was its original intent. During the restoration process, the team peeled back the layers of development, revealing important original features that had been concealed for centuries. Traditional lime render, with a unique pink hue based on an historic recipe, assists in preserving the exterior stonework.
The remaining buildings all date from the late 19th Century, built in the free renaissance style, primarily constructed of red sandstone with blonde dressings. Highly ornate with a wealth of intricate detailing including towers and turrets, the restoration of these buildings has utilised highly skilled craftsmen working in traditional techniques.
Through a careful balance of conservation and design innovation, every property offers a bespoke combination of heritage and contemporary luxury.
Internal layouts were originally designed to be sensitively secure and deliberately labyrinthian, but are now reimagined through internal interventions that subdivide spaces into smaller residences while respecting the character through the restoration of significant original features.
A rigorous approach to conservation has led to a raft of awards in specialist trades, including the quality of the traditional lead detailing and slate to New Craig’s roof. Original sash windows have been carefully overhauled, keeping new timber elements to a minimum by retaining period features.
Perhaps the most iconic of the buildings, ‘New Craig’, features a tower rising above the tree line. New Craig’s stunning Great Hall, the centrepiece of the development, has been saved from dereliction, providing a central event space and focal point for residents. Built in the Baronial style, the hall’s original features of ornate panelling and classical pilasters with gilded cornice have been meticulously restored.
The Great Hall
The Great Hall
The importance of landscape was clear from the start, given how closely the context of buildings and landscape are entwined. The historical institutional use of the site denuded most of the landscape’s therapeutic character and so a considered landscape design strategy reinvigorates the complex historical identity of the site. An enhanced woodland management strategy has been adopted to preserve the woodland and nature reserve.
This highly sensitive restoration project, fully mindful of costs and commercial viability, called upon extensive collaboration with Historic Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, Architecture & Design Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council.
There’s a responsibility that comes with designing within a sensitive historical context like Craighouse, where buildings and landscape combine to create a genuinely iconic sense of place. Our challenge was to sensitively repurpose and sustain this inheritance, within significant contemporary cost constraints and challenges, to secure the buildings and their settings for future generations, We’re proud to have honoured and celebrated the past, while being pragmatic in the creation of new homes that are more than fit for modern-day living.
Andrew Wilmot
Partner
Photography
Planography
