Could a family home be made without plasterboard, paint, membranes or conventional wall insulation—and still feel warm, and secure against the Skye weather?
Achnacloich, also known as Taigh Crèadha, was designed by Dualchas architects Neil and Laura Stephen as their own three-bedroom family home. It sits behind a rocky escarpment above Loch a’ Ghlinne on the Sleat peninsula, discovered gradually rather than displayed in the landscape.
A house shaped through collaboration
Neil brought the clarity of a simple plan; Laura researched materials that would create a healthy environment for their children. Together, they developed an open, high-volume interior with room for family life, pets included.
What Neil says
“Architect couples designing their home is notoriously fraught, but we worked well together. And most importantly, we’re still married.”
Neil Stephen
Director, Dualchas
The simple exterior draws on the directness of traditional Highland agricultural buildings and the blackhouse: a long, robust form shaped by climate, material and use rather than applied decoration. A separate guest building and stable create a small group within the wider croft.
The wall, garden and delayed view
An existing stone wall, approximately 25 metres long, helped determine the organisation of the house. Rather than treating it as a boundary to turn away from, the design uses it to define a sheltered walled garden. The house faces this more private enclosure, giving family rooms an intimate outdoor focus within the exposed landscape.
On arrival, the rocky ridge, wall and building deliberately withhold the wider view towards the Cuillin. The journey through the house is controlled so that the landscape is not revealed all at once. Only on reaching the principal living space does a large gable window frame the coast and mountains, turning the view into a moment of discovery.
Materials and environmental approach
The name Taigh Crèadha means “House of Clay”. The external walls are made from insulating honeycomb clay blocks finished internally with natural clay plaster and externally with lime plaster behind an untreated larch rainscreen. They contain no plasterboard, paint, membranes or added insulation.
An exposed cross-laminated timber roof spans the principal volume without steel in the walls. The terrazzo floor uses locally quarried stone, giving the interior a direct material connection to the island. Together, clay, timber, lime and stone create a breathable, low-finish construction in which the materials provide both performance and character.
What the writer says
“A single window seldom steals the show of an architectural project, but very few share a view like the one...”
Awards and recognition
Highlands and Islands Architects Association Awards 2024 — Commended, Best New Building
The judges described the house as “beautifully proportioned and expertly detailed.”
Featured in New Scottish Houses: Contemporary Architecture and Living in the Landscape by Isabelle Priest.
Featured in the HBO series Lakeside Retreats.
Photography: Richard Gaston
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