Tigh-Na-Cladach
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| Tigh-Na-Cladach view from Firth Of Clyde. |
Overview
Tigh-Na-Cladach (houses by the shore) are located in Dunoon,West Scotland. They overlook the Firth of Clyde. Tigh-Na-Cladach are the first social domestic PassivHaus in the UK using a closed-panel timber system. PassivHaus are ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. These homes have excellent comfort conditions in both Winter and Summer. The development consists of 15 one, two and three bedroom semi-detached houses and one workshop, each with it's own unique sto-colour.The Designer
Gokay Deveci is the man who designed Tigh-Na-Cladach. He comes from Scotland and he is a professor at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.He has an international reputation for his expertise in affordable and sustainable low energy housing. His projects have won many design awards including awards from the Royal Institute of British Architecture (RIBA), the Royal incorporation of architects in Scotland (RIAS) and the saltire society. He is very successful in design and he is currently serving as a member of the judging panels for awards given by the saltire society, world architecture news (WAN) and local councils.
Professor Deveci has won many awards both nationally and internationally over the past 12 years for both private and social housing. Some of his international awards include the following;
*Ecola Awards 2010- special merit for carbon- optimised building.
*WAN Awards 2010- Residential (final shortlist)
*European Union Award for contemporary architecture- Miles Van der Roche Award 2007.
*New York water front award 1989 - Awarded first prize (£10k)
Gokay has won many awards for his design of Tigh-Na-Cladach which includes some of the following;
RIBA award 2011
Scottish design awards 2011 for both best sustainable design and best affordable housing
ASA design awards
GIA awards
In 2010 it was shortlisted for RIAS best building in Scotland award.
Location
This site offers a sea front location in Dunoon that is extremely attractive and commands spectacular views of the Clyde. Deveci quote - 'the design typology of this development is that of a typical fishing village in the west coast of Scotland in response to the place and context, while respecting both contemporary and traditional Scottish architecture.'
The houses are located in a fishing village and the overall design typology follows the traditional built form of fishing villages arrangement where gables are facing the sea in an effort to reduce weather exposure and prevailing winds.
Quote Deveci - 'although traditional homes in fishing villages would be painted white, I used a range of colours to create a sense of vitality and a strong sense of place, adding a richness to the waterfront village. I was keen that everyone gets their own individual colour to assign an identity.'
Environment
The houses as I said are located on the west coast of Scotland. The weather in Scotland is very similar to that in Ireland. PassivHaus are ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. These homes have excellent comfort conditions in both Winter and Summer.
In terms of orientation for low-energy purposes, the site was awkward to deal with. It is long and thin on the north-south axis and it has the sea view to the east. Any south-facing glazing was ruled out by the planners because that would overlook neighbouring properties. To make the development work financially, it was concluded that 14-15 units had to be accommodated; there was no room for 14-15 detached houses, and the final inter-locking of 3-bedroom, 2-bedroom and 1-bedroom units in a terraced form, in which even the 1-bedroom units (which apart from one are all located on the upper storey) have their own outdoor space, took some time to resolve.
The fishermen’s cottage form of house with its narrow gable pointing to the sea endured as the final form of the terrace, with the inter-locking of dwelling units meaning that 15 units are contained within a compact terrace of only 10 gables. This form has advantages for energy-efficiency in that the traditional form of gables orientated towards prevailing winds minimises heat loss, and allows for sharing of walls between units, improving insulation and generating cost savings that could be re-directed into extra energy-saving measures.
In terms of orientation for low-energy purposes, the site was awkward to deal with. It is long and thin on the north-south axis and it has the sea view to the east. Any south-facing glazing was ruled out by the planners because that would overlook neighbouring properties. To make the development work financially, it was concluded that 14-15 units had to be accommodated; there was no room for 14-15 detached houses, and the final inter-locking of 3-bedroom, 2-bedroom and 1-bedroom units in a terraced form, in which even the 1-bedroom units (which apart from one are all located on the upper storey) have their own outdoor space, took some time to resolve.
The fishermen’s cottage form of house with its narrow gable pointing to the sea endured as the final form of the terrace, with the inter-locking of dwelling units meaning that 15 units are contained within a compact terrace of only 10 gables. This form has advantages for energy-efficiency in that the traditional form of gables orientated towards prevailing winds minimises heat loss, and allows for sharing of walls between units, improving insulation and generating cost savings that could be re-directed into extra energy-saving measures.
Sustainability
All the houses are built to Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 and Lifetimes Homes standards. The houses have large windows, particularly facing the sea, and the ceilings of all the second-floor rooms go up into the pitch of the roof.
The construction of all the houses is a prefabricated closed panel timber frame system, pre-insulated with 300mm 80% recycled content glasswool insulation in the walls and 400mm in the roof. External walls are finished in block work and render. All windows and doors are triple glazed. Additionally, there is 50mm of insulation fitted in the roof, there is also a much higher degree of air tightness to minimise heat loss which is considered difficult to achieve in a timber frame house, the framing of the glazing is also insulated.
There was no mains gas on the site. All of the houses are equipped with an electric immersion heater for domestic hot water, operating on a timer. There is also a solar thermal collector south facing on the roof, feeding the domestic hot water tank which reduces the energy bill for hot water by more than 50%. Heating in the houses is by electric storage heaters located in the hall, living room and (for the houses on two-storeys) on the upstairs landing.
In starting to plan how many houses could be created on the site, both in terms of the size of the site and in terms of creating a viable financial package, Deveci aimed at maximising the number of 2 and 3 bedroom houses (to meet the principal demand for family houses) but was also keen to create a mix of inhabitants by also providing 1-bedroom apartments for young couples. The ingenious creation of this particular mix of dwellings on this particular site, to low-energy specifications, was to become one of the key features of the scheme.
The construction of all the houses is a prefabricated closed panel timber frame system, pre-insulated with 300mm 80% recycled content glasswool insulation in the walls and 400mm in the roof. External walls are finished in block work and render. All windows and doors are triple glazed. Additionally, there is 50mm of insulation fitted in the roof, there is also a much higher degree of air tightness to minimise heat loss which is considered difficult to achieve in a timber frame house, the framing of the glazing is also insulated.
There was no mains gas on the site. All of the houses are equipped with an electric immersion heater for domestic hot water, operating on a timer. There is also a solar thermal collector south facing on the roof, feeding the domestic hot water tank which reduces the energy bill for hot water by more than 50%. Heating in the houses is by electric storage heaters located in the hall, living room and (for the houses on two-storeys) on the upstairs landing.
There is also a highly efficient Paul Thermos 200DC mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR) in the house.The MVHR system supplies fresh air constantly to the two bedrooms and the lounge while the kitchen and bathroom are extracted constantly. Before the extracted air leaves the house, it passes through a heat exchanger which extracts the heat and transfers it into the fresh air supply.
The heating requirement for the whole house is 1,600kWh/year, which is about one-tenth of what an average house uses.
The heating requirement for the whole house is 1,600kWh/year, which is about one-tenth of what an average house uses.
Function
As these buildings were built from scratch the interiors had no previous uses. Below are some images from the design plan.
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| Above is the ground floor and the first floor plan. |
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| Above is the location plan. |
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| Above is a section plan of the houses. |
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| Above is a section showing the possible uses of the space. |
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| Entrance stairs to upper flat with front doors to house and lower flat either side. |
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| The back of the houses. |
The view from the road.
A service road at the northern end of the site provides access for pedestrians and cars from the main road along the sea-front; this leads to parking for 30 cars and access to the front doors of all the houses (which are on the ground floor) and to the foot of the outside stairs leading to the one-bedroom apartments on the first floor. The one-bedroom apartments have an outdoor sitting or clothes-drying space (formed above the ground-floor kitchen of the houses) outside their front doors. The houses all have a small outside area around their front doors and next to the car-parking, and a small steeply sloping garden area on the other side of the house, leading off the living room, that faces the sea.
The bright colours of the houses attracted attention to the development, helped create a lot of interest and have continued to make the houses a talking-point in the area. Within 2 months, 20 applications had been made for the houses. A year after the houses were all occupied and the residents are pleased with the mix of families and young couples in the area, the way that they appear to interact, and the sense of community that has already been created. Residents talk about where they live as ‘the street’. The access road and parking area at the back of the development are used as a safe playground by the children from all of the houses.
Although they all enjoy the proximity to the sea and the stunning views, the tenants express some dissatisfaction with the extent to which the slope of the front gardens limits their use, but say that the space behind the properties compensates for this.
Materials
As I said previously, a closed-panel timber system from a UK-based timber supplier RTC Timber Systems have been utilised for constructing the shell. This closed-panel timber system was specifically developed to Passivhaus levels. Combined with triple-glazed windows from Internorm and a highly efficient Paul Thermos 200DC mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR), Passivhaus criteria were met.
The five bright pastel colours with which the outside of the houses are painted give the development a striking presence on the sea-front, which is otherwise mainly occupied by buildings finished in stone, red brick or white render. For a long time the planners pressed for these new homes also to be finished in white render, but Deveci persuaded them that there were many Scottish and Nordic precedents for using colour on the exterior of buildings, particularly sea-facing buildings - on which fishermen often used up surplus colour from their boats. For Deveci this kind of treatment not only enabled a group of simple houses to have a presence and make a statement, but also reinforced the cultural aspect of sustainability.
A service road at the northern end of the site provides access for pedestrians and cars from the main road along the sea-front; this leads to parking for 30 cars and access to the front doors of all the houses (which are on the ground floor) and to the foot of the outside stairs leading to the one-bedroom apartments on the first floor. The one-bedroom apartments have an outdoor sitting or clothes-drying space (formed above the ground-floor kitchen of the houses) outside their front doors. The houses all have a small outside area around their front doors and next to the car-parking, and a small steeply sloping garden area on the other side of the house, leading off the living room, that faces the sea.
The bright colours of the houses attracted attention to the development, helped create a lot of interest and have continued to make the houses a talking-point in the area. Within 2 months, 20 applications had been made for the houses. A year after the houses were all occupied and the residents are pleased with the mix of families and young couples in the area, the way that they appear to interact, and the sense of community that has already been created. Residents talk about where they live as ‘the street’. The access road and parking area at the back of the development are used as a safe playground by the children from all of the houses.
Although they all enjoy the proximity to the sea and the stunning views, the tenants express some dissatisfaction with the extent to which the slope of the front gardens limits their use, but say that the space behind the properties compensates for this.
Materials
As I said previously, a closed-panel timber system from a UK-based timber supplier RTC Timber Systems have been utilised for constructing the shell. This closed-panel timber system was specifically developed to Passivhaus levels. Combined with triple-glazed windows from Internorm and a highly efficient Paul Thermos 200DC mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR), Passivhaus criteria were met.
The five bright pastel colours with which the outside of the houses are painted give the development a striking presence on the sea-front, which is otherwise mainly occupied by buildings finished in stone, red brick or white render. For a long time the planners pressed for these new homes also to be finished in white render, but Deveci persuaded them that there were many Scottish and Nordic precedents for using colour on the exterior of buildings, particularly sea-facing buildings - on which fishermen often used up surplus colour from their boats. For Deveci this kind of treatment not only enabled a group of simple houses to have a presence and make a statement, but also reinforced the cultural aspect of sustainability.
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