Affordable Housing – Cupar

30 Affordable Housing Units, West Port, Cupar, Fife

The design for the former Bell Baxter High School comprises of 21 affordable two storey homes, 9 mid-market rent common access flats for Kingdom Housing Association and a 3 storey Business Centre.  The site of has served as an important community facility at West Port, on the edge of Cupar’s town centre, since 1890 and lies within the Conservation Area.  It also sits adjacent to the Grade C Listed, St Michael’s Church. Before construction could commence, the majority of the existing building required to be demolished. The remaining facades, which front West Port, involved a major facade retention which was complicated further by existing trees that were not allowed to be lopped or felled.

All the new houses are built to Fife Council’s enhanced specification, which includes:

• increased levels of insulation and air tightness
• sprinkler systems
• solar panels and energy monitoring equipment
• innovative ‘breathing wall system’ which uses cutting edge technology to capture and recover some of the heat which would normally escape through the external walls.  This heat energy is then transferred to incoming fresh air and circulated around the house using a whole house ventilation system.