Kashentroch, Banchory

October ’09

Home of Alexander and Vinny Burnett, Kashentroch is an elegant and spacious open plan timber frame house in a beautiful setting close to the Dee. The original part of the house (with the pitched roof on the right of the picture), built about 5 years ago, has recently had an addition of a spacious living area with a vaulted roof.

The house is highly insulated using Warmcell and considerable care has gone into ensuring air tightness. Space heating is by a wood pellet stove and domestic hot water is heated by a combination of solar panels and the stove. Velux solar panels are also incorporated. Triple glazing.

The living room has a wide spanning barrel vault roof. Note the elegant steel tie bars which restrain the laminated roof arches.

One of the most interesting aspects of this house is the way that the external cladding, a larch rain screenthis is a (usually thin) outer cladding on a wall which prevents rain, snow, etc getting at the structure of the wall behind. see more on rain screen, has been designed to reflect a modern cool aesthetic, avoiding the somewhat rustic appearance which shiplap or board-on-board cladding sometimes evokes. (not that say, a Scandinavian would necessarily see it this way). In fact the quality of design and detailing throughout is to a very high standard.

architect - Gokay Deveci who is professor at the Scott Sutherland School of architecture

builder - Banchory Contractors and Deeside Timberframe