The new Playful Garden Visitor Centre, for the National Trust Scotland, is set within the grounds of the 16th century Brodie Castle in Morayshire.

The castle's gardens are based on the themes of family and play, and include slides, tunnels and an array of engaging, fantastical sculptural elements.

Brodie Castle is well known due to its association with the Brodie Family, one of the oldest established families in the North East of Scotland, and the National Trust Scotland wanted the new visitor centre to help build an attraction to support Scotland’s heritage.

The visitor centre acts as the public entrance to the ‘Playful Garden’ and also provides retail, catering, and indoor play spaces. The design is intended for year-round use, and to support special events and exhibitions.

Developing a bespoke strategy that takes into consideration the lack of gas on site while meeting the client's and architect’s needs, we decided to implement electrical heaters to supply hot water to the building, while air source heat pumps supply fan coils and underfloor heating with low temperature hot water.

In the summer, the building is predominantly naturally ventilated, while air handing units are used to make up for any heat losses during winter time.

The building has been well received by users and was shortlisted in both the Scottish Design Awards and the RIBA Awards 2018.