Commercial \ Scottish Natural Heritage Headquarters Competition Design Inverness

Competition Design For Headquarters For Scottish Natural Heritage, Inverness, 2004. Unbuilt

This unsuccessful 2004 competition design was part of a developer/architect competition for new headquarters for the relocation of Scottish Natural Heritage from Edinburgh to Inverness. Each developer in the final shortlist of four had their own site and our site for the developer, Hawkhill Properties, was adjacent to the River Ness immediately south of the city. The site had previously been a saw mill and contained on a disused "log float", a shallow basin formed of concrete a few feet above the level of the Ness. Originally logs had been floated in this area for ease of movement.

Our project proposed a three storey continuous space office building stepping down towards the Ness with all offices looking north to avoid solar glare with many of the workspaces occupying two storey high spaces. The building was then manipulated in plan to ensure the maximum amount of external area to the landscape taking on a distinctive 45 degree geometry which then in turn was bent in a gentle curve to face the south along the south side where we placed the unique events within the deep parts of the plan: the library, entrance area, sports building, cafeteria etc. The whole building was clad in green oak to the south in a louvred fashion and the log float lake was refilled with water so that it could be used for cooling purposes within the environmental controls of the building. The building was subject to an environmental analysis (a BREEAM analysis) and was rated "excellent".