Zinc-Clad Midden Studio in Scotland by Studio Weave.

Slowly nestling itself into Scotland’s western coastline, Midden Studio is this alien life form, bizarrely celebrating allusions to its Scottish, coastal context. Developed in response to the client’s long-standing relationship to the site, Studio Weave has created a small building that celebrates the regions’ architectural history whilst simultaneously responding to the pressures of its landscape. Alluding to the local vernacular and nestling itself within its context, this Zinc-clad studio space is an exquisite example of place-making architecture.

Composed of a vernacular-inspired, double gabled roof structure, a decorated zinc exterior and a warm timber-clad interior, the studio parasites off an old Victorian Midden wall. Initially built from farm-animal ‘doo-dah’, the Midden wall acts as a foundation for the gabled structure, supporting the studio’s impressive cantilever over the nearby Allt ant-Sionnaich burn – a small stream running through the site and into the often-stormy Atlantic Ocean. Building a ‘soffit light’ into the cantilever, Weave brings the landscape into the artist studio, and the artists’ working process. The ply-clad interior creates a warm atmosphere where the artist is free to paint. Evolving the interior into a living, constantly changing architecture, reflecting the artist’s most recent projects. Super free and super awesome.

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Carving itself into the site’s granite-studded landscape, the studio sets up a pretty awesome material composition between zinc and granite. The custom moulded zinc-cladding references the rusticated nature of local Scottish Baronial stone buildings such as Crichton Castle in Midlothian.

Apart from totally nerding out here, I’m smitten by the studio’s play with building materials, fashioning a decorated stone-crafting pattern into zinc. As its architect confesses, Midden Studio celebrates the transmutation of stone into zinc and the cultural place-making associations that comes of toying with materials in this way. Although you might think it’s a giant gob-smacking alien pastiche, the studio has been designed to weather the harshest of Atlantic storms and more importantly the test of time. It even relies on it. Harnessing the weathering and ageing qualities of the zinc by offsetting it on an unchanging granite background. The zinc will only fade further into the granite over time. There’s definitely something timeless yet insanely temporal about Midden studio that I can’t quite put my finger on. I guess that’s why we have pictures – enjoy, guys.

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