Grand Designs again. A house built on Skye, which would have looked fine on a Californian beachfront, or perhaps a Swedish forest, but on that island looked as out of place as humility on Boris Johnson's face. It was a fine idea, using clever new methods to ensure the insulation was as good as could be, the builder did a marvellous job, and it was eco in the double sense of being economical as well as environmentally friendly. Except it wasn't friendly to the visual environment, it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Perhaps when the wood bleaches in time it will improve.
I like houses to be different one from the next. The worst place we ever lived was an 'executive estate' where the houses were pretty much little (or big) boxes, and the majority of the people wanted to be shut up in them, scuttling from car to front door in order to avoid social contact. Where we live now there are barely two houses alike, and the people are great - we had a fireworks party last night with a load of neighbours round. Not sure if there is any correlation, but our first home was in a similar area architecturally as where we live now, and again the people were in the main terrific. So different is laudable, desirable, but there are limits - and a wooden shed on Skye probably went beyond them. One truly positive point on that house, however: the architect had done a fantastic job on making the most of the views from within the house, the windows framing the best of them. Pity that from those same views his building would not have enhanced the picture in return.
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