Quarry House Upper Deeside, Cairngorms National Park Building, Scottish Highlands Architecture
Quarry House in the Cairngorms
Contemporary Residential Property in Northern Scotland design by Moxon Architects.
post updated 7 July 2025
Design: Moxon Architects
Nestled in a manmade bowl carved out of the landscape, Quarry House is concealed from public view in a wooded site in the Cairngorms National Park in one of the remotest parts of the Highlands of Scotland.
25 Nov 2015
Quarry House in the Cairngorms National Park
This proposed family home, designed by Moxon Architects, has just received planning permission and will join a loosely grouped cluster of residential and community buildings surrounded by the Crathie Wood SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) in Upper Deeside.
The house is designed to make the most of its former quarry location, sheltering from northerly winds and bringing sunlight into the house as rooms are oriented south and west. The brief was for the architects to come up with a ‘climate proof’ building that could withstand extreme weather while remaining energy efficient – temperatures in the area regularly drop to below -20C each winter.
With frameless glazing and long span profiled metal roofing the form of the house is follows the slope of the landscape and draws on diverse references including modern agricultural buildings and the Arts and Crafts architecture of many houses in the surrounding area.
The exterior of the building is characterized a series of re-entrant corners and protected recesses that define sheltered external areas and provide lateral views from the living spaces along the elevations and into the woods beyond.
A combination of wide rough sawn and narrow smooth-planed larch boards will be joined by ‘crinkly tin’ mono pitch metal roofs with deep box gutters and snow rails. Interior spaces will reflect the simplicity of the construction with a palette of materials used to emphasise the quality of light that enters the rooms and draw the eye to views out.
Architect Ben Addy said: “the brief for this house was that it should be of the woods as much as it is in the woods. Although the overall footprint is very simple the interior spaces are deliberately ‘misaligned’ in order to create pockets of space that embed the building in its surroundings with sheltered niches and frequent unexpected views.”
The house received planning permission in Autumn 2015 and will commence construction in Mid 2016.
Quarry House in the Cairngorms National Park images / information from Moxon Architects
Upper Deeside House in the Cairngorms National Park architects : Moxon
Quarry Studios, Deeside, Cairngorms National Park, the Scottish Highlands, Scotland
Design: Moxon Architects
Quarry Studios Cairngorms National Park
Scottish Highlands Studios
Design: Moxon Architects
Location: Cairngorms, Scotland.
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