Apollo has just been completing a number of projects in Wales, England and Scotland and I have been visiting each one to ensure that we have been true to our core values of creativity and quality.  In my travels I have been staying at a number of hostelries and have noticed there is growing interest in where our food is being produced and the distances from the source of the food to the table - food miles.

As I have visited each of the sites, I have also been considering how we use and where we source our natural building materials and the travel distance from where they are produced to the sites.  In a series of articles for the website, I am going to consider each of our recent building completions, starting initially in Scotland at our most northern project, Fort William.

Granite - 54 miles from the Alvie Estate in Aviemore

The feature gables to the Fort William Health Centre are formed of a pink granite from the Alvie Quarry at Kingussie, as a foil to the strata of artificial stone.  These elements have been constructed in a random rubble style with raked joints reminiscent of Scottish vernacular construction.

The stone was hand selected and erected by Coe Construction of nearby Ballachulish (16 miles from Fort William).  The range of stone size and colour adds richness to the elevations.  Varying strength of sunlight and artificial light gives the walls a life of their own.  The stone too is run into the landscape, integrating the building with its environment.

This is supplemented by the use of other local materials such as:

Oak - Reception desk cladding - 55 miles from the Forest of Ardnamurchan in Argyle

Seasoned oak has been taken from the Ardnamurchan Peninsula which is milled at the same independent saw mill as the larch which dresses the reception internally.  Seasoned oak has been used to externally decorate the Reception desk.

Untreated larch boarding - 55 miles from Ardnamurchan

The untreated larch boardings within panels between windows have been cut to order for the project from a managed forest on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula on the opposite side of Loch Linnhe.  The larch has been rejuvenated with an oil finish.

Below Ground

36,000 cubic metres of peat was excavated from the site (to put this in perspective, the Albert Hall's volume is 100,000 cubic metres!), and the extracted peat was provided to the Forestry Commission at Aonach Mor which literally backs onto the Dornie Quarry at Torlundy - 4 miles away - from which was quarried the uphill sandstone used below ground on the site.

Like the locally commissioned Art , it's a real pleasure to see the use of natural, handmade, local materials in our buildings.

The next project to be considered in this series of articles will be Ripponden in the West Riding of Yorkshire.