Architecture of the liminal rural

architecture of the Liminal Rural Architecture and Regeneration, Dundee Architecture dpt University of Dundee Cameron Brown 100008588

Fig. 1 The historic town of Clackmannan. The medieval settlement pattern was formed in the same way as Edinburgh Old town, the seat of the Shaw’s, Clackmannan Tower out of frame to top left, the historic church centre and High Street creating a spine down the ridge of the Hill surveying the Forth estuary. Modern development has occupied the spaces of garden and field enclosures which connected settlement and landscape. The town is now a dormitory centre, by passed by the turnpike road goign through the neighbouring industrial town of Alloa.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS abstract Thesis Question

pg. 7

introduction In-Between Landscape, Place and Space

pg. 8

Recovering landscape

pg. 12

place and identity Individual Identity

pg. 16

Collective Identity

pg. 20

Regeneration of Place

pg. 26

building anathomy - Constructing landscape Place - Settlement Pattern and Site

pg. 35

Earth - Wall and Plinth

pg. 36

Sky - Surface and Light

pg. 40

conclusion The Constructed Landscape

pg. 44

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Fig.2 The Road to Meikle Seggie by Richard Demarco. Looking towards Suilvan or perhaps, the Lomonds from Meickle Seggie itself. Begining in the 1970’s the Road to Meickle Seggie is an arts based enterprise between Scotland and Europe, recent events have included ‘Seeing Stories: Recovering Rural and Urban Landscape Narrative’ as part of the 2015 International Story Telling Festival.

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abstract

Kinross-shire is a place In-between. To a traveller it is a place of passing through or pausing while travelling. To historians it is witness to the more significant events of more significant neighbouring places (Fife, Stirling, Edinburgh and Tayside).

To geographers Kinross-shire is a plateau between Forth and Tay, Ochill’s and Lomond’s – the Vale of Leven. To the architect Kinross-shire may appear as if a non-place. To the developer Kinross-shire is yet another place to exploit for profit.

Such perspectives reveal the liminal character of the Kinrossshire landscape as place in between. A state appropriate to describe much of our ordinary Scots landscape. Can liminality - threshold, transition, passing through, intersecting roads, Misfit Rivers, landscape boundaries, impermanence, lack of settlements or developments - become the determinant of architecture of place?

The Kinross-shire development plan defines prospective housing stock through the development of pre-defined brown field sites and derelict structures establishing village envelopes and settlement plans. This presents a number of problems when looking to the fragile but very particular dispersed, in-between, character of settlement and building within the Kinross-shire landscape. Should a more holistic approach be taken to a range of dispersed developments and standalone buildings as part of a greater landscape strategy? Should the development of rural buildings or heritage sites be so widely accepted if access to such sites, landscapes and wildernesses is not improved? How can we live meaningfully within the Scottish rural?

By testing enduring historic patterns within the parameters of landscape, place and building through the process of design this thesis will address issues identified regarding building proposals and development, regeneration and conservation within this particular part of rural Scotland.

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introduction

IN BETWEEN LANDSCAPE PLACE AND SPACE At a time when Scot’s people are confronting their national identity we are often looking to our Nordic neighbours as political and cultural fore bearers. As John Brennan discussed in his article ‘A Place Beyond Where We Are’ (2014), reflecting on Reich and Hall’s critically regional Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, this presents a problem when seeking a progressive architectural narrative for an everyday Scottish landscape. A landscape with a built heritage less intense than Highlands or Hebrides, having not been built of stone, but arguably of equal substance – the ordinary landscape in which many of us reside.

Over decades we have seen rural populations move to urban areas. Today a commuting working class are returning to these accessible rural places. The pressures on rural landscapes like Kinross-shire are predictable; a lack of housing stock, increasing population, sustainability, land use, land reform, access and conservation.

Writing about a comparable place, the poet Ted Hughes talks of ‘the end’ in Remains of Elmet (1979), a reflection on his post-industrial home region of the Calder Valley, Yorkshire. A landscape in-between and unknown, shaped by the pressures of neighbouring places, faced with an uncertain future under the momentum of progress. A sense of place characterises much of the Hughes’ poetry, impressions of the landscape reinforced by the accompanying photography of Fay Godwin.

From Hughes’ view industrialisation is not the problem, rather the societal changes which come with the end of it.

The ordinary landscape of Kinross has also influenced creatives through oxymoronically indistinct sense of place.

Examples include the permanent renaissance relic of Sir William Bruce’s Kinross House and the Adam families enduring picturesque landscape of Blair Adam Park. In literature, Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Abbot’ was set on the island of St Serf, Loch Leven. More recently Richard Demarco’s Road to Meickle Seggie was inspired by a small farming township overlooking the Lomond and Cleish Hills, a more romantic intimate gesture.

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Fig.3 Path and Reservoir. Lumbutts, Yorkshire, 1977, Fay Godwin. The landscape of Calderdale has changed little since Godwin captured this image, some wind turbines on the horizon, agricultural structures in the valley, the pony track a little more patinated.

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language and place names

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Fif.4 Language and Place Names. From 15th to 16th centuries the gaeilc language had receded from being the dominant language north of the Forth Clyde line to the boundary of the Highland fault line. Cumbric place names are prominent South of the Ochill Fault line, Pictish place names generaly meet the Highland fault line and into the Great Glen. Viking place names can be found through out coastal regions, a Kinross example being the settlement of Kirkness, a ruined farm settlement.

Many more anonymous places within Kinross-shire have provided a backdrop to scenes within films, such as Danny Boyles ‘Dead Man Walking’ and events such as T in the Park demonstrating the transience of modern activity within the area.

Kinross-shire was the connective tissue between various ancient tribes, royal courts and religious centres in central Scotland, a quiet landscape of underrated significance. A landscape where Saxon and Cumbric languages met Gaelic and Pictish, where the early Roman conquest reached farthest (Scottish Medievalists dpt of geography, 1996). Its subsistence communities were cleared from the land a century before their Highland neighbours (P, Aitchison. 2003). Despite modern interpretation that Fifers don’t appreciate change, the Fife peninsula has felt the waves of improvement on her shores since deep history; through rise of the eastern Celtic Christian centres of St Andrews, May, Inchcolm and St Serfs; the embracing of agricultural techniques from France and the low countries; and the adoption of pan tiles, a by-product of international trading, whilst the rest of Scotland resided beneath turf and cob.

Liminal places exist between one thing and another, a physical threshold, or moment in time, revealing the potential in transformation or change. A typical northern European landscape, Kinross-shire possesses ancient artefacts such as hill forts, feudal towers, mills, settlements and varying infrastructure, now mostly in ruins. Perhaps these remaining fragments of generations of human endeavour could redefine our understanding of place.

This thesis will look at Kinross-shire as a cultural landscape and explores the pressures this landscape may be subject to under development through the medium of Landscape (a settlement plan), place (a building cluster) and building (an object structure).

These parameters have been defined through an understanding of changing social trends which through time have influenced our relationship with landscape through architecture, described as follows.

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RECOVERING LANDSCAPE

“Landscape reshapes the world not only because of its physical and experiential characteristics but also because of its eidetic content, its capacity to contain and express ideas and so engage the mind.” Corner 2014

Landscape is a constant enterprise that can ‘enrich the cultural world through creative effort and imagination’ (Corner 2014).

As discussed by Landscape Architect and theorist James Corner’s in his essay Recovering Landscape as a Critical Cultural Practice, there have been two primary developments in landscape architecture in recent years. Firstly the rediscovery of landscape within cultural spheres following a period of neglect since the uptake of modernism (Corner, 2014).

Secondly the revision of landscape itself, what is landscape?

What might it become?

Corner identifies a conflict and contradiction within landscape based professions. The environmentalist on one hand who ‘objectifies’ nature, external to culture, thus failing to consider the ‘profound consequences of the worlds constructedness’, from which the very meaning of landscape has derived.

Environmental advocates may only repair and perhaps stall damage, however ‘cultural ways of being and acting in the world’ are the root of environmental problems and remain largely unchanged (Corner 2014).

“Landscape is both a spatial milieu and cultural environment… inseparable from particular ways of seeing and acting.” Corner 2014

Secondly the conservationist and heritage group who create a stasis within the cultural landscape of ‘pastoral and pre modern images to promote their goals’ presenting landscape as a place to escape ‘ills of present’ and ‘anxieties of future’.

Corner explains how such recreation of previous worlds may not offend anyone but can stifle progress and initiatives, concealing and compensating for the realities of modern life.

Examples would include the work of Robert Adam Architects (not to be confused the Adam family of Kinross-shire), or Krier at Poundberry. But does the pre modern era perhaps offer lessons for living within the landscape which can be interpreted through modern ideals and living patterns?

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Fig.5 Little Jerah, Menstrie Glen, The Ochills. A pre improvement steading developed up to the late 18th century, cottages, outbuildings and garden enclosures clearly visable, braided hollow trackways like that of Carnbo Stewart (appendix) apear as thin ‘footpaths’, a modern landrover track follows a possibly older route bisecting the centre of the image. Cattle enclosures visible to top of image, evidense of cultivation visible around settlement.

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Fig.6 Our Forbidden Land, Fay Godwin, 1990, Godwins environmental concerns add a furter layer of interpretation to her photography beyond simply documenting enduring landscapes demonstrated here through the sign placed by a rather accomodating farmer.

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The layering of fragments and changes in the landscape has been discussed through the theme of place in this thesis (collections of built structures). In landscape such layering is more difficult to trace with pen and paper but even more prevalent in the physical world through landscape features, earth works, field enclosures, hedge rows and tree lines. Such layering, as stated by Corner, can only ‘thicken’ how we might interpret and use the landscape. “for the landscape to be recovered attention must be paid to both insider and outsider perspectives, the inside view allowing for a deeper, socially informed, material sense of place and being, the outside view allowing for a broader range of possibilities to be invoked beyond those of the known and the everyday.

Corner 2014

Through reclaiming landscape as a cultural practice a more synergetic relationship with landscape could be founded.

Scotland’s rural landscape is arguably one of our greatest resources and origin of our rich and varied culture. This has been reflected with particular vigour in Scotland over recent years through land reform and organisations such as the ‘Our Land’ campaign, Common Weal and other multidisciplinary groups.

The Scots public are awakening to and questioning who owns and controls out countryside, landscape and community owned assets. How do we harness landscape in modern culture for the betterment of our communities and not a privileged few? Can modern culture have a relationship with the land as meaningful and productive as prior to agricultural revolution and clearing / enclosure of the land, a movement which made the land more efficient and profitable, but for who?

Deindustrialisation has paved the way for global communications and service industries, through which our landscape has become one of transience, mobility and exchange, (Corner 2014) contributing to the unstable nature of development in regions like Kinross-shire. One week you can get a bus through this rural place, the following week you can’t because a spreadsheet has deemed the route and place unprofitable, thus unnecessary.

“Landscape has assumed increased popular value as a symbolic image, a picture laden with signs that lends cultural uniqueness, stability, and value to a particular place or region.” Corner 2014 17

PLACE AND IDENTITY

“Long residence enables us to know a place intimately, yet its image may lack sharpness unless we can also see it from the outside and reflect upon our experience.

Another place may lack the weight of reality because we know it only from the outside – through the eyes of a tourist, or from reading it as a guidebook.” Yi Fu Tuan, 2001

INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY Place can be interpreted at many different scales. As geographer Yi Fu Tuan discusses in his book Space and Place such scales can vary from a favourable armchair or earth as a whole. Place positions us within the landscape, region, nation or earth. The buildings and places explored and proposed in this thesis are dwellings in some form or another with the intent that particular attention to place can make for more sustainable life time communities in the landscape where people can establish a home. A region of such transience and in-betweenness as Kinross may not be regarded by many as a homeland.

It is a mere stepping stone between one place in life and another. However it is a region which has supported people’s livelihoods for millennia quite autonomously, and only in recent times with a high commuter population has the nature and identity of place been so diluted.

Tuan explains the significance of homeland to various human groups, however a continual theme is the regard of a person’s homeland as a centre of the world, claiming the ‘ineluctable’ worth of their place. Kinross-shire locals have long regarded their region as the centre or heart land of Scotland due to its elevated position as a plateau within at the centre of the Fife peninsula. The significance of plateau is not to be under rated, as Jorn Utzon discusses in his essay Platforms and Plateaus.

Aztec cultures utilised the plinth/platform to gain a closer relationship to the Gods emphasising the relationship between earth, landscape, sky and cosmos. The plateau is constructed as plinth to achieve similar effect within an architectural 18

Fig.7 Tullibole Stone, Class 3 Sculpted Stone, found in Fossoway (Desert of the Dear). A hunting party is depicted in the top panel. Central panel depicts waxing and waning or known and unknown sides of the moon.

Lower left panel features two dancing or wrestling figures.

Lower right panel two serpents vis-a’-vis representing the infinite or eternal. Work/survival, seasons, leisure, time, no different from life in the same landscape today. The reverse side features a Christian cross suggesting the regions inhabitants conversion to Christianity. The stones simplicity, honesty of subect and small scale is unique, suggesting the associated community were relatively isolated and free of serious conflic earning the stone its significance. An object that would have been experienced intimately as opposed to a monolith at only 4 foot by 1 foot, socketed within a known space or place, or possibly a transported object associated with the likes of st Serf, active in the area at a similar period.

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Fig.8 Left Spatial frame of home region. Inner quadrangle - 4 points of residency defining every day ‘territory’, outer ‘spikes’ of visual and spacial connections with surrounding places in the landscape.

Fig. 9 Below Sections through the Loch Leven Plateu, between Ochills and Cleish Hills, Lomonds and Vale of Devon

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proposal.

The Loch Leven plateau is located between ancient capitals and religious centres of Scotland - Perth, Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Culross, Stirling, st Andrews, Foreviot and Dunning. Hill forts and citadels crown the hills that define the region which in its entirety can be abstracted as an architectural construct – plateu ~ plinth. Is Kinross-shire a long forgotten pre-historic centre misinterpreted through the smog of history and time? Its position, presence of St Serfs Island (where St Columba ordered St Serf to establish an East coast Christian centre) could support such a concept, the intense farming of the area diminishing archaeological artefacts, amalgamation with other larger regions has diluted its significance when compared to more picturesque and romantic landscapes such as the Cairngorms or neuk of Fife.

The author acknowledges that this is a statement coming from an individual who sees Kinross region as homeland or even universal centre. However residing in 4 different dwellings within this single region has developed an intense relationship with the local landscape which in turn informs a strong sense of place. Different bedroom windows revealed different faces of the same hills. The centrality of home dwelling and place has been up rooted and changed many times, but the landscape has remained constant establishing an intense personal value. As Tuan explains, several world centres, or dwellings, coexisting within the same general area. The axis of my world passing through, dwellings, settlements and region as a whole.

A spatial frame defined by landscape features (as opposed to stars in Tuan’s example) forming an anthropometric spatial frame between landscape features around which human beings can move. Historically this is of interest in the seasonal movements of pre improvement farming communities which moved from the sheltered village or steading in the valley floor (home for winter) to the upland pastoral sheiling centres of the summer, where flocks were tended, milk and cheese produced and clothes for winter woven forging in such communities an intense relationship with their land. A well-documented example being the communities of Bennachie (or Mither Tap), Aberdeenshire.

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COLLECTIVE IDENTITY Place is made up of the stable objects which catch our attention and give opportunity for the eye to rest, the pauses in time which allow our minds to form a permanent image (Tuan 2001).

Features in the landscape have the ability to create their own world or place which can expand or contract depending on the cultural perceptions of the people viewing it (Tuan 2001).

For example Ayers rock, Australia, was a focus of the ‘mythical and perceptual field’ of the aborigines. Today modern Australians are drawn to visit not the monolith but landscape feature (Tuan 2001). A Kinross-shire example may be found in the volcanic outcrop of Benarty Hill, also known as Arthurs Seat (Ben – hill, Arty – Arthur) named so by locals due to the mythic associations with the legendary British King. The Iron Age fortresses at its peaks once a site of pilgrimage for antiquarians and historians. The legend of Macbeth is rumoured to have taken place between Benarty and Lomond hills, not an impossible concept as in the 8th century Macbeth granted the lands for a religious house, and the Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland which first documented the legend of Macbeth was written on the Inch of St Serf , Loch Leven (Wyntown, A). William Adam sited his seat at Blairadam on the axis of the ancient mount when the landscape was documented to be completely barren, unimproved and devoid of trees. Today the hill is an RSPB nature reserve and country park.

Tuan questions how a monument can transcend the values of a culture through the example of Stonehenge, a monument which carries generic and specific import. The specific import (activity for which the structure was intended) changes over time, whereas the general one (to evoke a feeling, emotion, or mark a place) remains. This is a valuable point when dealing with historic landscapes and places. Although their function may change their significance can remain and prove useful in affirming a sense of place for consecutive generations. On the other hand such relics can merely lose their status as place and ‘clutter space’ (Tuan 2001).

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Appendix 2, documents some of the enduring places in the Kinross-shire landscape from river courses to designed landscapes, landscape features and prominent structures such as defensive houses and hill forts. From this analysis the significance of the simple mill settlements, farm steadings and historic cores of settlement became apparent. Some of these

small clusters of buildings that may appear as non-places appear on our oldest maps, such as Meickle Seggie, which Richard Demarco popularised in the saying ‘all roads lead to Meickle Seggie’. Alternatively through representation places such as Milnathort, described as Mills of Forth in the 1654 Blaeu Atlas revealing past significance.

Fig.10 The North face of Benarty Hill also known as the Sleeping Giant or Ben Arthur. Cultivated land creeps upon some of the first, or last, moments of wilderness approached in the Fife peninsula at the summit of this volcanic outcrop. The crags of Mulla Craig closest, Castle Craig mid ground contributed to the defensive nature of this place, like Edinburgh castle the hill was a defensive settlement up to the 10th century, gently sloping to the southern Fife side the severe Kinross-shire flank was a trading hinterland or perhaps no mans land to its occupants.

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These resilient places are characterised by the enclosing additive formula of the communal yard or courtyard. A functional pattern which can expanded and contract by need and economy, their character is at one with the landscape using contour for efficiency and aspect to maximise shelter and solar gain. They are the enduring pattern of the vernacular in this region like the Chinese, Greek or Roman courtyard house.

Their principles are extended to form settlements giving way to the characterful in between spaces of our Old towns, which today have been diminished to some extent but are still largely prevalent and not lost beyond repair.

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Today these models are almost caricatured in modern building propositions, without functional intent. The farm courtyard is of primary importance to the development of the Scots land and brings us back to almost primitive principles of clearing, platform and place making, satisfying practical needs which speculative development lacks. As Tuan describes, “Think of the way a new country is settled. At first there is wilderness. A clearing is made and a few houses built. Immediately differentiation occurs; on the one side there is wilderness, on the other a small man made world. This becomes a place, to the farmer, defensible from nature, to the passer by or visitor an obvious place emerging from forest to clearing. With continual extension of clearings the forest eventually disappears an entire landscape is humanized the fields of one village adjoining another. Limits of settlement are no longer clearly visible or dramatized by the discernible edge of wilderness. …. Hence forth “the integrity of place must be ritually maintained” Tuan 2001

This is followed by a sense of identity - identity between your place and neighbouring place, urban neighbourhood or quarter from another. Rivalry is common place between regions, settlements or neighbouring individuals to affirm the feeling of uniqueness and identity (Tuan 2001). However there is a human tendency not to work together for common good. Overcoming such obstacles can make communities far more resilient to the damaging reputation of developer led profit driven housing.

A strong example described by Tuan is the region of Beacon Hill, Boston. The dwellings have an architectural distinction, time has given residents collective memories, notable people give the neighbourhood ‘lustre’, social calls and exchanges form strong bonds between neighbours, traditions such as producing pamphlet literature about the place give residents a sense of pride and draw people to the neighbourhood, groups and organisations are established to maintain the integrity of place (Tuan 2001).

Communities around Kinross-shire have similar traditions and endeavours. Small social circles or guilds, can be hard for ‘outsiders’ or people with new interest to be integrated into or made aware of. Community Councils do the best to maintain the integrity of place, but individuals within such groups who have divergent interests can be just as damaging, restricting growth and regeneration of place or alternatively leading development in the wrong areas.

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The sentiment that once held people to village or home stead has been transferred to the larger political unit of nation state (Tuan 2001). This has never been more prevalent within the Britain with the Scottish Independence Referendum and European Union referendum dividing communities and distracting the public from the true evils in our society. As discussed in earlier passages region can become a resistive medium to such a ‘cult’ and allow communities to prevent the negative effects that capitalism, globalisation and centralisation have on our places.

Fig.11 North South representation demonstrates the London centric hierarchy within Britain today. The East west axis across the Irish Sea reminds us of a time before Scotland forging a gaelic culture.

West East axis demonstrates our relationship to the north sea ports and even earlier history of Doggerland.

South North axis highlights the nordic relationship of the scottish isles as stepping stones between Norway, Iceland, Faroes etc.

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REGENERATION OF PLACE “Houses and streets do not of themselves create a sense of place, but if they are distinctive this perceptual quality would greatly help the inhabitants to develop the larger place consciousness.�

Tuan, Y, 2001

This thesis identifies two areas for proposed re-generation a more complete analysis of which can be found in Appendix: Statement of Significance.

Firstly the former parish of Old-Fossoway (part of the combined parish of greater Fossoway and Tulliebole).A medieval centre which did not develop into a modern place it possesses both pre improvement (medieval church, enclosures and common) and post improvement landscapes (parkland and plantation).

It now functions as a small sporting estate and large pastoral farm, the nature of its ownership has hidden the heritage assets of this place from the surrounding community, construction of a Dam erasing much of its significant relics. Close analysis and understanding of the formation of this place could inform a development proposal which will regenerate the place and its community, improve financial viability and protecting the historic landscape and features.

Secondly the villages of Powmill and Gartwhinzean, a dispersed historic agricultural and milling centre, fragmented and expanded by modern development. The community have struggled to settle on a coherent development plan, developers pushing for a large village envelope, and community council for one of a more compact form – regardless the settlement is designated to take all new housing stock within the parish and a strategy is needed. Likewise a deeper understanding of the history of this place and its relevant functions today could make for an exemplary model of development meeting community needs and aspirations.

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Fig.12 Top image, Aerial Oblique view of settlement proposal at Wester and Middleton Fossoway, former manse and chapel set within parland far left, Middleton farm on far right. Below, perspective of scheme looking West along old drove road toward Common Edge Hill.

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SERIAL VISIONS

a set of serial visions exploring the route from west to east Fossoway

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Location of these settlements prove attractive to car commuter and thus medium scale developer. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Forth Valley, Perth and Dundee are all within a 50 minute drive. A limited bus service with poor uptake, and the nearest train station being Alloa or Dunfermline means tourism in particular is no longer prospering, nor is there viability for low income housing. It is hoped that by injecting development within these areas such links can be made more viable whilst regenerating a sense of place, improving social mix, provide a customer base for local businesses to thrive, as well as affirm and preserve heritage assets and local paths which are a key characteristic of the area.

Such development should be part of a region wide landscape strategy. If we view landscape as a cultural asset one possibility could come in the form of regenerating the network of paths and ways based on ancient and modern pilgrim routes transecting the area linking sites of historic value and places of interest, highlighting their desperate need for recording and protection whilst giving the communities on these routes a new found significance rooted in the past.

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The popular and well established pilgrim routes of St Andrews and St Margaret pass through the area. Further routes include the way of St Serf, more directly related to the area and passing through some of the most picturesque landscapes of the parish into the Ochills. The Mary Queen of Scots way follows little known drove roads on which steadings and townships are situated running parallel to the modern axis of the Stirling to Coupar turnpike road. Recording the historic sections of these routes, places of interest and heritage assets located on the way will enrich the significance of the landscape and neighbouring landscapes, create further appeal for tourism, and broaden the scope of the region by association with international ways such as the Camino De Santiago terminating at the Santiago cathedral Spain. Other international trails through the area include the North Sea Trail, a cycle route around the coastline of the North Sea. National trails include the east west pilgrim routes to Iona. Such enterprises have proved to be of great success with availability of government and arts council funding to instate and improve paths, signage and lighting. Examples include The Path, Glen Lyon, Perthshire led by NVA public art. Following an opening event these assets remain in place for future use by the community to expand and develop the scheme.

“There is a pilgrimage aspect to events like this. They may not be easy to get to and certainly in the case of The Path there was a powerful spiritual focus. In this sense they key right back into much earlier Highland art such as the great eighth-century crosses of Iona and Islay. When we begin to think of pilgrimage and the Highlands a whole other cultural mapping begins to emerge, although, as Patrick Geddes pointed out in 1920, the pilgrim and the tourist have a great deal in common, so perhaps this map is not as unfamiliar as it might seem.� Murdo Macdonald

Ways across Fife and Kinross

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Fig.13 Top Commonty of Kinnesswood prior to division, 1796, taken from initial survey by John Birell.

Below, Aerial photograph of formoer commonty,now a 9 hole golf course,, kinnesswood village out of frame to left.

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BUILDING ANATHOMY – CONSTRUTING LANDSCAPES

LANDSCAPE - SETTLEMENT PATTERN AND PLOT Enduring patterns in architecture can be found at a number of scales, be it technology, aperture of windows, materiality, through to settlement pattern and land use. The enduring patterns of places accommodate the potential for adaptation and change more sustainably than contemporary models.

The land rig or Burgage plot system is a perfect example and responsible for the grain of our medieval centres and some of our iconic agricultural landscapes.

Plots are equally divided in strips perpendicular to road, street or contour. A scale-less method of land division from the direct level of dwelling and yard and in turn settlement (as seen in towns such as Perth, St Andrews and Edinburgh) to Landscape as a whole (former commonty of Kinnesswood, Kinross shire) or in between (field systems and crofts of Ness, Isle of Lewis).

The pattern is additive in nature and can be subdivided into quarter plot systems to accommodate more dwellings whilst retaining positive communal as well as private spaces (Taid, R, 2008). Developed to accommodate and make efficient use of landscape such a pattern has undisputable place in both countryside and city. Adopting such a system for contemporary development as an alternative to the cul-de-sac or crouton house would allow modern proposals to fit within the context of existing places appropriately whilst being resilient to adaption. Structures can be set back from the street, positioned perpendicular to street, extended, adapted or re built, without diminishing the robust edge of the public realm. Buildings and dwellings would no longer need to mock past vernacular styles to be grounded in history as the very grain of the settlement pattern itself is a continuation of history, the architecture within each plot can become more progressive and fitting to individual’s needs. By using such a pattern site and plot become part of the architecture and construction of settlement and landscape itself, both giving each other significance – a constructed landscape.

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EARTH - WALL AND PLINTH Additive in architecture was a principle defined by architect Jorn Utzon, inspired by the enduring patterns of vernacular landscapes and architectures as well as in the natural world.

This was brought into practice using an architectural grammer which trancended culture. His courtyard housing developments using the wall as an architectural devise on a number of scales.

Likewise for object buildings Utzon adopted the plinth for reasons beyond a grounding to site and place but to define a relationship between space and landscape.

Plot or site have a definable boundary or edge which can become a powerful architectural device through the wall, plinth or platform. The levelling and defining of site is a ritual act in the practice of building – breaking ground. Foundations, floor slabs and walls cut into the earth like archaeological excavation, they can up route nature and unearth remains long lost or forgotten. Every incision and structure should be considered and conducted with intent so as not to waste resources, energy or impede on the landscape more than is necessary. It is not to say that we do not intervene in the landscape, but we must do so with conviction and purpose, like digging a trench to drain a field, or erecting a wall to enclose a shelter – when something has purpose it has place.

One of the most disingenuous acts of the speculative builder is the serviced plot, allocated before there is a need they become barren scraps of land, some remain so for decades.

Equally the stob wire and picket fences of back yards in profit led developments add to the placelessness of such an act of building. The front yards, undivided, unaccommodating of real personalisation, and with no robust or defined edge – they are merely car parks.

The proposed scheme is bound by the garden wall to form a yard. A device which defines the home stead or dwelling from the outside world or wilderness. Landscape can meet this wall.

The two can sit side by side and hold a dialogue as intended in Utzon’s courtyard houses. The nature of the yard is not compromised when a neighbouring plot is occupied. Cars can be concealed within this private space instead of occupying public space on the street. Workshops, sheds, single room flats and extensions can be introduced to the yard. By using such a pattern site and plot become part of the architecture and construction of settlement and landscape itself, both giving each other significance.

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fig. 14 top. communal green, Kingo Houses, Jorn Utzon, 1953 fig. 15, middle, drawing oblique, Kingo Houses, Jorn Utzon, 1953 fig. 16, High School, Competition Entry, Elsinore, Denmark, Jorn Utzon.

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1 - Suds Pon 2 -Existing fa 3 - Commun 4 - Live Work 5 - Sheltered 6 - Existing S 7 - Existing e

fig. 14 Proposed building cluster at Middleton Fossoway 2

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plan and section 1:500 41

SKY – SURFACE AND LIGHT We look for a method which provides integration between construction and site, recasting redundant craft conditions which would traditionally exploit local materials and harness indigenous skills. No vernacular can routinely as before produce a building born out of and belonging to its location as it is born out of and belongs to a different time.

Tuomney 2008

Within a dwelling basic architectural principles and elements need integration. The enclosure, the wall, the mound, the roof.

Enclosed space creates the horizontal relationship we have with surrounding landscape defined by plinth / ground and roof / ceiling. These are the Semperian principles Utzon adopted in his additive approach (Frampton, K, 1995). Utzons courtyard housing at Kingo and Fredensbourg demonstrated these principles to which the quality of space is partly owed – the shelter and enclosure of the internal court yard wall, which in turn defines the form of the building and further robust edge of settlement as a whole. The light weight timber structure which rests within allowing volumes of light to penetrate through the greenery of the courtyard garden. Controlled openings defined in the protective wall to the public realm.

The proposed housing model for Fossoway adopts a similar approach. The 45 degree slope of the south facing roofs with tall sky lights allow quality day light in both the Scottish winter and summer. A double storey north elevation allows for head height but also forms a civic or public façade or edge, retains more heat and allows the structure to function on a hill side as an ‘upside down’ house.

Scottish light is incredibly low, it can make a gentle undulating landscape like Kinross-shire become one of contrast and edges revealing every crevice, lump and bump of what lays beneath surface. The structures simple window detailing has derived from local masonry techniques, due to the Scottish light a shallow window relief and the texture of smooth to rough render can become a rich material pallet with a historic relevance from when lime mortar and wet dash were common place. In winter the light is sparse and the days short, the colour palate of greens and blues replaced by oranges, browns and greys which can become part of the architecture through larger planes of glass on southern facades connecting inside and out like an open barn door to a farm courtyard.

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And when I build something in the landscape, it is important to me to make sure my building materials match the historically grown substance of the landscape.

Zumthor, P, 1998.

The materials chosen for the proposed house model are simple render on north, east and west facades – resilient to the damp nature of the Scots climate. Timber panelling adorns the south façade, expressing the tectonic nature of the proposals primary structure, easily adaptable for extension and intervention, but also well suited to a south facing aspect. fig. 17 adjacent, Tullibardine Chapel, Blackford,1500. fig. 18 top right, Stable, Fossoway estate, 1800 fig.19 Kingo House interior, jorn Utzon, 1956-58 fig. 20 model interior, proposed hous emodule for Middleton Fossoway.

 

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north elevation scale 1:200

section scale 1:200

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south elevation scale 1:200

site plan scale 1:200 45

CONCLUSION

THE CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE A bearer of social memories in a different way existing buildings on site act as physical evidence of past lives and as such a bridge to contemporary collective identities… Archaeology – clues (or not) to previous form.

As importantly evidence of dwelling and making – the hearth, a step.Hanks 2010

By adopting historic patterns used within the landscape through the function and practice of modern living we can begin to establish a cultural way of being, acting and living with the landscape. Like Stromness, as Laura Hourston Hanks describes in her text, Island Identities the Pier Arts Centre Orkney the existing structures of old Fossoway bear material consciousness and memory, defining the sense of place in deposits of the everyday through spaces and places having borne witness to the events and lives of local people, hopefully with some better consideration of how we build it can continue to do so (Hanks 2010).

“Conceptual origins of recent buildings derived directly from understanding of sites characteristics – like archaeologists might do… searching for traces of what made it the way it is.”Tuomney 2008

While there will always be a need for more housing the loss of a meaningful relationship with our deeply historic landscape, which precedes the loss of community, a sense of place and a shared identity, is not worth the quality of housing currently offered by commerce-driven developers.

Places like Kinross-shire are not dormitory regions, they are not definable by a statement such as ‘accessible rural’, nor are they museum pieces or rural retreats– Kinross-shire is a functioning landscape, maintained through its sense of place and the resilient communities constructing this enduring landscape.

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The housing stock being proposed needs to reflect this. The propositions of planners, councillors, architects and developers need to reflect the in-between nuances of place, a landscapescale strategy which acknowledges Kinross-shires liminality.

We are looking for a way of thinking which could provide integration between construction and site, a recasting of the redundant craft condition which, by tradition would exploit local materials and harness indigenous skills. No valid vernacular pertains which can routinely, as before, produce a building born out of and belonging to its location. Given the proliferation of available technologies, the choice of construction becomes a serious matter, a cultural act which engineering or economics cannot be relied on to control. A critical issue for us as architects has become the recognition of those conditions of the situation, which could give significance to our choice of construction, embedding an initial sense of strategy which would remain evident in the eventual experience of the building.Tuomney 2008 fig.19 Lendrick Hill, Wester Fossoway, the Constructed Landscape

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