Iona Craft Shop
We were delighted to be asked to work on designs for a new Iona Craft Shop, replacing the existing shop building and its adjoining residential accommodation with a new building giving more space to display the lovely Craft Shop wares, with a two bedroom flat for holiday-lets above. We wanted to follow the lead of Iona Craft Shop’s style: simple, elegant and beautifully crafted with warmth and colour. The designs invite in passers-by; drawing people in through a sheltered, covered entrance nook into a flexible open shop floor space with views out across the field beyond and on down to Martyrs Bay.
The understated forms of the building set the scene for details and material treatments to invite discovery and to delight. The fit-out of the building with shop furniture and display forms a holistic part of the overall design, focussed on providing a calm and inspiring space to browse in.
Our commission also included development of a new building (‘The Sheds’) immediately over the road from the Shop to house Iona Craft Shop’s sister business Iona Wool, along with a small studio apartment. The new building replaces existing storage sheds and a small dwelling and takes its architectural cues from both this existing shed materiality and the proposed Shop opposite. The new building responds to the siting of existing mature trees, level changes across the site and the Nunnery, a Scheduled Ancient Monument and neighbour to the Sheds. The Sheds were completed in autumn 2022.
Team
Client : Iona Craft Shop
Structural Engineer : David Narro Associates
Quantity Surveyor : Morham & Brotchie, Oban