The Islands

The Islands are masterplanning of a number of remote islands of the Scottish Westcoast including the double UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Island St. Kilda.

Location
St. Kilda, Canna, Staffa & Fair Isle

Completed
since 2019

Client
National Trust for Scotland

The National Trust for Scotland is the custodian agency of many of the nation’s most iconic historic buildings and most spectacular and sensitive natural landscapes. We have worked with the National Trust for Scotland since 2019 developing masterplans for a number of their estates, collections and heritage sites including protected UNESCO, Natural Nature Reserve (NNR) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

St. Kilda

“The island at the edge of the world” - home to a million seabirds, and a remote community that once eked out a subsistence living, the essence of our work was to re-imagine visitor access to St. Kilda with conservation as the central tenant and tool. Planning for future generations to experience the sense of solitude, discovery, history and extraordinary seabird life of the island, we designed a new arrival experience, masterplanned visitor zones and re-organised visitor and accommodation facilities instead of proposing new built.

Canna and Sanday

Two small connected islands frame a scenic circular bay, teem with rare wildlife, have an important local history and are home to 15 residents, with their economy centred on livestock farming and tourism. Our work focused on developing the historic Canna House (previously the home of the islands’ owners, now in the care of the NTS) as a working archive, opening its gardens and important collection of Gaelic culture and Hebridean island life to a wider audience. We carried out extensive consultations with the island community and masterplanned the grounds of the house to interact with its surroundings, provide study facilities and strengthen the visitor journey around the bay.

Fair Isle

Fair Isle is located between Orkney and Shetland compromising a multi-skilled community and unique craft history famous for its knitwear and seabirds. Rooted in the residents’ main wish to have more homes and workspaces, we identified potential location and retrofit strategies for these, based on traditional construction methods in new designs.

Sustainability

Our masterplanning work combines feasibility studies with engagement and interpretation work. It is developed in close collaboration with the client team, in-house specialists, curators, scientists and others, as well as key partners, neighbouring estates and the local communities living and working in the areas.

History

Our conservation work is rooted in understanding the places and their significance, maintaining their particular authenticity while having a pragmatic approach to implementation.
We work closely with local partners to apply traditional and suitable methods and materials as well as with specialist teams to ensure aspects such as biosecurity, archaeology, safety are incorporated through well planned methodologies.

Engagement

Our work on these these precious sites with strong stakeholders has enabled us to develop a systematic approach to understanding and unfolding a place’s potential and creating resilient proposals which balance the conservation of complex and fragile natural environments with access and storytelling for visitors, and with the need to provide sustainable and meaningful livelihoods for their local communities.