Timber frame houses in the Scottish Countryside [antikvár]

IINTRODUCTIONThe Scottish Offices Planning Advice Note 36, Siting and Design of New Housing in the Countryside, was published in 1991 to encourage planning authorities to give design guidance on houses appropriate to rural areas. PAN 36 (as it has come to be known) was written to be used mainly by the elected members and officials of planning authorities.This publication, however, is aimed at a wider readership: house builders and component suppliers, house designers, and the general housebuilding public, as well as planners. It is based on research, commissioned by the Scottish Office Building Directorate in 1992, and carried out by the authors, assisted by Jill Andrews. The research report was published as a discussion document and circulated to consultées in the industry and the professions, and to planning authorities and amenity bodies. Many of these have since made valuable comments.The study is concerned with a particular aspect of the subject of house design in the Scottish countryside: the design of houses which individuals provide for themselves, rather than those which are designed and built speculatively by developers. The study is focussed on houses built with timber frames. Many of the designs for these are derived from the brochures of suppliers of prefabricated timber frames. Such houses are usually called 'kit houses', although the use of this term has been restricted in this report to standard house designs in brochures and the houses built from them without significant modification. There has been widespread public criticism of some of the standard kit house designs when these are used in the countryside. One of the aims of this study has been to survey the range of standard designs on offer from timber frame suppliers and builders, as described in their brochures, and to assess whether these designs are suited to the rural environment.The concept of individual provision, though not new, and though popular in many other countries, has not been widely applied in Scotland in this century. Generally speaking, new houses for owner occupation in urban and suburban areas have been bought ready built from speculative house builders. In rural areas, however, most new houses are developed by individuals for their own use, and this trend appears to be growing.This trend has important effects on the way houses are designed. A noticeable recent change in the appearance of much of Scottish post-war housing is that few housing developments are now built to standard designs on a large scale. Housing has come out of uniform. This is especially true of individual provision. Individual providers developing houses for themselves can be expected to make design choices, and at times they will wish to be distinctive in the choices that they make. Design initiative has moved to the householder.Most new individually provided houses in Scottish rural areas are timber framed. In these houses the structural walls and roofs, and the other joinery components, are normally prefabricated off site. Individuals providing houses for themselves can select standard house designs from brochures which have been prepared by suppliers of integrated systems of timber frames and joinery components to market their products, or have these designs modified. Alternatively they can have new designs prepared to suit their needs or tastes.