MAKAR Homes

24/06/2026

Family home heating for less than £6 a week.

With energy costs continuing to put pressure on household budgets, the efficiency of our homes has never mattered more.

At MAKAR, we're building highly energy-efficient timber homes that are designed to be comfortable, healthy and affordable to run all year round. This family home has predicted heating costs of just £5.72 per week and an EPC rating of A. Thanks to high levels of insulation and carefully designed building fabric, these homes also stay comfortably cool during warmer summer weather.

We were delighted to welcome Paul Brannen, Non-Executive Commissioner at the Forestry Commission, to our Innovation Centre and workshop. It was a great opportunity to discuss the role sustainable timber construction can play in delivering low-carbon, high-performance homes for the future.

What do you think – is heating a family home for less than £6 a week amazing?

17/06/2026

We are delighted to announce that MAKAR has been selected by the Kyle and Lochalsh Community Trust to take forward the design work for the proposed Micro-Ecovillage at Ratagan and Saraig.

MAKAR was one of many practices that applied through the tender process facilitated by the Communities Housing Trust, with funding from the Scottish Government's More Homes Division. As part of our submission, we developed a series of conceptual designs and visualisations that set out our vision for the project and demonstrated our approach to creating a thriving, sustainable new community.

We are particularly pleased that our vision, methodology, and strong alignment with the local challenges of depopulation, fuel poverty, the need for community infrastructure, and supporting local businesses helped secure our appointment. The Trust also recognised our commitment to community engagement, placemaking, delivering low-carbon homes, and creating places that are affordable to heat and live in.

We look forward to developing these ideas further as we work through the design stages alongside the Trust and the local community, helping to shape a place that reflects local aspirations and supports future generationsKyle & Lochalsh Community

Kyle & Lochalsh Community Trust
Communities Housing Trust
The Scottish Government

16/06/2026

"Far far cheaper to heat – 15% of the price of a normal house to heat – and that matters a great deal because we have a highest level of fuel poverty in Britain, we have weather that is much more challenging and we need housing of this quality to live comfortably in remote Scotland.” Angus MacDonald, MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, speaking about MAKAR homes last week.

www.makar.co.uk

16/06/2026

We are delighted to announce that MAKAR has been selected by the Kyle and Lochalsh Community Trust to take forward the design work for the proposed Micro-Ecovillage at Ratagan and Saraig.

MAKAR was one of many practices that applied through the tender process facilitated by the Communities Housing Trust, with funding from the Scottish Government's More Homes Division. As part of our submission, we developed a series of conceptual designs and visualisations that set out our vision for the project and demonstrated our approach to creating a thriving, sustainable new community.

We are particularly pleased that our vision, methodology, and strong alignment with the local challenges of depopulation, fuel poverty, the need for community infrastructure, and supporting local businesses helped secure our appointment. The Trust also recognised our commitment to community engagement, placemaking, delivering low-carbon homes, and creating places that are affordable to heat and live in.

We look forward to developing these ideas further as we work through the design stages alongside the Trust and the local community, helping to shape a place that reflects local aspirations and supports future generationsKyle & Lochalsh Community TrustuCommunities Housing TrustuThe Scottish GovernmenteAngus MacDonald Highland Liberal Democratsat’s

12/06/2026

We can heat our homes at a fraction of the cost of a conventional new build. That matters because almost 50% of Highland households experience fuel poverty.

At MAKAR, we're building energy-efficient, affordable homes that can help tackle both fuel poverty and the rural housing crisis. By combining high-performance design with modern offsite construction, we're creating homes that are warmer, cheaper to run and better suited to the needs of rural communities.

We were delighted to welcome Angus MacDonald to our workshop and Paradigm home. It was an opportunity to discuss the challenges facing rural housing and the role that high-performing, affordable homes can play in supporting a growing rural workforce.

11/06/2026

The tallest timber building in the world is 18 stories high (!) and shows what is possible with carbon storing timber construction.

We design our homes and supply chains to work with Scottish timber resources, not imported timber, whether Sitka spruce, European larch, Douglas fir or other species. Crucially, building with timber stores carbon throughout a building's life while reducing reliance on high-carbon materials such as concrete and steel.

Brannen, Non-executive Commissioner of the Forestry Commission, visited our workshop and Paradigm Show Home recently and shared his thoughts on the advantages of building with timber for sustainable, low-carbon homes of the future.

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06/06/2026

£5-a-week heating bills? How super-efficient timber houses can transform Scotland.

Jeremy Leggett, Founder and Chair of NatureProsperity, writes for The Scotsman about how timber homes are good for nature, the economy, the fight against climate change – and might even help protect democracy from the rise of the far-right... Read more (requires subscription to access): https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/ps5-a-week-heating-bills-how-super-efficient-timber-houses-can-transform-scotland-8658476

“Two economies vie for Scotland’s future. One we know well: linear, extractive,
predicated on burning fossil fuels and the depletion of soils, biodiversity and
fresh water. It’s the economy that has carried us, with its thirst for quarterly
returns and glossy GDP figures, into climate meltdown and biodiversity
collapse. It is, increasingly clearly, the road to ruin.
The other is one we’re only beginning to glimpse, but which has been quietly
assembling itself in parts of Scotland and beyond. It is circular, nature-based,
and predicated on the hope-inspiring notion that you can grow human
prosperity by restoring the living systems on which it depends. I call the driving
mechanism of this economy ‘the nature prosperity pump’.
It starts like this.”

On Friday, we became a founding partner of NatureProsperity Ltd, a new company that will provide a credible, scalable pathway for institutional capital to accelerate the development of a resilient, nature-based rural economy in Scotland. Central to this is nature-supporting sustainable forestry to build affordable homes.

Timber homes are good for nature, the economy, the fight against climate change – and might even help protect democracy from the rise of the far-right

05/06/2026

On World Environment Day, MAKAR are proud to announce they are one of four founding partners of , launched today. 🌿
The NatureProsperity model provides a credible, scalable pathway for institutional capital to deliver stable returns from nature-based solutions to Scotland's housing, biodiversity and climate crises.
How does it work?
🌲 Carbon is stored in timber grown from sustainable forestry
🏡 This timber is used in MAKAR's net zero, timber-rich homes
👷 These affordable homes are delivered at scale to house a growing rural workforce
🌱 This workforce accelerates a resilient, nature-based rural economy
Find out more at www.natureprosperity.co.uk

24/05/2026

Have you spotted one of MAKAR's home-grown homes on your travels across some of Scotland's most remarkable landscapes?

We design homes for the Scottish climate, using Scottish timber. Constructed off-site, they lock away carbon at around one tonne of CO2 per cubic metre.

All new homes should provide lasting wellbeing, comfort, light and space. Warm in winters, cool in summers, and with low heating costs throughout.