• Formal approval July 2005
• Design team led by Page \ Park appointed November 2005
• Planning permission secured June 2006
• Site acquired from West Dunbartonshire Council July 2006
• Construction contract awarded to CBC Ltd October 2006
• Site start date 4 December 2006
• Main construction works complete december 2007
• Internal fit-out from January to April 2008
• Move in April 2008

Design Team

The building was designed by a team led by Page \ Park architects of Glasgow, who recently won the Royal Institute of Architects in Scotland top architectural award for the Maggie Centre.

Project Manager

Gardiner & Theobald Management Services of Glasgow

Contractor

Some more facts & figures...

• The name Carrochan is a local place name thought to be Gaelic for either ‘winding’ or ‘rocky place’, both being very apt given the final form of the building
• The expected carbon footprint of the building is 80 tonnes as compared to 200 for a conventional building and 140 tonnes for current best practice
• Over 2,500 sheep donated their winter coats for the sheep’s wool insulation in the walls and ceilings
• The total number of man hours worked on the build is over 80,000 hours
• If laid end to end, the length of the timber used in the building would stretch for nearly 27 miles – longer than the length of Loch Lomond
• An overall budget of £8.9m was secured from the Scottish Government in 2005. The project was delivered on budget with the headline costs:
  • main construction contract including external works £4.9m
  • site acquisition £500k
  • internal fit out, furnishings, AV and IT equipment £1.5m
  • professional fees £800k
  • VAT £1.2m
• Carrochan is the largest building with a green timber structure in the UK. It uses the largest section of green timber in the UK with the biggest posts measuring a massive 650mm x 600mm x 6.2m long
• The Douglas fir frame comprises of 160 cubic metres of timber weighing in at 80 tonnes
• Timber is the only sustainable material available for use as a structural space frame for a building
• The timber frame is a cutting edge structure combining post and beam construction with pre-fabricated floor and roof panels and a site built skin
• It took 3,000 man hours to build the frame in Angus and 3,300 hours to erect it on site in Balloch
• All the timber used in the building was sourced from Scotland and the Borders
• Carrochan has already achieved an excellent BREEAM rating (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Matrix) at design stage
• The stone used on the roof, walls and floor is Burlington slate from the Lake District. It was not viable to re-open the Aberfoyle slate quarry, as hoped, but Burlington is similar in character.
• The building floor area is approximately 2,200 sq m
• A time capsule was buried in 2007 containing original plans for the HQ, the weather forecast for the day, current National Park publications and recent photographs of Balloch
• National Park staff moved into their new home on Monday 21 April which happens to be the day John Muir, one of the founding fathers of the great North American National Parks, was born in 1838 in Dunbar, East Lothian