JAMstudio Architectural Design

Colourful Crathienaird Steading

2012-01-15T08:04:00.001-08:00

Today we've been for a site visit to our project at Crathienaird, as it is now finished and our clients have been enjoying the newly refurbished spaces over the Christmas break. We met with the contractor to look at a few final odds and sods of snagging and were treated to a very fine bacon butty breakfast!

The spaces are looking great, the client has trusted our judgement on the use of specific strong colours for certain areas, and has been rewarded by now having a stylish, well lit, colourful & practical layout that allows for entertaining large parties of guests with ease.

North Croft finally on site!

2012-01-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a very busy first week back in the office, as along with numerous project enquiries to deal with and various tasks to crack on with on our current live projects, plus one of our new build houses has finally commenced on site.

North Croft originally comprised a series of ramshackle steadings and a derelict cottage, which we obtained planning consent to demolish and erect a replacement house for our clients Matt & Emma in the autumn last year. Since then we have obtained a building warrant and the works were tendered, with the winning contractor, Total Build (Scotland) Ltd have commenced works in earnest this week.

The original buildings have been demolished and the site levelled and cleared; the foundations tracked out and on Friday afternoon this week the foundations were cast. It is a huge site with spectacular views as you can see from the photos below. We will be aiming to post a weekly update on progress as the works commence and with the structural steelwork due to be erected next week, we are looking forward to seeing a huge leap forward in the next month. Exciting times!

Ecobuild

2012-01-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in renewable energy sources and green building products, there's a fantastic event taking place in London later this year: Ecobuild

It's at Londons Excel centre from 20th - 22nd March and if register now you can get free tickets.

Www.ecobuild.co.uk

North Croft Auchronie

2012-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

This week one of our projects starts on site in earnest, so hopefully we will be able to blog about it's progress over the next 9 months. The project is a new build house for clients Matt& Emma and their young family, based on a site locally in the Garioch. We achieved consent for a replacement house on the site, allowing for the demolition of a very run down cottage and steading, last year. The site is being cleared as we speak, with a site visit planned for Friday. If all goes well there should be some steelwork erected before long. Watch this space...

We do love our lighting!

2012-01-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

At JAMstudio we do like to get ourselves into a bit of a lather about lighting. And rightly so, a great space poorly lit is a great waste of space. Conversely it's amazing how space can be completely transformed by simply altering the way it is lit.

We are in the process of getting ready to move office ourselves shortly and thanks to the chaps at Atrium lighting, we've spent nearly half our fit out budget on the lights for the space! We are particularly enamoured with their Flos Soft Architecture range, it has a load of sculptural plasterboard fittings that can be seamlessly integrated into walls and ceilings, check them out here:

http://www.soft-architecture.com/

We're in Urban Realm again!

2012-01-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

Yay! A quick scan of the website today shows a lovely feature about us as a small practice, you can find it here:

http://www.urbanrealm.com/features/337/Small_Practices%3A_Jam_Studio.html

Urban realm is a fantastic design magazine showcasing the best & sometimes the worst of Scottish architecture. We had the pleasure of being included in their December issue, where we were voted Scotland's no.3 interior design practice for 2011!!! Something of a coup for us! Roll on 2012!

Harnessing the Wind

2012-01-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Given that we seem to have spent the past fortnight being blown off the face of the earth here in the north east of Scotland, it would seem appropriate to post something wind related for you to think about, whilst we are waiting for site works to commence in earnest on several projects.

As a practice we have to spend time keeping an eye on the weather, as depending on the severity of the weather it can have contractural consequences that we need to make our clients and contractors aware of. Too cold: not good for anything involving concrete or paint, too hot: not good for anything involving concrete or paint, too windy: no good for work at height or erecting steel or timber frames, too wet: not much good for anything really other than working indoors!!

We use a number of useful weather watching sites, my favourites being:

http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/HOME/

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html

When it it very windy my mind often turns to thinking about what useful things you can do with that wind, like producing electricity from it. There is a lot more complex science to erecting a successful wind turbine than you might think and if you are considering such an installation we would strongly urge you to do a lot of bedtime reading before committing yourself to what could be a lot of expenditure for not as much gain as you hoped. The Centre for alternative technology does a great range of literature aimed at educating people to the pros and indeed cons of domestic renewable energy saving measures, including some great reading on wind turbines. Their excellently informative web site on wind can be found here:

http://info.cat.org.uk/wind

New year, New Office

2012-01-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

2012 is going to be a busy year for all of us at JAMstudio, not least as we are gearing up for a new home for the practice as we've run out of space for expanding the team. So mid February if all goes to plan we will be upping sticks and moving half a mile east to Netherton business centre, which will allow us to grow the team to 10 if all goes well.

As you can imagine the space is being fitted out and won't be your typical run of the mill office...there has been much conjecture about lighting, colours, furniture and space planning, but the item that has caused the most debate has been the carpet. You see carpet is a luxury the office has lived without for the past 8 years, with our current mixture of lovely delicate walnut floors and heated bare concrete meaning footware is banned in the office! Many a client/supplier/contractor has been caught out wearing holey socks as a result... The choice of a light coloured neutral toned carpet means we are keen to continue the bare foot, or perhaps it should be bare sock tradition...to the howls of anguish of David & Alexa...who would rather wear shoes. The solution so generously suggested by one of our pals - corporate slippers! Not wanting to waste such an advertising opportunity, David & Lexi can rest secure in the knowledge that the order for their slippers has been placed this evening...

Roll on 2012!!!

Little Maldron Mill on BBC1 today!!

2012-01-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

It's finally happened, one of projects has made it onto the telly!! Today, as part of the BBC1 series, Britain's Empty Homes, the mill was featured as an example of what amazing things can be done with derelict buildings!!

You can watch the episode on Iplayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zpdh4

Find out more about the programme makers here: http://www.ricochet.co.uk/program/Britains-Empty-Homes-Series-3_606.aspx

The mill is shown about 10 minutes into the programme, with an interview with it occupants (our clients), Linda and Paul Dunk!! Here is it and here they are! Our 15 minutes (or rather about 3.5 minutes) of fame!!

Hero of the week award goes to....

2012-01-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

Indigo Technology for their invaluable advices and action over the past week, including working over the Hogmanay weekend to restore data to our office after the terminal failure of our email & data server.

Ironically we were already in the process of getting an order together for a new server anyway as the old one was getting a bit long in the tooth, but as is always the way, had decided to leave this until the new year. After returning from an excellent days beating at a local shoot, we nipped into the office to check email and the server was switched off. No amount of coaxing could get it to power up, so a quick call was made to Indigo the following morning. Within half an hour they had a technician on site, who quickly realised the server needed to be removed for off site testing and data recovery. Although we had a tape backup available (as we back up every night), the chaps assured us that they'd be able to get the data directly off the server and eventually after a bit of trial & error, that's exactly what they did. They've given us a loan server meantime, delivered yesterday even though it was a Sunday and New Years Day!

It's a great relief to be back up and running, so this post is dedicated to the fantastic efforts of Andy & Dave Senior of Indigo technology, it's corny to say but you really did help us out of a Jam!!

http://www.indigo-tech.co.uk/

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well a new year is upon us in the blink of an eye! It's amazing where the time goes. 2012 promises to be a great year, with some fantastic projects coming to site, a new office for the practice in the next few weeks and hopefully some more awards for the work we've been undertaking!

So to a first new year resolution, a new blog post every day for the next year... We'll see what we can do,but there's a lot to talk about and a number of projects coming to site, so there should not be a shortage of stuff to blog about.

First noteworthy thing to happen for the practice this year: Little Maldron Mill will feature on the new BBC1 series, Britain's empty homes, either in tomorrow or Tuesday's programme. Here's a link to the TV listings: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01977j5/broadcasts/upcoming

Hope 2012 is a happy & prosperous one for all of our friends & clients alike!

The power of Sketchup

2011-08-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Recently we've invested a fair bit of time as a practice getting to grips with Google Sketchup. So far we've mostly been using it to produce almost photo quality rendered images of the interiors and exteriors of our projects, but recently it has come into its own for us when we have been using it to make a co-ordinated building model for one of our more complex new builds.

The underlying steel framework

The joists installed and some of the infill timberwork in place

The roof joists installed

The glazing in place, and some of the blockwork installed

Weve been checking the stages of the build and modelling them at the same time to check our understanding of what needs to go in what order, to assist with providing the cleint with a construction porgramme. we've also been using it to coordinate all the serives in the house, which because there is quite alot of steelwork in this particular build need to be thought through carefully to ensure there are no awkward clashes that could result in unsightly boxing out of areas in the house. We've been working out pipework runs for the drains and ensuring the setting out of the recessed lighting does not clash with any of the underlying wood work.

Whilst this might seem time consuming just now, we are hopeful that it will decrease the number of site queries when the project comes to be built later this year and should assist with shortening the construction time period as a result. Hopefully this will go some way to ensure the build progresses as smoothly as possible and we achieve exactly the quality of outcome we are striving for.

The best thing about Google Sketch up is the cost versus the current BIM software available on the market. Autodesk are wanting £4500 per seat in our office for a licence of Revit, which given there are six of us that would need access to the programme is a huge amount of capital expenditure for us as a small practice. Meanwhile the cost of Google Sketch up is... wait for it... nothing! Unless you get the Pro version, which has a few more useful things it can do, in which case its about £350 per seat - a tenth of the cost. Plus it is pretty straightforward to learn, which given a few of us in the office having been doing CAD for longer than we'd care to admit, is a bonus!!

Self builders complete their dream

2011-08-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of visiting a project of ours last week, that has finally been completed. Client of ours Euan and Helen contacted us in 2009 to get us to draw up proposals for their steading conversion, in Banffshire. Plans were duly drawn up, approved by the council, and tenders sought. Eventually Euan and Helen decided to use a local builder, Barry Fettes of Keith, to undertake the works for them, undertaking the project management and sourcing of the bits for the interiors themselves. And they've made a great job of it, as you can see from the photos.

Self build does not have to be daunting. You need to be well prepared, very organised, have a good degree of self discipline, and be able to devote time to your project. Euan and Helen also had the safety net of knowing we were on the end of the phone at any time for the contractor or indeed themsleves to ask questions.

We're very proud of them for what they have achieved, and it's great to see the project finally realised on site!

JAMstudio is tweeting!!

2011-08-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

JAMstudio has joined the digital revolution and has been experimenting with twitter over the past couple of months. its been very interesting to see the effect it has had on overall traffic to our web site and we've had some very nice feedback from a couple of our clients including the lovely Lili Hunter and The Dalmore, who are delighted with the project we have just completed for them. to join us in the tweeting revolution go to twitter, search for JAMstudio_Ltd and clikc on "follow".

2010 round up, winners and loosers!

2011-01-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

Firstly apologies for not having posted for some time, the second half of 2010 has been manic, the busiest for the business so far.

We've had a number of projects come to site, which I will be blogging about this week, including:

Sunnyside cottage, Glenlivet:
complete renovation and extension of an existing run down cottage on the estate

St Ronans Drive, Peterculter:
quick refurbishment including new stairs and revamped kitchen for a house in Peterculter

Springfield Road, Aberdeen:
Massive three storey rear extension, including basement in Aberdeen.

And of course Dalmore Distillery which we are working on for Whyte and Mackay, the start of the revamp went live on site on the 9th December, and is due to be completed by May 2011.

We've had some notable project wins, including a new office fit out for Bluewater Shipping UK Ltd,which is due to go live this spring, and several fantastic new house projects, including a very striking one for our clients Matt & Emma, on a site in Skene, more on which you can find out on our web site shortly. we've also been working on a fine extension to a grade listed Manse, again more about which you will be able to see on our web site very shortly.

We've been working with Centrica Plc, assessing their current building stock in Aberdeen, and looking at outline proposals for a new office fit out for 350 people around several prominent sites in Aberdeen.

We've hired three new members of staff this year, so congratulations to Leyton, who has survived his first year (just about), Jane (one of our clients who has become staff, read about her story in the P&J here: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2030959 ) and most recently and a warmest welcome to David, 3D wizard (example pic below) the newest member of the team.

We've also got a new JAMstudio mascot in the shape of our beautiful 9 month old black lab called Cerny. Cerny has been travelling to site and even has his own hivis vest!! He's proving a hit with staff and clients alike, and has done wonders for my waistline....

One of our architectural assistants Alexa has been in the news recently. The Press and Journal ran a feature on what it is like to be training as an architect in the your jobs section of the paper, read about it here: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1964306

We've been invited by the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce as part of a select group of businesses based in the North East Scotland to come up with innovative ideas to revamp the city centre. Entries have to be in by the end of the month so watch this space...

And the ones that got away.... well there have not been many, but the most notable was probably The Balvenie High class residential refurbs for the Glenfiddich Whiskey Company....we did a great pitch and the client was impressed with our ideas, so much so they sent them to New York, but in the end they decided to stay with their incumbent designers....nothing ventured nothing gained. We were contacted by a client in Australia about a very interesting mill conversion to do, but sadly as it was based south of Edinburgh we had to give it a miss, which was a pity, as it looked amazing.

In terms of aims and goals for the practice for 2011, we have quite a few, namely keeping the great ideas flowing, hiring one more member of staff, making sure we deliver the best possible service we can for our clients, and trying and win at least one commercial project award. We are hopeful we have a few contenders already lining up nicely. It would be good to see all our staff continue to grow and expand their skill set (Donna has exams in January - best of luck! we know you can do it, and currently Leyton and Alexa are grappling with Google Sketch up, our new virtual modelling tool of choice).

Finally we want to put something back into our community by way of a thank your for our continued success. We have two sponsored charity events in the making for 2011, a 5 peaks challenge, where the JAMstudio team intend to conquer all the major peaks on the Benachie range in a day, then we will be looking to team up with our favorite engineers Wright Associates to enter the River Don Raft Race in aid of Cancer Research (WA will be our secret weapons, although knowing our engineers it will probably be built so robustly we'll sink...). Our local charity this year will be Mental Health Aberdeen (MHA) and we are hoping to raise £2500 via sponsorship and donations for them during the year.

JAMstudio in the news

2010-05-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

JAMstudio have been in the press a fair bit this week, we have two feature articles in the latest issue of Homes and Interiors Scotland, one on the Little Maldron Mill and one on Prospect House:
http://www.homesandinteriorsscotland.com/

The Press & Journal did a nice feature on the joys of being a Northern Star Winner, with a bit about JAM:
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1731765

and we're on the Urban realm website, with a very nice write up and pics on the mill:
http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2371/JAMstudios_Little_Maldron_Mill_comes_to_national_recognition.html

Meantime our clients at the mill report that they have seen the "3 men in the mini" again pausing outside the mill - we'd dearly love to know who they are, so if that's you in the smart grey Mini Cooper, drop us a line on the email: info@jamstudio.uk.com !!

The green green grass of home

2010-05-13T03:43:00.000-07:00

Took a trip over to Little Maldron last night to see the results of the turfing/seeding of the garden, and I have to say it is looking rather spectacular. Amazing the difference grass makes in adding definition to the building, it has sharpened up the exterior lines and serves as a timely reminder of the important of landscaping.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Gregor and the boys at Total Build Scotland for the main bits of hard landscaping, and Graeme and his team at Bon Accord Landscapes for the turfing, rotovating and seeding work, that has finally given the mill a setting it deserves.

Grand Designs Awards, Scottish Home Awards

2010-05-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

It's been a manic few months here at JAMstudio, and with the terrible winter weather we've been busy in the office but not, thankfully, much out on site.

2010 has been marked with a number of notable commissions, some of which will be uploaded to the main website later on this month, but to give you a flavour, at the studio we are currently working on a beautiful listed manse, with steading conversion potentially with a pool in the centre, another derelict listed three storey farm house and steading, a distillery refurbishment, a large office fit out for 250 people, and a number of smaller residential projects, ranging from alterations to extensions, and another large and very interesting steading commission just locally in Skene.

The advent of spring has bought a few surprises in terms of a hat trick of design award nominations for us, which has been particularly pleasing for the studio.

The Scottish Home Awards have nominated us as finalists in both the "Conversions of the Year" and "Architectural Excellence"categories, for our project at the mill and we find out at the awards ceremony in Edinburgh if we have been successful in June.

http://www.scottishhomeawards.com/

We also had the fantastic opportunity to take the whole of the studio and our client to London to celebrate our nomination as finalists in Channel 4's Grand Design Awards 2010, again for "Best Conversion" for the work to the mill. Whilst we did not win outright, as the only only Scotland based finalist and only one of 6 in our category, we felt pretty pleased with even just the nomination. Many thanks to all our suppliers and other members of the professional team (some of which were there on the night), we can't do it without you!!

It was a cracking night, presented by Kevin McCloud and was topped off with a lot of singing and dancing and a fair consumption of alcohol (probably the less said about that the better), and it would be lovely to win it so we're working hard to ensure we have something even better to submit next year!

http://www.granddesignsawards.com/home-winner-2010/200-best-conversion

We've a number of projects now gearing up to come to site so watch this space for more updates as to how our various client projects are coming along.

Finding water with a twig...

2010-02-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

Well despite the weather and the huge amount of snow that we've been grappling with, we've been determined to carry on with progressing as many of our projects as we can. One of our new projects that has been proving very interesting is a new commission to design the conversion of a derelict listed farm house and steading not far from the office.
We were approached last year by our client to prepare a feasibility report that looked at the pros and cons of tackling such a big conversion (in total the plan is the convert the house, build a separate groundsman's cottage, and split the steading into three large 5 bedroom houses and a sizable business unit). The site is spectacularly located with southerly views over the River Don, and a backdrop of the Bennachie mountain range looking towards Mither tap.

Our client has been successful in securing the site, and we are now in the process of lodging a number of planning applications, for the conversion of the house and steadings. There have been a number of investigative studies that we have been undertaking during the last month, including looking at the state of the foundations for the house, checking for bats, finding a suitable location for the septic tanks and soakaways by carrying out percolation tests, and most recently assessing the capability of the site to provide its own water source, with sufficient capacity to serve all the dwellings/units planned for the site. There was an existing deep well that needed to be measured on the site and additionally we felt it prudent to explore other options for the provision of private supplies, knowing that water can be a fickle thing at the best of times - it is either usually where you don't want it, or is not where you really need it!
To find where there might be potentially good borehole spots around the site we have employed the services of a water diviner. The sceptic in me still finds it mildly amusing/rather unnerving that anyone can find water with a twig and copper rods, but on this particular occasion, John had a rather unusual experience with the diviner that makes me wonder that there must be more science to it than witchcraft!

Essentially the diviner walked the site, and assessed the current borehole which was pronounced "nae much use", having explained that it was located on a single underground vein of water, rather than a connecting node point which is where a number of veins come together. He proceeded to walk the site and find several other better "node" points that he felt would have a better yield, and these were marked with pegs and later on digitally marked with GPS and plotted onto a drawing. And despite there being a number of buildings and trees in the way, the pegs all line through the site in an almost dead straight line!

The weirdest thing that happened was that after the diviner let John have a go with the copper divining rods, which duly flapped away merrily when John was in the right location, he produced from his bag what can only be described as a "y" shaped twig, which he then proceeded to use, and which, when he was in the right location, pulled very strongly indeed towards the ground. He passed the twig to John for him to try and nothing happened, but then instructed John to put his arm around the diviners waist, whilst the diviner held one part of the "y" and John grasped the other. Lo and behold the twig started pulling like mad towards the ground, John described it as like having a fish on the other end, and when the diviner let go of his twig end, the thing sprung back up like the fish had escaped. All really rather odd, very enjoyable and the proof of the pudding will be in the borehole drilling later on this year. Now all that I need to find out is if they make those twigs that can find oil.... or gold!

The new company Landrover Defender was just the right bit of kit to have, and made mincemeat of a foot of snow, and 400 yeards of unmade track to get to the house. Not the first time we've thanked our lucky stars we bought it. It's snowing again tonight, so no doubt it'll come into its own again this week.

The Big Freeze Continues

2010-01-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

The first week back post the Christmas break has been a trying one! We have now had a huge amount of snow, roughly 10 inches lying everywhere, that due to the temperature at the steading hovering at about -3degrees (dropping to -13 degrees at point), the snow simply isn't thawing, and this in turn has made it very difficult for our staff to get to work, as our communal driveway and the back road to the steading isn't being gritted at all, which means unless you have a decent 4x4 you can't get here! (Just as well we have the new Landrover Defender). Pretty though it looks the novelty is definitely wearing a bit thin!

John managed to get out to see how our clients at Prospect House coped with the new kitchen extension over the festive period, and took some lovely photos of it in the snow, the reflective nature of the frameless glazing means the glass virtually disappears in the snowy landscape. Our client Jane reported that "it was just the most wonderful entertaining space" and she is really pleased with how the space functions having tested it with 11 guests for dinner.

Meanwhile our clients at the mill are coping in temperatures of -15degrees, and with about 14 inches of snow in Torphins, the mill seems to be coping well, with a comment of "sleeping in the bedroom is like sleeping in the sky - amazing". The only initial difficulty has been the wheel icing up and making a lot of rather peculiar sounds on occasion as a result because the build up of the ice seems to unbalance it until the wheel spins the ice off. As a temporary measure the wheel has been locked, as we are slightly concerned about the potential for long term damage to the bearings with the sheer weight of ice.

The office we have been doing for our client Lili Hunter opened this week, and I am looking forward to seeing it dressed and the client getting full use of the space. The final item to be installed was the reception desk which has worked in very well, and other than the pink and orange Dalsouple rubber flooring for the kitchen and bathroom which has been delayed by the snow, the spaces are complete, and we are looking forward to her opening party.

Prospect House Kitchen Extension Completed

2010-01-04T15:30:00.001-08:00

The second project to complete just before Christmas was the glass extension and kitchen refurbishment for our clients at Prospect House, culminating in us all being able to enjoy a glass of fizzy and a very enjoyable evening building Lego with their children just as the festive season got underway.

I am particularly pleased with the the numerous interesting shapes, textures and patterns within the space, and the way the light cast changes at different times of the day. Sadly I did not have my camera with me the last time we went to site, as when it is dark the space is almost at its most dramatic. Our PR Photographer Rory will be on site shortly to take some professional shots both day and night, and I am delighted with the feedback we have received from our client so far. The issue with the scratches by the installer on the glass has been resolved by polishing the glass, and the external works were almost complete by Christmas, other than the weather that was making pointing the granite cassies rather tricky. Having worked with our client at Prospect House for several years now we are really looking forward to the next phase of works - a replacement garage. No doubt it will be something special!

Little Maldron Mill Client has moved in

2010-01-04T15:10:00.001-08:00

Well, 2009 was a long and very interesting year culminating with four projects largely complete in December. Our clients at the Mill have moved in and are busy adjusting to having a house full of entirely new things right down to cups and crockery, as most of their belongings went up in smoke whilst they were in storage in 2007.

Initial feedback has been very positive, and other than having been slightly hampered by nearly a foot of snow just at the moment, it looks at though the two spaces are going to work out very well and allow our client a great deal of flexibility about how they live and work in the two buildings.

The kitchen island unit is working particularly well, with enough space to comfortably have 4 people congregate to eat, as we found out tonight when we went over to join the client for supper.

The dining room table is on its way, due in next week, along with a final few bits of furniture. The mill wheel does not appear to be freezing despite enduring temperatures last week of -9deg C, and the water in the lade is flowing well and shows no signs of freezing much to every ones relief. The final few snags should be completed this month.

Little Maldron Mill Update

2009-11-25T15:02:00.000-08:00

Works are in the final stages now at the mill, with the client furniture being delivered to site tomorrow. The past few weeks have been very trying from a weather perspective as we have had long periods of solid rain that have made landscaping next to impossible, but Gregor has persevered, and how the solid surface paving outside the garage, granite chip pathways, and remainder of final drainage bits have been installed.

Internally, the Lighting has been completed, wood burning stove installed and the worktop for the island was installed finally this week, after a minor mishap in transportation from the manufacturers to the site resulted in it having to be remade. The wheel has been removed and then reinstalled after needing one or two tweaks to get it to run perfectly and the timber cladding applied to central drum. These shots are from the last few weeks and I am due to do a site visit this Friday, which I am thoroughly looking forward to as Gregor is fairly complete with the landscaping and at present is mid way through undertaking the final fencing works to the boundaries and tackling the visibility splays at the junction with the main road. The client has commenced packing ready for an imminent move and we are looking forward to getting them ensconced into their new home in plenty of time for Christmas.

Prospect House Extension nears the end

2009-11-25T14:17:00.000-08:00

Works to the dining kitchen extension at Prospect house are almost complete, with the glazing, oak cladding, zinc roof and most of the lighting installed.

Bulthaup have been on site installing the elegant centre island unit, complete with extract unit, dishwasher, two ovens, hob and sink. work to the custom built wall to wall timber units that surround the island are continuing and should be complete by the end of the month. The client has painted the units in the utility a very fetching powder blue, which sits very nicely with the granite floor tiles. We are very pleased with the overall scheme, and aside from one or two somewhat stressful moments in the past month.

The most awkward issue we have had to resolve has been with scratches that have appeared in numerous places on the glass that the installer accidentally made when cleaning the excess silicone from the glass, which has required the services of a specialist glass polisher to sort out, and almost required the services of a doctor when I saw them as although I do not usually panic easily, for a moment I had heart failure! Very thankfully it looks as thought the glass will be perfect by the end of the week, amazing how a material that we take for granted as a solid easily broken surface can be "buffed" back to perfection. The lighting in the horizontal window has worked particularly well, and we are looking forward to joining the client for a glass of bubbly at some point in the next week, to celebrate completion of this phase of the works.

Global Pipe Office reburbishment almost complete

2009-11-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of photos of one of the office fit outs that we have had on site for the past 8 weeks, the fit out of an existing shell and core space for Global Pipe Components in Aberdeen. JAMstudio has gained a reputation for undertaking interesting high end residential works, but we also make a nice job office fit out work, which is where John and I started our architectural careers in the nineties.

The project will be complete and the client ready to take occupation of the space on Friday this week. The space plan has provided a new board room, 3 offices and open plan work area for up to 12 staff on this level and another 20 on the ground floor. I am particularly fond of the Modular "downut" circular light fittings - a personal favorite as i have them in my kitchen at the steading! they always look fab where ever they are installed.

Motley crew

2009-11-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

One of the more amusing tasks from last week at the mill was to try and get team photos taken, as a record of the design/construction team on the project, and despite everyone moaning and ABC being late as they were all getting their hair done, it was a great laugh, and thanks to Rory Raitt our patient photographer, we've got some really nice shots of the whole team, which will be useful for our publicity work that is scheduled at the end of this year. And the staircase got a first proper test of robustness of design with more than 10 of us on it!

Prospect House glazing nearing completion

2009-10-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Although the Mill has been very much the focus of this site blog over the summer, we have had a number of other projects on site, some on which I am going to post a few progress pictures of over the next few days because they are nearing completion, and are looking really lovely. In an ideal world I'd have time to blog about more of our projects, but we are still hugely busy, so its just a few snaps for now.

We have been working on Prospect House with our clients Peter and Jane for several years now, refurbishing much of the house, including the loft, fist floor bedrooms and bathrooms, front reception and finally a new dining kitchen extension, which has been designed from structural glass, and clad with a mix of oak and zinc roofing. Peter and Jane have ordered a fantastic Bulthup stainless steel kitchen and are having bespoke joinery storage units made by local craftsman Naill Paton, both of which are not far off being ready for installation.

The photos show progress shots of the glass being installed finally this week, together with one of the original graphics, and as you can see it is shaping up nicely. I'm looking forward to our first celebration supper with the client already!

2009-10-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Finally the rain has let up for a day this weekend which allowed us to undertake a timely visit with the client to the mill, to look at progress, and quality, and to look at a move in date, which we are hopeful is likely to be around the 7/8th November.

Personally I am delighted with many of the finished details at the mill, which is full of interesting shapes, colours, textures and patterns, some of which I have taken a few pictures of at today's visit. I am most pleased with the silver grey we have chosen for the windows, doors, guttering, external light fittings and downpipes. It was a bit of a leap of faith by the client, but one that has paid off very well. The stonework of the original building is such a beautiful array of colours it needed very little in terms of other colours introduced to the exterior, and with the warmth of the cladding, the cooler silver grey (RAL 9023) has complimented the granite well.

Internally, we are almost complete. the oak flooring has been laid, all the bathrooms tiled, and most of the kitchen installed. The kitchen worktops were templated this weekend, and should be installed in just under a fortnight, at which point we can get the client ready to move in. The glass balustrades are in production for the staircase, and the special order red quartz bathroom floor tiles are on their way from Italy, so I am hopeful that within the fortnight, we will have all the remaining items delivered, and the project will be complete.

I find the angles and shapes made as you move around the building very pleasing. With their deep reveals, the windows give each room distinct clipped views of the world outside, and again, due to the way the exterior is being landscaped, these are full of interesting shapes, colours and textures.

Most of the lighting is operational now, and now that the floor is down in the lounge, the wood burning stove can be installed, which should happen later this week.

With the deluge of rain in the past week, the mill lade water flow has increased significantly, so much so that even though the wheel is unbalanced by only having three of the 12 bucket segments clad with Thermowood, it has been going round fairly constantly, which has been very pleasing to see. Matt intends to return next weekend to finish the cladding, and balance the wheel, plus fit a manual lock on it, so it can be stopped if needs be. The needle bearings are working so well, I am actually slightly concerned that we may need to do something to slow it down a bit when the water flow is very high - something none of believed would be an issue considering the weight of the wheel - it just goes to show the power of water! The wheel was a bit of an experiment by the construction team, as there are no local companies making them anymore, and despite one of two minor snags to be remedies, it works!

The Wheel is in!

2009-10-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

Back from a miserable day out on site - the weather is terrible here, and landscaping at the mill has had to come to a halt - much of Kemnay is flooded, but helpfully, the mill lade is coping very well with the 100mm of rain we have had in the last 24 hrs!

Other than landscaping the mill is now very near completion, the painters are in, the wood floor is almost completely laid, carpets are on order, the kitchen worktops are being templated on Saturday, the glass balustrades for the stair are ordered, and the clients furniture is on its way! At present, depending on the weather, I anticipate the mill being largely complete by the end of the month, which is excellent news for the client, and a great relief for the contractor team. The newly fabricated mill wheel was installed at the weekend, and it works - which is very satisfying, given it was a bit of an experiment as no one is making them any more. so many congrats to Gregor and Matt for their efforts.

We have decided to clad the interior of the wheel drum and the paddles, partly as galvanising them slightly bent some of the paddles, partly because we felt the overall look was just a bit too industrial looking. We have opted to use Thermowood for the linings to match the rest of the scheme, and several sample panels have been done, and they are looking great. the wheel runs very smoothly, and is light enough you can actually stop it by hand.

The interior should be ready for deep clean by the end of next week, so fingers crossed we should be able to set a move in date very shortly.

Little Maldron Mill nearing completion

2009-10-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Construction continues full steam ahead this month, despite the changing weather. Externally, Gregor is pressing ahead with the landscaping, including the construction of the rear rockery area, which has consumed most of the large granite boulders we had on site, and he has carefully riddled the site excavations to take out the useable stone, which this week we have crushed on site to produce hardcore for the driveway. In total this has produced over 600 tones of type 2 sub base, from material that most likely would have had to be carted off site and tipped to landfill. The crusher was on site only for a day, and in that time, Gregor managed to double crush the rock to get it to the required size we were after. We have about 60 tons of spoil that will need to be removed off site, which is a very considerable improvement over the 600+tons we would have had to remove, and also means we do not have to import material to the site to finish the driveway. Everyone was entranced watching the crusher at work - it is a very impressive bit of kit, hugely noisy, but extremely effective.

The last three weeks have seen the mill take a giant leap towards completion, which is scheduled for the end of this month, culminating with this installation of the main body of the staircase steelwork, which will now be templated for the glass balustrades this week. The yellow treads that you can see are temporary coverings to protect the stair, these will be replaced with oak very shortly. We are particlualry pleased with the overall look of the steelwork, and thanks go to Matt and his team of lads for the quality of the workmanship and the installation, which all went without a hitch.

The joiners are doing a lovely job of installing the gloss red kitchen, which is looking appropriately bold and the general finishings, including making up a number of awkward sized/shaped doors, tiling the bathrooms, and getting ready to fit the oak floors, the timber for which should be delivered to site this week.

The Office building is now completely clad with timber, all beautifully countersunk and pelleted, so that the fixings are virtually invisible, and the effect is stunning. The office has had a lick of paint, and the mill building itself is almost ready for painting.

The Mill lade is complete, and we are now awaiting delivery of the mill wheel, which is in at the powder coaters, and should be on site early next week for fitting.

The boiler has been fired up and the underfloor heating is working nicely, with the floor now dry enough in the mill to commence fitting the oak covering. The stair treads will complement this by being constructed from solid oak, and fitted with LED lights.

One issue that has presented itself this week was the failure of the solar panel flashings during a spell of extremely windy weather last weekend. This wind tore the lower flashing clean off, and following careful inspection we have decided that the flashings are simply not fit for purpose, so they will be removed and we are having new lead flashings procured. I am in the process of taking this up with the manufacturer, Worcester, as this is a new produced they have recently launched, and clearly further development work needs ot be done at thier end, as the flashings do not appear to have an adequate fixing detail to cope with a blustery day on Deeside!

2009-09-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

As a number of you will know on Thursday we attended the Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce Northern Star Business Awards Gala Dinner, as we had been selected as finalists for the "Socially Responsible Company of the Year Award". Much to our surprise I am thrilled to say we won! It made for a very overwhelming and rather surreal night, and left me with more than a touch of a hangover on Friday!

As a result I would like to say thank you ever so much to everyone who has emailed, phoned, sent cards, texts, messages and flowers to congratulate us on our win. We've been bowled over by the kindness from you all. My hangover has abated, and although in shock we are getting used to the infamy! John was even stopped in Kemnay by a well wisher on Saturday!

We've celebrated our sixth birthday on Wednesday, and are delighted with this latest success for the practice. It's taken a great deal of hard work and as with all our projects, its always a team effort so many thanks need to go also to our client at HCC, the contractor, Andy Dudek, and Steve Mitchell of Beedie Mitchell, the QS, without whom we would be lost. Our full press release is in the news section of our website, with a selection of links to various bits that have been in the Press and Journal, online and even on the telly!

2009-09-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Just back from the site visit today and the windows are all now installed, and looking very good indeed. The client is delighted and I think all the contracting team are pretty pleased too!

2009-09-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Finally at last all the windows have arrived on site and at the time of composing this post, most of them have been installed.

The relief in the office is immense - it is not often the case that the architect on a project has to take on the responsibility of actually doing the site measure for the window order, and it has reminded me why contractors often get a bit stressed out at this point. The tolerance on the windows was deliberately tight to achieve the crispness of overall look, and with a careful bit of cajoling to get them pysically in, they look fantastic now they are installed. The bottom section of the mian windows were not complete at the time of taking the photo above, hence why they look white, not silver. The client has been at Goodwood Classic Revival this week, and i am looking forward to this Thursdays site inspection. The change in the build has been immense.

The lade is now all lead sheet lined, and is looking very slick indeed, the building is more than 50% pointed, the colour for the pointing having been carefully selected from a batch mixed for us by Chap Quarries. Internally, ABC have taken on the plumbing following the replacement of the plumber sadly through insolvency on his part, and the newest recruit to ABC's team, aka Dan's dad, David, is coping well with having to pick up the reins on a complex heating installation mid build. It is our intention to fire up the heating system perhaps at the end of this week, so we can dry out the underfloor heating screed further in the mill. The kitchen units are all on site, the white goods should arrive in the next few days, and there are many other items, such as the front doors that will be delivered in the next few days also.

Both Total Build and ABC have produced some really beautiful work in the past few weeks - TB notably for the works to the mill lade, including the new stonework, and lead work, fantastic rebatted pointing and ABC for the works to clad the garage, including the painstaking pelleting of each of the fixing screws, done so beautifully it is virtually impossible to see where they have been fixed. The photo below shows a section where the pellets have been fitted but not sanded yet, above it they have been sanded and as you can the effect is very neat indeed.

After experiencing significant difficulties with ordering the french Biorock mini treatment unit, we have opted to install the very tried and tested Klargester Bio disc - JAMstudio actually uses one of these at our own office, and it has coped extremely well over the past 6 years. All in all a very hectic, fairly stressful, but intensely satisfying week on site, that sees us edge further still towards the provisional completion date at the end of next month.

2009-09-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

The past month has seen a dramatic change in the build, with the main roof on the mill now completely slated, and as of this weekend, finished with its very pretty lead ridge roll. the mill lade has been completely rebuilt, the mill wheel is in production and due on site in a couple of weeks, the windows on schedule for later this month, and the interior of the building progressing at a pace.

As you can see the interior of the mill has been completely plastered, the kitchen has been delivered and is due for installation this week, tiling should commence, and generally everyone is working flat out to have the building largely complete by the end of the month.

The landscaping works are now underway, hence why the site looks like a bit of a mud bath, not helped by a months worth of rain falling in one day two weeks ago - but pleasingly everything on site has been manageable, albeit it rather muddy. Windows will be here the week commencing the 21st, so i will update the blog again shortly once they are in. Filming for the Northern Star Business Awards also took place this month, and we will be tickled to see the result on 24th when we find out if we have won!

2009-07-30T08:04:00.001-07:00

Just back from this weeks routine site visit, and we are all pleased an impressed with progress - a bit like mayhem on site today as we push to get the building ready for the Superflo floor screed to be cast on Monday next week.

Joiners, sparky, plumbers and alarm installer were all on site today, plus ourselves and the clients, and it was very nice to see the site with a real buzz about it. The red stuff on the floor is the underfloor heating backing sheet that fixes the pipes in the floor, by the next time we visit, it should be covered with a nice layer of screed and be super smooth, ready for everyone to crack on with plaster baording internally.

2009-07-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks on site have been characterised by extraordinary amounts of rain - to coin a local term "it has been pishing doon", to the point where part of the banking at the rear of the site has come away and we now have two torrents of water running through the site.

Pleasingly all this water has proved that the internal tanking is holding up well, and despite a somewhat sleepless night worrying that the mill spring might have moved, after investigation Gregor has proved that it was simply a field drain, I think we can all sleep a bit easier!

The main focus at present is the mill building, with works leaping ahead as we are all trying to get ready to Superflo screed the floor next week. The pictures show the internal kit is well progressed, the floor insulated, and the first fix wiring and plumbing underway. The roofing membrane has been swapped out as I was not happy with its performance, and it seems to be working well enough now. The windows are ordered and delivery dates have been set for September. Gregor and the team at Total Build are turning their minds to drainage and landscaping and trying to sort out the mill lade, whilst Andy and his team at ABC are pushing on to get the interior of the mill progressed as far as possible whilst we wait for windows. Completion is looking likely towards the end of September/early October, slippage largely due to me trying to make sure we have a coordinated solution for the windows...and being repeatedly let down by suppliers. Other than that we are very pleased with the overall progress, and it is great to see the interior starting to look like some of the graphics too now.

2009-07-12T06:04:00.000-07:00

This week the main mill building has really started to feel like a habitable space, as the oversite concrete for the floors has been cast, and the roof almost completely sarked. With the slot of sarking to be finished at the ridge level looking a bit like a rooflight it makes me wonder if we shouldn't of had a full length rooflight in this location, but I think it would have messed about with the simplicity of the elevations.

The office/garage building has been strapped up ready for the cladding to be installed, and the next task is to get the internal kit up for the main mill building. Finally at JAM this week we have resolved the great window debacle, and have now placed orders with both Velfac and Vitral.

2009-07-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

Uncharacteristically hot all over the UK this week, which has meant that building at Torphins has been like working in a furnace for everyone on site! Nevertheless, there has been no let up in the pace of the works, as you can see form the photos. The roof is now more or less complete on the garage, with just the leadwork ridge to add, the staircase has been installed internally and most of the plastering is complete.

The rafters on the main mill building itself have been installed, and you can now begin to see the outline of the feature full length windows. Internally the walls have been pointed and then rendered to both secure any of the loose internal rubble stonework, and to add a layer of waterproofing. the whole lot is has felt burned on at low level, which effectively works like a DPC, and then the remainder of the wall is painted with bitumen to add a final level of extra waterproofing. Even painted black it feels like a big space internally, and everyone is looking forward to the roof being completed and the internal kit being erected.

2009-06-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

Progress on site continues a pace, the scaffolding has been struck this week on the front facade of the garage and now the joiners have turned their attention to erecting the roof rafters of the main mill building. The garage is now fully plastered and the oak staircase installed, the block work up on the exterior and the whole building is not far off being ready to have the external Finnforest cladding fitted. We're in the process of finalising the window suppliers after months of difficulties with suppliers promising alot but delivering not much! The client is becoming increasingly excited at the very real prospect of moving in, and we're very impressed by the efforts of all of our sub contractors to date, who are pulling out all stops to bring the project in on time and with any luck not too far adrift from the budget!

2009-06-19T03:22:00.000-07:00

Works at the mill continue to make positive progress, ABC have commenced fabricating the kit panels for the extension to the mill, and have plastered the interior of the office/garage building. Total Build are dressing slate for the office, and should commence slaterworks early next week, whilst ABC will begin to erect the roof trusses for the mill.

2009-06-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

Just back from our hols in Le Mans, France and an email from our good friends at Tricker PR confirms we've been shortlisted to the finals for the Northern Star Business Awards: see for yourself, the article is the Press & Journal Web site, and has even made it into grubby print today!

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1265388
http://www.northernstarawards.co.uk/
http://www.agcc.co.uk/eagerly-awaited-shortlist-of-finalists/

2009-06-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Just back from the site visit today and the granite work on the mill building itself is almost complete, just a couple of lintels to be put into place on the back elevation. Nice to see it starting to look like the graphic. Meantime the garage/office is leaping forwards, this is now the ninth week on site and the upstairs space is plaster boarded and plastering commenced today. The views from this space are spectacular, and everyone is really looking forward to seeing the roof go on to the mill, which should commence sometime next week.

2009-06-08T15:01:00.001-07:00

And this was the photo last week - it's even starting to look like the graphics we produced for the client last year to illustrate the finished house. The granite work is complete on the West Elevation now, except a 3.4m long lintel that has finally been sourced, on the West coast of Scotland. The next task is to rebuild the lade where it has partially collapsed and slate the new garage/office building.

2009-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

And less than a month later, the steelwork for the new cathedral style roof is in place, the granite work is almost rebuilt, and the new garage/office/bedroom block has been built. and the weather has improved just a bit! makes a change from the snow...

2009-06-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Towards the middle of May, the roof was off, the new slaps on the west elevation were well underway, and the bulk of the east elevation had been taken down to remove the old timber lintels. in the process we discovered the walls were not as sound as first thought, as the ivy had penetrated deep into the walls, and effectively cleaved the coursed front granite stones from the rubble fill at the back. so with the client's permission the walls were taken down until we found suitable firm stonework. rather unnerving for the whole team, to see the mill reduced to a couple of bookends.

2009-06-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

Site stripped early April 2009 for works to commence, first the roof has to come off, then the source of the water on the site was captured in a new man made well, and redirected properly down the original route of the lade. this has helped to dry the site out considerably. after taking away yet another 1000 tons of land pickings and general muck, the site works Contractor, Total Build Scotland Ltd were ready to start in earnest.

2009-06-08T13:45:00.001-07:00

Little Maldron Mill is a conversion of a derelict mill in Torphins which is in the process of becoming a new family home. After an unusually tricky ride through planning we finally achieved consent for our clients last year and this year have finally brought the project to site. check out the time lapse photos for details of how the project has progressed since the middle of April 2009. Initially the building was half buried with field pickings and ivy.

2009-06-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the JAMstudio site blog. A few of our clients have said they'd like to see what is going on with some of the projects we have on site at the moment - call it nosey or just plain interested, we thought it would be a good way of posting progress pictures without clogging up our main www.jamstudio.uk.com web site. if you like what you see here or have any questions simply drop us a line on info@jamstudio.uk.com