Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Imagine a journey in the depths of winter from London to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. EasyJet to Glasgow, Loganair to Stornoway, then an hour and half’s drive across a landscape of peat bogs and glassy lochans, as if the island cannot decide which dimension it belongs to: sea or rock? Past the ferry port at Tarbert, the darkness thick as treacle, the road narrows to a single track. Finally we arrive at a house named Caochan na Creige. The Gaelic phrase means “little quiet one by the rock”.Building the “little quiet one” in surroundings that share a latitude with Alaska requires determination one might describe as Hebridean, particularly as this is a place where access to building supplies is dependent upon ferry times and the weather, and where the Sabbath is still quietly observed. “Within a few weeks of us starting on site, there were nine named storms, gusting 120 miles per hour,” says Caochan na Creige’s Scottish architect Eilidh Izat, 35. “We were renting a stone cottage and the walls were shaking. It was a humbling experience.” Izat’s husband and business partner Jack Arundell, along with her brother Alasdair Izat, oversaw the day-to-day construction alongside stonemason Dan Macaulay. The result is a modest, single-storey, contemporary house of glass and stone that blends into the hills above a stretch of the Atlantic. The walls are built from Harris’s native gneiss rock – one of the densest types of natural materials – each stone hand-selected from a nearby quarry. What did the islanders, wary of incomers and a proliferation of holiday homes left in their wake, make of their endeavours? “Building the house ourselves, for ourselves, people saw we had good intentions,” says Arundell. Inside, local materials and suppliers were used: the terrazzo floors are by Skye Stone Studio, while a Scots cedar-panelled ceiling creates cosiness. It is a porous house, in which sea and sky colour the rooms. The couple can watch the aurora borealis from their bed. “Many people think contemporary homes are sleek and cold, but this is the opposite,” Izat says. She was awarded young architect of the year at the 2024 Scottish Design Awards. The house signals a fresh spirit in Hebridean architecture and design, in which virtue is made of the limitations imposed by remote coordinates, harsh winters and tricky logistics. Buildings share a serene, Nordic aesthetic that feels authentically Hebridean – these islands were once Viking colonies. Humility is a watchword to describe ethos as much as scale. “They’re quieter buildings with breathing walls constructed using local craftsmanship and materials,” says architect Mary Arnold-Forster. Respect is paid to the particularities of Hebridean life, with its emphasis on community, hard work and the church. Scottish photographer and designer Alexander Baxter, whose work spotlights the best of Hebridean design, puts it this way: “People live in islands, not on them.” Rodel House, located on the southern tip of Harris, is a fitting example of new intention. Built for Captain Alexander MacLeod in 1781 when Rodel was an important harbour, the Georgian building functioned as a hotel until it was offered, after years of disuse, to Anderson Bakewell. Bakewell, who has been coming to the island since 1968, is the founder of the Isle of Harris Distillery, a “social distillery” of whisky and gin that has boosted local employment and the island’s international reputation.At Rodel House, which is available to rent, “there was no experience of place through the building”, says Bakewell. So Lachie Stewart of Anta Architecture began a process of sensitive restoration, prying off later extensions and additions, while Maria Speake of Retrouvius designed its pared-back interiors. Earthy and oceanic tones wash elegant rooms, with walls upholstered in Harris wool, and corduroy-covered fireside chairs. It’s a wonderful spot. “Two joiners on the island made everything by hand,” says Bakewell. “Now when you’re in the house, you’re in Harris.” On the Isle of Mull, Croft 3, a restaurant and working croft, received RIBA’s Reinvention Award award last year for an inventive take on a traditional building. Its owner Jeanette Cutlack approached architect Edward Farleigh-Dastmalchi of the studio Fardaa to design the venue in what was a ruined barn.“We wanted to retain the intimate character of Jeanette’s former restaurant, while adapting to the scale of the barn and the landscape beyond,” says Farleigh-Dastmalchi. Working with the existing stone structure, large windows frame views to Ben More and the isle of Ulva, while a new extension peeks out from behind the old croft. “Traditional homesteads here are grouped closely, providing a sense of protection. The overlapping form of the barn and extension offers a similar sense of shelter.” Such is its modish look that Cutlack was happily surprised by the arrival last summer of “hipster couples drinking Negronis at the bar”. Nearby, Glasgow architects Harford-Cross have performed similar magic on Dun Guaidhre (Guthrie’s fort), a traditional, one-room cottage, “without losing the essence of its simplicity”, says Peter Harford-Cross. The result is a rustic but refined interior, with plywood panelling concealing a kitchen and bathroom. “You’re working with the skills of the tradespeople who live here, using vernacular techniques. It’s island-led design,” says his wife and fellow architect Rachel Harford-Cross, who co-designed the project. Dun Guaidhre appears in Banjo Beale and Alexander Baxter’s book A Place in Scotland. Beale, an Australian who lives on Mull with his husband Ro, is the unofficial face of design in these parts, having presented two series of the BBC’s interiors makeover show Designing the Hebrides. “There’s so much potential here, so many bothies and ruined shells just waiting to be reanimated,” he says. “But it’s about making meaningful interventions.” He’s about to embark upon a project of his own. “Ro and I are moving to Ulva to a house that, coincidentally, was where an early governor-general of Australia grew up. Ulva is community-owned. It then had a population of 600. Now there’s just 16 people. I don’t want to come in and change something for my vision. It’s important to see how the islanders want things done.”There is an obvious romance to the Hebrides. Rimowa shot its latest luggage advertisement on the CalMac ferry, while Dior used Harris tweed in a recent Scotland-inspired collection. But the beauty of these islands belies the challenges of living there. Depopulation is a critical issue, with a lack of affordable housing a contributing factor. Hugo Macdonald, who, with husband James Stevens, runs Bard, an Edinburgh emporium of Scottish craft, grew up on Skye. “You have strong ties to indoor life, how you live at home and the things you choose to live with,” he says. “Making things and celebrating local materials is born of necessity. It’s linked to poverty. Life is tough. You have to look after yourself and each other.” Hence the importance of community. “The fantasy of buying a second home is an attractive prospect,” he continues. “But it’s about being mindful and respectful of the existing culture.”Socially responsible architecture is a guiding principle at Dualchas Architects – one of its team is a mountain-rescue volunteer. Based on Skye, the firm is a vanguard of contemporary design in the Hebrides, its work recently celebrated at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Dualchas is developing a range of affordable kit homes in response to rising building costs. “It’s important for young people to live in their own communities,” says co-founder Neil Stephen. He and identical twin Alasdair set up their practice in 1996, “to prove the point that there was something worthwhile in the architecture of the Highlands”. They took the ideas conveyed in the traditional Hebridean architecture of practical necessity, particularly the long and black houses that were “once disparaged as the architecture of poverty”, and turned them into contemporary expressions of a specific culture. This is exemplified by Achnacloich, Neil’s own home on Skye – a calm, open-plan longhouse, clad in larch, with clay-block walls and a terrazzo floor. “It’s about simple things done right, to make lovely spaces that future generations want to look after because they see it as belonging to a particular place,” he explains.This sense of mission is shared by Arnold-Forster, who launched Alder, a magazine that documents and defines Scotland’s modern architectural language. Arnold-Forster has built “light-touch, highly tuned, simple buildings with a fundamental sense of place” all over the Hebrides. She would like Scotland’s materials and workshops to be as celebrated as tartan and whisky. “There’s a real skills shortage here, but the craftsmanship is spectacular” – as evidenced in a house she created off the island of Scalpay, in which four linked birch cabins are cantilevered over a remote lagoon. “Someone will call and ask, ‘Would you like to do a project on Jura? There’s no access, no electricity. You’ll need to come by water taxi.’ To me, that’s the best kind of phone call.” visitscotland.com; loganair.co.uk
