Sonia Browse Architects

Are you looking to create a new life in East Lothian’s countryside?

Due to a change in circumstances our wonderful clients and old friends have decided to sell their double cottage with the full planning permission for a large extension and remodelling which we achieved for them at the end of the last year.

Set in the beautiful historic parish of Whittinghame the proposals would transform the traditional cottages into a stunning light filled family home.

We’re really fond of this project and the location so we’d love to see these proposals come to fruition.
If you or anyone you know is looking to make their next chapter in East Lothian, please do get in touch.

Works progressing on site at this impressive property.

Once the Manse for the adjacent church, we are adapting and restoring the property into a family home. There are many notable features throughout, but we are particularly looking forward to seeing the Annex wing (once the servants’ quarters for the original Manse) transformed into a double height Family room and Kitchen.

Site photos give us glimpses of the process and the hidden work which is involved in stripping back the layers and restoring character properties such as this.

We will keep you updated as progress continues.

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So, this wonderful woman went and smashed it!
Congratulations to Eve for passing her Part III.
We’re super proud and lucky to have her as a colleague and friend.

Getting our heads around the changes to Section 6 of the Building Regulations is far easier with pizza and friends!





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The Cobbler has new shoes! We found out today that our home and office has been shortlisted for a Scottish Design Award – we’re absolutely delighted!

The works at Bellfield Lane comprise the reconfiguration and extension of the architect’s home and office in Portobello. Downstairs, the house was re-organised with a new extension designed as a sociable kitchen/dining area with a new snug and utility. Elsewhere, the architect’s office was relocated to the front of the property and sleeping, living and sanitary accommodation were reconfigured on both levels.

The existing house had a central 2-storey out-shoot creating dead spaces to either side. The extension was built to fill the dead space on the dark side of the outshoot and is designed to bring in the most natural light into the extension and kitchen as possible. A continuous rooflight runs the length of the extension and leads to a sliding door that disappears behind the wall. Exposed timber rafters run under the glazed roof light without a ridge beam, creating a repeating skeletal pattern that plays with the light. Similarly, a linear rooflight runs the length of the bathroom over existing rafters with mirrors at the end behind a free-standing shower wall. This plays with the perception of space within the room as it tricks the eye into seeing the already long bathroom continue forever. A new roof light over the reconfigured stair landing was also formed, with the overall effect seeing ever-shifting light playing over the surfaces in bathroom, stair, and extension.

As the architects were also the homeowners, they were free to experiment to keep costs down. Reclaimed scaffold boards were used for the roof structure and table while, self-build elements such as the terracotta floor and the rough-cut stone opening were embraced as not ‘perfect’ but of character and value. Second-hand elements (such as the ladder, 94year old bath, and kitchen) saved costs and injected character, while the unique combination of component systems (such as the ladder-rail and sliding door systems) create bespoke design without the typically associated costs.

Materials were used in untypical ways, such as porcelain tiling to the outside of the extension wall and standard plaster partially polishing to create a poor man’s Venetian plaster

The project allowed the architects to incorporate fun and unexpected elements into the design, such as the Sheela-na-gig within the exposed stonework. The resulting project is very personal and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it is a home which is loved, and has changed how our family, friends and office come together.

Please see link for more info.
https://www.scottishdesignawards.com/2023/architecture-low-cost-project-schemes-under-200k/bellfield-lane/

We loved working collaboratively with our friends at Paper Igloo and Chambers McMillan on this invited competition for The Glenrothes distillery.

Our shared approach for this project was one of placemaking and adaptive reuse. As we understood the distillery as a settlement, all key routes and landmarks were knitted together to create a new distillery village square and the places for the distillery workers and visitors to gather, then branched from this. Connections and new spaces throughout the distillery were found by 'leaning in' to some of the fascinating relics of the distillery process, creating an interconnected and welcoming community for the distillery team and their visitors.

While we just missed out on winning the commission, we received some wonderful feedback from the distillery, who commented –
The creativity, vision and unified thinking that you presented was inspiring. We loved your framing of the heart of the distillery as a “village square” and your boldness of incorporating additional disused spaces into the distillery experience. Your ideas were stretching yet also well-considered, a potent mix of pragmatism and stardust.

We can't wait to work with our friends again on the next collaboration.

With The Glenrothes

We loved working collaboratively with our friends at Paper Igloo and Chambers McMillan on this invited competition for The Glenrothes distillery.

Our shared approach for this project was one of placemaking and adaptive reuse. As we understood the distillery as a settlement, all key routes and landmarks were knitted together to create a new distillery village square and the places for the distillery workers and visitors to gather, then branched from this. Connections and new spaces throughout the distillery were found by 'leaning in' to some of the fascinating relics of the distillery process, creating an interconnected and welcoming community for the distillery team and their visitors.

While we just missed out on winning the commission, we received some wonderful feedback from the distillery, who commented –
The creativity, vision and unified thinking that you presented was inspiring. We loved your framing of the heart of the distillery as a “village square” and your boldness of incorporating additional disused spaces into the distillery experience. Your ideas were stretching yet also well-considered, a potent mix of pragmatism and stardust.
We can't wait to work with our friends again on the next collaboration.

With The Glenrothes

Christmas is approaching and our lovely clients are back in their home! We can’t wait to see them settle back in and make it their own but in the meantime here’s a sneak preview. A big thank you to SPP and all their team for all their hard work. Wishing all our contacts a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

We’re delighted that having shown our clients the options and this model for the reconfiguration and extension of their home in the Grange conservation area, that they have decided to proceed with all our ideas!

Currently our clients make little use of the ground floor of their home other than ‘going out’ to enjoy their garden. By adding a new kitchen in a discrete side extension connected to the old kitchen which will become a dining room with patio doors to the garden.
The new kitchen extension and the existing drawing room will be connected via the press cupboard at the front. We are also making a new easy connection to the garden by reconfiguring the rear with a new utility and store.

We hope that all our plans will unlock the ground floor, providing them with not just an extension but offering them the ability to better use and enjoy their already wonderful home.

Works starting on site in the New Year!

We’re looking forward to works starting on site in the New Year with and for the internal reconfiguration and fit out of a first floor flat in Quartermile looking over the Meadows in the centre of Edinburgh (quarter of a mile from the castle and hence named!).

This is our third project so far in Quartermile – the redevelopment of the former Royal Infirmary Hospital buildings which was masterplanned by Fosters + Partners. Each time we visit the converted Infirmary Pavilion buildings we can’t help but wonder at the Victorian’s who conceived of dual aspect wards with their huge double height windows, turrets to bathe, and south facing balconies looking over the Meadows to convalesce. It seems a heroic architecture designed to promote health rather than treat sickness.

The flat itself – a couple of tweaks with Anne, Steven and their teams and it’ll be wonderful!

It’s been a good week here at the SBA office, with 3 planning permissions for projects granted in one week!

Project Three: Yorkston Cottages

This end cottage in a small row of rural farming cottages in Midlothian sits in a glorious expansive garden on the brow of a hill with stunning views over the Moorfoot hills to the south and west.

The small cottage was more than doubled in size by the previous owner in the 80’s but the resulting convoluted layout and leaky conservatory doesn’t serve our clients well nor does it do justice to the location. After reviewing several options and discovering an unexpected steel portal frame we have developed proposals for a new sunroom, mezzanine, utility and bedroom to unlock and reconnect the home both to itself and to the surrounding scenery.

We can’t wait to get into the detailed design of this in the new year.

It’s been a good week here at the SBA office, with 3 planning permissions for projects granted in one week!

Project Two: Grange Loan

This small kitchen / dining extension in Edinburgh’s Grange conservation area is conceived as a contemporary insertion slotted into and between the stone walls of the old coal shed and grounding the proposal in its context. Vertical Larch cladding has been chosen to complement the stone and continues in fins to screen the windows.

Composed with a linear rooflight and small private courtyard, the design opens up the house up to the garden and the light whilst providing privacy for the owners and their neighbours in the shared garden.

We’re looking forward to detailing up this wee gem in the new year.

It’s been a good week here at the SBA office, with 3 planning permissions for projects granted in one week!

Project One:
Leamington Terrace

This renovation and extension project in the Marchmont, Meadows and Bruntsfield Conservation Area near the centre of Edinburgh returns the property from a council run residential care facility for troubled youth back into a sustainable family home by stripping away the many institutional additions, improving the building fabric and a providing a small extension to better connect the house and garden.

We’re already busy working on the detailed design - stripping back the layers to uncover its future.

Planning application submitted for this new build house in Fenton Barns, East Lothian.

Our proposal draws design inspiration from the local context and seeks to create a new home which both responds to and enhances its surroundings.

With and

Planning application submitted for this new build house in Fenton Barns, East Lothian.

Our proposal draws design inspiration from the local context and seeks to create a new home which both responds to and enhances its surroundings.

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Our client sent us this lovely photo of our Merchiston project looking splendid in the sunshine. We really must go back and take some more completed photos soon!

Sketch turning into reality on site in Newington.

With Scotia Property Projects

We enjoyed meeting up with the homeowners of Havenfield Mews and putting up the plaques for the Saltire Award and RIAS Award this weekend.

With:
The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland
Aarron McMurray
Jim Scobbie


The Saltire Society

Delighted to pick up our award last night!

With

It was so nice to see our Client settling into her Craighouse extension this week.

This small extension is packed with love. From the picture window framing the garden beyond, the corner window seating area where you feel that you are sitting in the garden, the rooflights over the dining bench and the huge glazed sliding door connecting the house with the garden this scheme quietly packs a punch beyond its size.



with Scotia Property Projects

Model exploring the design of a new home and how it relates to the surrounding context within a rural settlement in East Lothian.

It's great to see Havenfield Mews featured in this BBC article, alongside all of the other RIAS Award winners.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-61709051

In Pictures: Exceptional buildings win architecture awards The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland names its best buildings of 2022.

Havenfield Mews has won a RIAS award!

We are absolutely blown away. Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout this project and congratulations to all of the other RIAS winners.

With SF Structures Scotland

https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2022/06/rias-award-for-portobello-housing-development/

We love how the light plays off the different surfaces in our bathroom … it sometimes feels like its dancing

Been a while since I’ve pulled any finished pieces out the kiln!

It’s all too exciting!

What a brilliant start to the day to see that we're shortlisted for the RIAS (Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland) 2022 Awards for our Havenfield Mews project and have been featured in this BBC article!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60576324

Court, school and distillery up for RIAS architecture prize The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland has revealed its building of the year shortlist.