The Caledonian Canal, as it makes its way through Fort Augustus via the spectacular lock chambers, is one of the most-visited pieces of engineering in the Highlands. Scottish Canals had made the most of what its estate was able to offer through a nonetheless small interpretation space around half-way along the North side of the locks.
When the former shop, restaurant and – at first floor – restaurant-kitchen and a five-bedroom flat came onto the market, having lain derelict for a number of years, Scottish Canals took the risk of expanding its local portfolio and only then fashioning a brief.
That brief distilled into –
Scottish Canals used direct labour to clear the buildings’ interiors. As the project became a ‘proper’ building site more and more raw and unsafe fabric was uncovered, involving the client, design and contractor team in a great deal of quick and creative thinking. The whole process was fully collaborative and exciting, delivering a multifunctioning and immediately successful new core to Fort Augustus.
We brought a unifying simplicity to the exterior through stripping all of the unnecessary attachments from the façades, replacing all of the windows, using lots of white paint and client livery and superimposing a uniform larch-clad screen to the East elevation.
The Caledonian Canal, as it makes its way through Fort Augustus via the spectacular lock chambers, is one of the most-visited pieces of engineering in the Highlands. Scottish Canals had made the most of what its estate was able to offer through a nonetheless small interpretation space around half-way along the North side of the locks.
When the former shop, restaurant and – at first floor – restaurant-kitchen and a five-bedroom flat came onto the market, having lain derelict for a number of years, Scottish Canals took the risk of expanding its local portfolio and only then fashioning a brief.
That brief distilled into –
Scottish Canals used direct labour to clear the buildings’ interiors. As the project became a ‘proper’ building site more and more raw and unsafe fabric was uncovered, involving the client, design and contractor team in a great deal of quick and creative thinking. The whole process was fully collaborative and exciting, delivering a multifunctioning and immediately successful new core to Fort Augustus.
We brought a unifying simplicity to the exterior through stripping all of the unnecessary attachments from the façades, replacing all of the windows, using lots of white paint and client livery and superimposing a uniform larch-clad screen to the East elevation.
