SOME-TIN A BIT DIFFERENT
Skye’s handmade home is a DIY dream
IN one of Scotland’s most dramatic rural locations rests a house handmade from tin.
Outside, waves rage against a leaden horizon and the wind whines a pitiful dirge.
Inside – with the dramatic panorama unfolding through a long, horizontal slot of a window – all is still and calm, save the comforting crackle of a log burner.
The Tinhouse on the Isle of Skye overlooks The Minch, the body of water separating the Inner and Outer Hebrides. It could not be located in a more spectacular spot.
What’s more, its simple, sturdy design and construction is a formidable refuge from the most ferocious of elements.
The building – which was this week shortlisted for a Royal Incorporation Of Architects In Scotland award – is based on a child’s classic image of a house.
It has one bedroom, an open plan living space and a bathroom.
But it is the home’s metal ‘skin’ that sets it aside. It provides a tough protective layer, with only a few openings cut into it to give the most outstanding views of the landscape and its wildlife – a perfect ‘hide’.
The Tinhouse is the creative baby of Gill Smith and Alan Dickson.
Alan, director of the island’s Rural House Architects, says: “It celebrates corrugated metal sheeting commonly used on the agricultural buildings of Skye’s rural landscape.
Outside, the mill-finished metal clads the roof and walls. Inside, it has timber boarding, a concrete floor and plywood cabinetry which add to its handmade palette and gives the house a character that is simultaneously modern and rustic.”
Materials were chosen to allow the building to be easily constructed by one person. But Alan reveals: “When more people were needed, for example to raise the gable wall panels or fit steel beams, it became a celebration and a social event.”
Practicality and simplicity are the buzzwords in this project, from the materials used to its interior design. Recycled, timber ‘pocket doors’ have simple cut-outs instead or ironmongery. Wooden dowels are used as door handles or coat pegs and
left-over cement board frames the shower opening.
Colours chosen are inspired by those which can be found outside: the yellow or pink of the wildflowers, the green of the grass, the blue of the sky and sea and the orange of the island’s sunsets.
And this celebration of the handmade home spills into its furniture.
Alan explains: “The furnishings include a concrete-topped dining table on Douglas Fir sawhorses and beds and seats created from left-over structural timber.
“There is also a prototype ‘Mobius’ coffee table which sits at the centre of the social space, along with offcuts of Douglas Fir used as bedside tables.”
Outside landscaping uses timber and hand-poured concrete surfaces which, together with rough, large-section timber walls creates sheltered spaces and routes from which to enjoy the vista.
Alan – whose company promotes “progressive but sensitive” rural architecture and works on residential and community projects in Scotland and abroad, says: “The completion of the Tinhouse marked the end of a five-year design and build process and the beginning of a new era for the house itself.
“We’re now letting it as a holiday home so that others can enjoy it.”