Clutch of awards for Elgin building

AN ELGIN housing association building has swept the board at a housing design awards.

Kesson Court opened in Haugh Road in January 2018. Winning the Saltire Housing Design Award, the CIOB Good Building Award and the Saltire Medal, the development provides high-quality, sustainable housing that replaces older, flood-damaged housing in Elgin.

The 2019 Saltire Society Housing Design Awards were held this week and presented by Edinburgh International Book Festival director Nick Barley and Minister for Local Government and Housing Kevin Stewart.

Kesson Court was designed by ICOSIS Architects along with Hanover (Scotland) Housing Association.

The court is made up of 18 flats and three wheelchair-accessible cottages. All are energy efficient with high levels of natural daylight. A sense of community was created with the inclusion of a central garden area and a communal garden room.

The adjacent River Lossie has a history of flooding and the new buildings replace flood-damaged Hanover blocks on the site. The ground-floor construction was designed to be resilient to flooding. The upper floors are lighter weight, highly-insulated timber frame construction with timber cladding. Sedum roofs help to mitigate rainwater run-off.

Each property is fitted with a heat interface unit from a centralised boiler, which takes away the need for individual gas boilers and provides both the housing association and residents with efficient and easily managed central heating.

Mr Barley: "The buildings celebrated at this year’s Saltire Society Housing Design Awards are inspirations for everyone fighting for Scotland to be a better place for its citizens. They are affordable, accessible, high-quality homes in which residents told us they love living. I hope that many more Scottish housebuilders will find ways to work with architects of this quality in the future."

Mr Stewart said: "By showcasing our best new housing, these awards nourish the debate on how we can create Scotland’s homes of the future."

The awards are open to buildings of all shapes and sizes, the length and breadth of Scotland.

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