Private Homes \

Our house design, originally won through competition, is one of over 50 house designs which formed part of the Scotland's Housing Expo located on the outskirts of Inverness.

The Expo, the first event of its kind in Scotland, was open to the public through the month of August 2010. The aim of the fair was to provide a development that featured innovative and highly energy conscious houses where good design and sustainable features were commonplace in every home and offered perhaps a model for future housing design and development.

Our design, built with Tullochs, is an ‘’upside down’’ house, with the main living space of the house based on the first floor in order to make the most of natural light. A roof light running along the ridge provides a large amount of natural light during the day, for a relatively small amount of glazing.

The house was described by the expo as a healthy, breathing home, centred on a dynamic living space. The house is timber framed and uses local larch timber cladding with the primary innovative energy feature being the use of a dynamic breathing permeable insulated roof drawing fresh air directly through the insulation and in the process heating and cooling the air passively.

The house featured also an air exhaust pump, working much like an air source heat pump but instead of taking air from outside this one works internally taking air from toilets, utilities and kitchens. This system heats up water before entering a boiler which tops up the heat if required.

The 4 bedroom house has a predicted annual energy performance / running cost of £279 and Energy Usage (heating only) of 27 KWH/m2.

Now that the fair has finished, all houses are being sold by the Highland Housing Alliance.