He started with the stairs: “When you’re dealing with multiple levels and tight spaces the first thing to work on is the stairs. erything else is going to revolve around that.” There was also a small space to grow into at the rear of the existing property which had been a garden and was where the main access was located. s the ground oor garages had been created out of former coach houses, the garages were taller than average. “In terms of the new design we were working in a small, tight footprint, and to get the stairs to work we couldn’t make the first oor as high as the original at was. It’s fair to say that the existing building
informed a lot of what Dugald could and couldn’t do and it was also important that the new addition on the end was quite subservient. Adjacent to another Edinburgh landmark – St Vincent’s Chapel, nothing would ever be built beyond the end of the lane. “It was a unique challenge for a mews property as they’re normally linear in design,” explains Dugald.
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Adding “They face one direction and onto a lane. This property faces in two directions. And the big challenge was how do we soften the corner; how do we make two key elevations work together as one?”
His solution was to make the corner as transparent and as light as possible. By installing oor to ceiling glazing on both aspects a iew has been created through the building to the neighbouring street and the chapel. “My idea came from a pair of mews properties that I designed for a gap site in a nearby street. It was an exercise in trying to modernise the vernacular a little bit. What does a modern Edinburgh mews look like?” The other issues facing Dugald were privacy and the proximity to other buildings and this previous project had informed him what could be achieved at Circus Lane.
However, while Dugald’s plans were sympathetic to the locality, there was still a worry that the design would be too bold for
jan/feb 2024
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