Granite wing opens Cairngorm Cottage to the garden

A Victorian cottage in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has a new granite wing that turns its longest face to the garden.

Architecture Office, a practice based in Edinburgh, Scotland, designed the low-lying extension for Cairngorm Cottage, according to Dezeen. The project was published on 16 September 2026. It sits low against the older house. It looks out, not in.

The new block holds the working parts of the home. There is a kitchen, a dining room, a utility room and an entrance hall. Together they replace a small, dark addition built in the 1970s.

The structure is built from reclaimed granite with lime mortar, a traditional binder made from heated limestone rather than cement. The walls use a slaistered finish, a Scottish stonework method where rough stones sit proud of the mortar joints. Inside, the fit-out uses Scottish ash joinery, the fitted doors, shelves and wood trim, alongside clay plaster walls.

The plan is simple. The longest facade opens onto the garden. That orientation pulls daylight into the kitchen and dining room and gives the entrance a direct link to the outdoors.

The project was led by Alexander Mackison, studio director of Architecture Office. The Edinburgh practice designs buildings, interiors and objects, and says it works across the United Kingdom on projects of varied scale and type. It had flagged a “final push to completion” at Cairngorm Cottage in Aberdeenshire in a site update posted in March 2026.

What makes this stand out is the swap. Out goes a cramped 1970s box. In comes a stone base built from salvaged material, arranged around cooking, eating and coming home.