Queens View Visitor Centre
Loch Tummel, Perthshire

Forestry Commission Scotland shortlisted Gareth Hoskins Architects in 2006 for a competition to upgrade its Queens View Visitor Centre in the magnificent woodland high above picturesque Loch Tummel in Perthshire. Proposals provided £1.04 million enlarged/improved exhibition spaces, shop, toilets, parking, signage and interpretation by incorporating and extending existing buildings.

The design met FSC’s stringent sustainability brief, featured innovative use of timber. A key brief requirement was that all parts of the building and interpretation should tell the story of its making and its relationship to timber. Two existing slate roofed buildings, containing shop and toilets, were linked by a single tall horizontal copper plane delicately balanced on Douglas Fir trunk columns over interpretation and café areas. A rough AV and interpretation box, clad with local larch shingles, was set below and a plinth of local stone wrapped up to enclose the café terrace. Visitors’ route through the complex was defined by sweeping timber walkways and landscape interpretive elements leading to the famous Queens View.