Usher Mews is situated to the South end of the Meadows in the centre of Edinburgh. BLOCK NINE undertook several feasibility proposals on the site for a developer client and assisted in establishing a brief for three new luxury apartments within the villa, with two new Mews properties and three new Townhouses to the rear of the property, replacing demolished office facilities.

Listed Building Consent and planning were granted for the conversion of the villa, returning it to a residential use class with the flats to be refurbished to a high specification. The Mews properties were developed to closely follow the roofline of the existing offices on the site to prevent any additional overshadowing, although now accommodate additional accommodation within the additional roof heights. A strong masonry base envelopes a timber clearstory and gables, topped with over-scaled aluminium dormers to a zinc roof, to give a truly contemporary interpretation of a traditional mews building.

The Townhouses, located deep in the heart of the site, are formed with a complex fusion of the twisted geometries to the upper and lower parts of the site. Whilst the lower floor and the large overhanging mono-pitched roofs are orientated to the courtyard to the rear of the villa, the upper floors are twisted to align with the geometry of their rear gardens. This creates a very dynamic and dramatic composition to their front elevations. As with the mews, materials of the townhouse are not extensively seen outwith the site, so a complimentary but contemporary palette has been selected, incorporating a solid masonry base, timber cladding to the projecting cantilevered boxes, aluminium glazing systems, white render and topped with a zinc roof.