Interactive floor plan: Drummond House, Perthshire

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This new house in Perthshire is set in the middle of a field on a working

farm, an environment that's about as far removed from the romantic notion of

the 'rural idyll' as it is possible to be. Instead, it's the influence of

strictly functional agricultural construction that shines through.

The Drummond House takes its visual cues from two existing barns on the

site, a broad sweep of farmland. Architect Graeme Hutton describes the

resulting house and workshop as being 'strangely familiar,' in that they

take the raw brick and metal forms of the typical barn typology and give it

a twist, with unexpected sheared and twisted forms.

Nicknamed 'The Shed', the three-bedroom house is intended to be submissive

to its surroundings. 'In this instance the existing landscape was so

commanding, of such scale, that primacy of thought was given to the formal

and material quality of the finished object,' Hutton says, explaining that

'architects rarely discuss or readily acknowledge their initial visceral

responses to a 'Place' in the design process.'

As a result, the Drummond House is deliberately earthy, its brick walls

seeming to grow from the ploughed landscape. A zinc roof, supported by a

steel frame, makes deliberate reference to the corrugated metal siding of

the adjacent barn.

Inside, expansive windows reach down to the floor to bring the exterior

right into the house.

Detailing is minimal throughout. Walls are finished without skirting boards,

vertical surfaces are painted white and offset with bold pieces of modern

furniture and lighting. In addition to the main house, with its open ground

floorplan, double-height living area and three upstairs bedrooms (a guest

room is provided downstairs), the adjacent garage contains a studio space.

The house was a collaboration between architects Graeme Hutton, Dean of the

Dundee School of Architecture, and the late David Jameson of the University

of Dundee and LJRH Chartered Architects.

30 July 2009 | Architecture

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