Date: 17 November 07
Author: Caroline Ednie, Web Editor
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Occupying a trapezoid-shaped site - formerly a garden to one of the grand houses on Edinburgh’s Royal Circus - the Knox House is a new-build family home set within a traditional mews terrace. The ad-hoc development is characterised by an original mews to the west and another garden to the east with a wider than usual frontage resulting directly from the angled boundary to the lane.
The design places the bedrooms with the garage on the lower floor and a single space for kitchen, living and dining on the upper floor. A slope on the site ensures that the garden is equidistant between the two. The kitchen is placed as a galley along the mews elevation looking down to the living area and is lit by a roof light where the slated roof to the lane meets a flat lead roof to the rear.
The facade continues the 'back to front' tradition where mews elevations are informal compared to the formality of the garden façade, as traditionally viewed from the big house. Both facades are of steel, glass and timber overlapping planes framed by rubble stone walls, the front being asymmetric and informal whilst the garden elevation has the formality of an expressed piano nobile.
The Knox House has been awarded one of the three RIBA Awards in Scotland in 2007 in addition to its Saltire Award Commendation 2006.
Project: Knox House
Architect: Richard Murphy Architects
Client: Knox Family
Contractor: Inscape Joinery
Location: New Town, Edinburgh
Cost: £400,000
Link: http://www.richardmurphyarchitects.com
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