Interview: Nicholas Groves-Raines, architect

• Nicholas Groves-Raines and his wife, Kristin Hannesdottir, have completed seven restoration projects in 40 years Picture: TSPL

THIRTY EIGHT years ago, architect Nicholas Groves-Raines was driving around Edinburgh with his wife, Kristin Hannesdottir, when he took a detour. He wanted to show her one of his favourite buildings in the city, so he drove her down to the Shore in Leith to see Lamb's House, the one-time home of 17th-century merchant Andrew Lamb, its grandeur now somewhat faded.

Kristin, too, fell in love with the crumbling building, and earlier this year, four decades after they first visited it together, the couple purchased it from the National Trust of Scotland. Together they are restoring it to its former glory by turning it into a family home with their architectural practice, Groves-Raines Architects, on the ground floor.

One of the most respected conservation practices in the country, Groves-Raines Architects has worked on more than 1,000 projects, ranging from restoration work on a massive scale to a small composting shed, which this year won a Scottish Design Award. Since they set up their practice in 1972, Nicholas and Kristin – an artist and architect – have restored seven old Scottish buildings to house them and their three (now grown-up) children. This will be their eighth such project and the fifth dealing with an A-listed building.

"It's very satisfying to work on these buildings," says Kristin, who greets me at the couple's current Edinburgh home, Liberton House, a late 16th-century fortified building that they rescued in 1991 after it had been gutted by fire. "These are great, great works of art, these fortified buildings, and Scotland is the only place where you get this kind of architecture. But people neglect them and don't value them. When you live in one, you are only ever a tenant. You never own them. You look after them and do your best for them, then you move on and hopefully other people will take them on and enjoy them as much as you have."

"For us, it's partly the challenge of dealing with them having been vandalised and despoiled by modern intervention," adds Nicholas. "The challenge here was to catch it in time and take it on and turn it round to the way you think it should be. This particular building wasn't in a ruined state but we've had to undo so much that it's sort of the same thing."

Lamb's House is the best-preserved Hanseatic merchant's house in Scotland. It is thought to date back to the early 17th century (Groves-Raines are using the beams to date it precisely) and has been used as everything from a tenement in the 19th century to a day centre for elderly people and offices in the 20th. It is said that Mary Queen of Scots stayed there upon her return from France in 1560, but Nicholas believes that the house was not yet built then.

It has suffered at the hands of vandals, and some original features were lost due to intervention in the 1930s and 1960s. Panelling was ripped out, fireplaces blocked up, ceilings lowered and rooms partitioned. Groves-Raines intend on a sympathetic overhaul, which will see it looking as close to its 17th century incarnation as they can get it, down to salvaged roof tiles, diamond-shaped window panes and a renaissance garden.

The National Trust has owned the property for the last 60 years but, unable to afford the upkeep or restoration, has been looking to offload it for the past five years. Proposals from other firms have included ultra-modern additions and splitting the building into flats. However, retaining the original architectural style and keeping it as one was very important to Nicholas and Kristen. They bought it from the NTS for an undisclosed sum and will spend at least 1 million overhauling it.

The original building will be the family home, while a small new building in the same architectural style will house the office.

Partition walls will be taken down, fireplaces opened and ceilings will be restored to their correct height, above the beams.

They plan to "green up" the exterior spaces, and hope that the areas beyond the boundaries of Lamb's House might be used for a weekend market, or something similar. Even in its current dilapidated state, it is already an attraction for tourists, and its makeover is sure to greatly enhance the surrounding area.

Sadly, the building was rendered in cement in the 1930s, and while Groves-Raines would love to replace it with a historically correct and aesthetically pleasing lime render, they cannot afford the maintenances. Passers-by will get a good view of the building and its gardens from the street and will be able to take a look inside by appointment. Its primary function, however, will be as a family home and workspace.

"They say that the most appropriate re-use of a listed building is that for which it was built, and this was built as a merchant's house and his place of work, so this is a perfect solution," says Nicholas.

"For our purposes, our office will be mainly in a separate little building in the grounds and in the ground floor of the house, absolutely the way that it was operated when it was a merchant's house. He lived upstairs and had his business on the ground floor. Same thing. So we're just doing what is appropriate."

While a number of locals have popped by the site to say how pleased they are with the plans, the project has not been without its detractors. The Cockburn Association (The Edinburgh Civic Trust) has been "scathing" about the plans, describing them as "pastiche" and writing to the planners to express their disapproval.

"We said it isn't pastiche, it's revivalist," says Nicholas with a tired laugh. "We stuck to our guns. We said we wanted it the way we feel is appropriate, that it complements what's there and it creates a group of buildings that are all comfortable with each other. And from a passer-by's point of view, the modernists haven't intervened and made a mess of it."

Most people who undertake a project of this size do so because they're in it for the long run. But Nicholas and Kristin don't know if Lamb's House will be their last such project. They have lived in Liberton House for 15 years, but before that, personal restoration projects included: the earliest inhabited house in Edinburgh, next door to John Knox's house on the High Street; the vast Peffermill House in Niddrie, built in 1634; and a castle in the Highlands. Most of their personal projects are fortified houses built in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

"We brought the kids up living on building sites," says Kristin with a laugh. "And we don't mind camping. We moved in to Liberton House without any floors. We moved with our three children into two rooms in the attic, and we lived there for six months.

"We are moving into Lamb's House at Easter, and, as long as the office is functioning and we have somewhere we can have a shower, we may live in one room. It doesn't matter. These houses are very easy to live in, very comfortable and very light, because they are only a room thick, so you always get light from two, or even three sides."

"They're made of natural materials," adds Nicholas. "They have an organic composition and an organic feel, and they don't make demands like Georgian buildings do. You don't have to deal with cornices, you don't have to hang fancy curtains. You can be minimalist if you wish. And you're very conscious of the structure of the building because you can see the beams and the stone floors."

The couple laugh at rumours that they paid 1 million for the property. In reality, they say, it was a lot less. Yet, once they've spent over 1 million restoring it, they are fully aware that they will have shelled out more than it's worth. They insist, however, that money is not the point.

"It's not a development project," says Nicholas firmly. "It's an opportunity which has arisen and we've taken up the challenge. I suppose there are many other things we could have done instead. We could have retired. Pottered about."

He pauses before sharing a laugh with his wife. With their eighth restoration project in less than 40 years well under way, and no indication that this is their last, they're simply not the pottering-about types.

The history of Lamb's house

THE best guess as to the date of Lamb's House is the early 17th century. It was owned by Andrew Lamb, a rich local merchant about whom not much is known. Built on a narrow plot of ground, measuring roughly 75ft by 30ft, it was designed to be hemmed in by high buildings on each side.

Remarkably, it survived the merciless Victorian town planners, who tore down a number of buildings of a similar age in the 19th century, and was saved from demolition once more, in the 1930s, by the Marquess of Bute. It was 'restored' at this point in a manner considered sympathetic at the time. However, from putting in incorrect windows to the heavy use of cement, much damage was done during this particular restoration. By the 1950s the building was in the hands of the National Trust, and a single-storey extension was added in the 1960s (since demolished by Groves-Raines).

After surviving a period as an overcrowded tenement in the 19th and early 20th century, it was used as a drop-in centre for the elderly in the 1950s before being turned into offices. By the time it was purchased by Groves-Raines, it was being used as an office by Friends of the Earth.

There is no doubting the charm of its collection of crow-stepped gables and chimneys, its windows and doors of varying shapes and sizes, and its sparse faades, the likes of which were a direct inspiration for Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Twenty first-century proposals for the building have included turning it into flats, and utilising it as a visitor centre, complete with gallery space and a shop. However, it was the Groves-Raines proposal that won out, and 400 years after it was first built as a family home, it is to be returned to its former usage.

• Visit www.grovesrainesarchitects.com for more details.