Why "Model-D" ?

The ambition behind the Model-D is to provide a high-specification, affordable home that complements the landscape and houses people with minimal impact on the environment. While Henry's Model-T could be kept running under the most arduous of conditions, it did require gasoline to do so. The Model-D house is designed for the post oil age, to keep people in comfort and security in the countryside.

In the tradition!

Stone and aggregate require a lot of energy to source and process, and are taken from a finite resource, but well managed plantations of trees can go on in rotation for ever. Many Scottish buildings were once timber, but ours is a harsh and unforgiving climate, and modern protection and preservation methods did not then exist, and eventually, neither did many trees! There are still many century old timber railway buildings in use.

The Model-D is designed to endure and to require minimal maintenance. This cutting-edge cottage is made almost entirely of Scottish grown timber to provide a building that is unintrusive and complements the landscape. Designed by architect Gokay Deveci, it features lots of space, high levels of insulation and passive energy conserving techniques: a place to engender contentment and inspiration. Life is about balance.

The countryside in much of Scotland was once intensively inhabited by people living in communal farm "towns". With agricultural redevelopment this form of working the land eventually disappeared, except in the form of small land holdings called "crofts". Over the years these were eventually swallowed up by larger farms, except in the Highlands, where they were protected by acts of parliament.

The rural population peaked about the same time as the first Crofting Act of 1886, and has declined ever since. Much of the poorer land was intentionally turned to wilderness, despite it having been inhabited for thousands of years in some cases, so that the rich could come and hunt for deer in the dramatic landscape. The Model Houses are our proposal to get people of modest means back living and working in the glens again.

Well, Henry Ford almost got it right! Despite the flexibility computer technology can bring to product design and manufacture, making the same thing continuously is still the most efficient means of production. Construction is unique in that much of the work has to be carried out on site, so a squad erecting the same house repeatedly will get very good at doing so quickly and competently. Efficiency can reduce cost remarkably.