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Case study 10: Mactaggart & Mickel - Aidan's Brae, Clarkston, Glasgow
Characteristics and practices of Mactaggart & Mickel
3.225 Mactaggart & Mickel's HQ is located in Glasgow, within the region where it is most active - Strathclyde. In 2005/06 it completed 170 homes. In terms of volume of production, it delivers primarily starter homes, then executive and lastly mid market homes.
History
3.226 Mactaggart & Mickel is a house-building company that was founded in 1925, with a stated commitment to constructing high quality homes across Edinburgh, Glasgow and Ayrshire. They deliver homes built by their dedicated workforce of tradesmen. It is Scotland's only new home builder to win awards for Quality of Build, Good Design and Customer Service.
Integration of design into company structure
3.227 Mactaggart & Mickel place design high on their agenda and 2 of the Directors are qualified architects. They have a team of in-house design staff including an architect and 4 building technicians who are involved in the development of their house types. They employ external architects regularly, and tend to use a number of teams that they have had previous experience in housing design. They also use a wide range of consultants such as structural/civil engineers (7), quantity surveyors (6), landscape architects (3), urban designers, flood engineers, traffic engineers, and archaeologists. Mactaggart and Mickel construct the houses themselves and employ a number of project managers in house. They have built up subcontracting partners over a long period.
Approach to design
3.228 Mactaggart & Mickel have always considered that the making of a place is their main focus. They try to keep the palette of house types limited to their extensive portfolio, adjusting the elevations to the context, and generally avoid adding embellishments. They aim to balance an identifiable product with the need to adapt to context, mainly in terms of urban design. They consider sustainability to be a key priority and are actively reviewing practices and design in this respect.
Key lessons from Mactaggart & Mickel's approach to the design process
3.229 The company is a family business and has a strong tradition in house-building. They regularly review their range through Research and Development meetings, which identify best practice and bring together design staff with sales and building managers. They will lead trends in layout design rather than necessarily reacting to customers, as the latter, in their view, does not always produce a good result.
3.230 Mactaggart and Mickel employ external architects on all projects, but will give detailed briefs, that may include using standard house types or developing new types if the topography demands. They will direct the design process through regular meetings until the designs have been developed to achieve consistency in their range. They would never give an external architect a blank canvas.
Demonstration project: Aidan's Brae, Clarkston, Glasgow
3.231 Aidan's Brae is located on an infill site in a suburban setting, in the neighbourhood of Clarkston, Glasgow.
Background
3.232 Extensive discussions were held with local planning department and with the local scout group to allow efficient development of the site together with extensive provision of amenity space and new scout accommodation.
Main features of the process
3.233 The site is steeply sloping and a new "one-off" house type was developed for this particular location. The developers wished to use townhouses to give height and take advantage of the views form the hillside, and developed a number of one-off house types for the location including townhouses, duplexes and apartments. An external architect (Roan Rutherford) was employed to develop new house types. In order to maximise the potential of the steep site the design used the ground floor retaining wall to give a recessed private space at ground floor level and first floor access to the rear garden, thus separating the retaining wall from the rear wall of the house and reducing potential dampness problems. The top floor of houses was kept open plan with large windows and balconies. Satellite TV aerials have been built in, in order to prevent the unsightly dishes from appearing at a later date.
Constraints and barriers overcome
3.234 The hillside setting demanded the development of completely new house types. It makes use of land that would previously have been underdeveloped, partly because a standard product would not work on the site. The company have a policy of developing some challenging sites simultaneously with green field sites.
3.235 Originally the architects were given a brief for apartments only, but the planners would not accept the massing and wished to see a consistent roofline as they had concerns about how the development would be seen from a distance. They were not able to convince the planning department that the varied roofline would be appropriate, but dropping the roof height would have meant a significant loss of apartments making the project financially unviable. As a result the brief was changed to develop townhouses, which give an improved return. Planning permission was refused, but finally won on an appeal.
Relationship between design process and product: Aidan's Brae
Key data on Aidan's Brae
- site area: 1.8 hectares (4.45 acres)
- no of housing units: 28
- density: 15.5 units/hectare (6.3 units/acre)
- no. of different house types: 5
- other: the site includes a community facility - the Scout Hall
Key features that make Aidan's Brae a good product according to the developer
3.236 On a very restricted depth steep sloping site all flats have good access to private gardens space, the lower flats accessing the rear garden at first floor level, and all flats have excellent views to the north over the city.
Effect of the design process on the product according to the developer
3.237 The provision of the townhouses and flats as a series of separate blocks allows the residents behind to continue to also have views out over the city. Setting the flats into the slope has allowed the flats to have ease of access from the street, good access at first floor level to the private gardens and has limited the height of the blocks to allow the houses at the top of the hill to retain their views out to the north.
From one-off to standard designs
3.238 The very unique nature of the bespoke apartments and townhouses developed for this very challenging steeply sloping site means that they are not included as options in any currently planned developments, but will be utilised on sites that pose similar challenges in the future. Mactaggart & Mickel's approach is that one-off designs can and will always be considered for future developments where appropriate.
Figure 3.61 Aidan's Brae - Development layout
Source: Mactaggart & Mickel Ltd / Austin Smith Lord
Figure 3.62 Aidan's Brae - Cross-sections through development
Source: Mactaggart & Mickel Ltd / Austin Smith Lord
Figure 3.63 Aidan's Brae - Cross-sections showing distances and sightlines
Source: Mactaggart & Mickel Ltd / Austin Smith Lord
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