Jesus wept...what a horrible, joyless box. Who were the architects? Did they win the commission through public tendering...based on a track record of delivering and having expertise is schools??! Perhaps the RIAS need to look at striking off firms that undermine our profession by producing dreadful work like this..the poor children of Caol!

Looks great to me. A welcome contemporary addition set against a beautiful natural backdrop.

Well done Holmes Miller.

The Highland Council pics undersold the scheme. I've uploaded professional photography.

#2..... said a representative of Holmes Miller.
Looks like a typically dull, boxy hub project delivered off the commercial practice conveyor belt where architectural solutions are referenced from product websites, Rhienzinc in this case, not context.
Quality architecture shouldn't need the professional photography...it should speak for itself. The first shots were more revealing and typical of how the building will be experienced.
The old 'contemporary addition set against a beautiful natural backdrop' cliche needs a scheme with much more finesse and a considered attitude towards materiality to pull it off.

Love the wire fencing. Is it electrified?

Having stifled a polite yawn I thought I’d let my inner Sibyl Moholy-Nagy loose on this display of ‘could be anywhere’ modernist blandly boring good taste but on reflection decided that the indefatigable John Outram sums up my thoughts so much better in his response to the recent listing of his rather joyful Isle of Dogs Storm Water Pumping Station:

"The oldest architecture I ever visited was the painted caves of 20,000-year-old Lascaux," he said. "Decoration is the origin and essence of architecture. It can mediate, in the theatre of a built room or a built city, the epiphany of a meaning.”

"I was told, in 1955, at the beginning of my life as an architect, that my medium was both to be illiterate and devoid of metaphysical capacity," he continued. "My work has been a rebellion.”

"I refused to live in a city designed by proudly sub-literate haptics whose ambition was to reduce it to mere 'plant'. I aimed to invent that 'meaning' and confirm those epiphanic techniques. Thanks for this happy birthday present for my 83rd on Wednesday 21 June.”

More Outram please. It is a school not a processing factory for cookie cutter shaped kids.

I don't mind the exterior given the beautiful natural backdrop, but the interior is just a missed opportunity. It's all about the cold and harsh contemporary look isn't it? Totally sterelised from fun!

Designed in-house by The Highland Council.

Delivered by Holmes Miller.

@#6 - I take your point, but whenever I look at the pumping station on the isle of dogs it makes me quite cross. Just a pure, simple, visceral response..it gives me the boak.

I've seen this in the flesh, on a grey Lochaber day, and have to say it looks great, better than even the new improved photos can convey. Yes it's boxy and yes there are low-maintenance finishes, but the building has real presence, partly due to the sheer scale (not conveyed here) but also because of the rhythm of elements, and the large glazed areas coupled with reflective metal panels result in a light airy feel. It could have looked like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26836638 but thankfully the brickwork was designed out.

And from what I understand the feedback has been completely positive from teachers, pupils and neighbours (due to its location in the middle of housing, there must have been a lot of community engagement). What more could you ask for? Well done The Highland Council and Holmes Miller.

Are you joking? The brick version looks much better. As it is, it's banal, and not even in a good way.

Are you joking? Brick in Caol? Get a grip, no context.

smooth white render might be a "low maintenance finish" but it will look terrible in a couple of years