The Garden House

The garden house is a large extension to a long single storey stone-built cottage of a type which is commonplace in Galloway. There was an awkward arrangement of ad hoc existing extensions to the rear, which included a small kitchen and a larder, both of which had ageing flat roofs and no foundations. The only space which had any connection to the beautiful rear garden was a leaking conservatory. 

The proposed design involved stripping away these existing extensions and replacing them with a new extension containing an open plan kitchen / dining space with extensive glazing facing the garden. A sitting room within the old cottage was incorporated into the new open plan space by creating a widened opening in the original rear wall, harmoniously linking the old with the new. The design was deliberately contemporary to contrast with the traditional cottage, with a shallow pitch lean-to standing seam zinc roof and timber cladding. 

A new utility and cloakroom WC was incorporated into the extension, with direct access from the outside via a new back door. This contrasted with the existing arrangement whereby the only back door was into the conservatory, making this space a thoroughfare. 

Two large roof lights were incorporated into the new roof to bring daylight into the middle of the deep plan which resulted from the new extension and the north facing orientation. The result is a bright inside/outside space which feels surrounded by the garden. 

The design stages of this project were carried out by Graeme Ditchburn as project architect while employed at Simon Winstanley Architects. Graeme Ditchburn Architect continued the project through the construction stages to completion as a sub-consultant.