A bespoke new house built in a former Quarry

New House in Cuttle Craigs Quarry. 

How do you re-purpose a redundant aggregates Quarry in a landscape full of quarries. Should we be taking a place of production and domesticating it ?

This was an essay in negotiating a very tricky Planning permission and achieving  low sq meter rate costs  for new Build.
It involved as a starting point assessing the nature of the quarried material with a local mason and checking it had little or no Industrial future.  On inspection It became clear that this was a source of  random granite rubble for walling  and road aggregates and with the presence of larger operational Quarries nearbye it was considered border Brownfield land therefor in need of some remediation.  Further the road infrastructure would not support substantial workings. 

Perhaps the Quarries last act was to  provide the Granite  Material s required for use in the construction of the house and the Landscaping.

The house  was reduced in its expression form the modelling and paired back as the project progressed to sit quietly and  robustly  in its quarry setting, peeking over the wooded embankment of ,nature beech trees that largely conceal the house from view. 

The aspiration was upside down living or "Queenslander" in its nature. The clients - June and Lewis Ettles wanting to live up and over the agricultural fields, facing south west to a distant view of the Bennachie range of mountains.

The upstairs hearth and living areas monitoring an ever changing weather pattern through the seasons.

Battling an Aberdeenshire wide presumption against development in the open countryside - We set up a meeting on site with the Planning Committee that will not be forgotten.  Louis Ettles commented to the Planning Committee on site just before the decision was made to grant the permission. And looking directly at the director of Planning -  " ken... if yee war ...stone age man and yee war gaddin aboot lookin fir somewhar to pitch your rig , yee'd do it eer - naw ?  "

South west facing up the back from RothieNorman in Aberdeenshires commonly cold climate and  in the lee of the damaging North Easterlies- the carefully orientated Glazed part of the house  acts as a passive solar collector and so  heats itself much of the year.

We still do not know who "Cuttle Craig" was, but at one time he operated this quarry and we employed some of his Granite at least as a base course.