The architects wanted to create references to cats in the design, but agreed with the client that these details would be subtle. "After years of designing with human situations in mind, it was quite interesting also designing with cats in mind," Jay Gort told Dezeen.

The building occupies a former joinery shed in the village of Fulbourn. Gort Scott covered the original facade with cedar slats and picked out the shape of the cat's ears using wider sections.

"The screen was considered the most elegant and cost effective way of giving the building a more welcoming, joyful appearance in a context of fairly run-down sheds," said Gort.

The building's interior is reorganised, creating a large reception and waiting area at the front of the clinic. The reception desk is built from plywood and features ornate feet shaped like cat's paws.

Beyond the reception are a series of consulting rooms, an operating theatre and a diagnostic laboratory, plus a large preparation room lit from above by skylights.

Interior walls are painted in calming shades of turquoise, with occasional details picked out in yellow.

Gort Scott is led by architects Jay Gort and Fiona Scott, whose past projects include a rugged stone house on the Isle of Man. Jay Gort also spoke at Dezeen's Designed in Hackney Day last year, where he argued that the beleaguered British high street is actually a thriving location of "collision and conflict".

Another veterinary clinic completed recently is a combined surgery and home in Japan.

Photography is by Angus Leadley Brown.

Here's some more information from Gort Scott:

Cambridge Cat Clinic

The site for this new, cat-specialist veterinary practice was originally a joinery workshop, opposite an open field at the edge of Cambridge. Our client was a veterinarian establishing a new business.

Gort Scott obtained planning permission for change of use and remodelling of the existing building to also include a new cedar wood screen on the front elevation, with a suggestion of cats ears. Beyond this screen is a generous reception and waiting area with specially-designed furniture, and views back to the open field.

The main working area for the medical staff is a large multi-functioning ‘prep room’, which is top-lit by two generous skylights.

The scheme’s design includes many aspects that respond to the client’s considered approach to the welfare of her animal patients and their owners.

The building serves both as a general practice specialising in feline medicine, and also as a surgery, with a full operating theatre, lab and diagnostic area.

Above: site plan - click for larger image

Name of project: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Date of completion: 01/ 06/ 2012
Total contract value; £156,000

Credits list
Client: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Start on site date: 05/11/2011
Gross internal floor area: 224m2

Above: floor plan - click for larger image

Form of contract and/or procurement : JCT Minor Works contract
Structural engineer: Charles Tallack Engineering consultancy
Planning supervisor: AFP Construction consultants
Total cost : £156,000
Main contractor: Bob Black Construction Ltd.

Selected subcontractors and suppliers:
Windows: Velfac
Flooring: Forbo
Internal partitions: Rodecca
Joinery: Precision Joinery

Above: front elevation - click for larger image

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by Gort Scott appeared first on Dezeen.

This Tokyo house by Japanese architects Key Operation has been designed around the movements of the client's pet cat, writes Yuki Sumner.

Stepping-stone shelves allow a cat to move between rooms in The Cat House through high level openings, without using the landing and stairs.

With integrated book shelves, the landing doubles up as a library and study.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

More Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Key Operation, apart from where otherwise stated.

The following is from the architects:

Neko no Ie (The Cat House)

A century ago, the famous Japanese novelist Sosuke Natsume wrote a novel called “I Am a Cat (Wagahai Wa Neko De Aru).” It is written from the point of view of a cat.

The cat, who remains nameless during the novel’s first chapter, lives in a house with a teacher and his family. He is angry that he is not regarded as an equal member of the family in this household. “I will never catch mice,” the cat announces haughtily, not wishing to make himself useful.

What if, however, there was a house, which has been designed specifically with a cat in mind? What would it look like? The Japanese architect Akira Koyama of Key Operation Inc. has recently designed a house for a young family, which included a pet cat, in the densely populated Taishido district, west of Tokyo. Undoubtedly, this house would have made Natsume’s cat green with envy.

Neko no Ie (The Cat House) stands on a typically compact, rectilinear site (7 meters wide, 12 meters deep) along a narrow residential street, just big enough for a single car to pass through.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

Although the plot is small, the client (including the cat) did not specify the need for an outdoor garden space, and so the architect decided to set the house back by 3 meters from the street, thereby creating a void, synonymous in Japan with a sense of luxury.

The upper section of the house is further set back from the ground level, generating a balcony. It is generally perceived that the Japanese architects have a greater freedom of expression than the Western counterparts but we forget that there are a number of restrictions that the Japanese architects face when designing buildings in Japan, and this is no exception.

There is a law, for example, restricting the owning of a car to those who can ensure its parking space. Neko no Ie, like many houses on the street, accommodates a garage within the house.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

The architect faced yet another restriction imposed in this area. It forbade the use of bright colours on exterior facades so that the ‘scenery’ of the area is conserved. Neko no Ie’s grey stucco façade complies with this regulation.

Undeterred, however, Koyama subtly managed to subvert both of these restrictions by painting the inside of the garage bright pink, therefore making a feature out of what is usually a dark and dingy space and injecting much-needed playfulness in this otherwise boring grey neighbourhood.

The house’s asymmetrical roofline maximizes both its playfulness as well as its volume. The architect has created within a complex interior space consisting of rooms of varying sizes, which are stack on top of each other over three floors.

One would not be able to observe such a structure from outside of the house, but it reflects the layout of the area, which has a mixture of detached houses, both large and small.

The biggest room in the house is the dining/living room, stretched horizontally to fit the whole width of the house. By also extending the room vertically, the architect has opened up this room to the rest of the house.

What look like shelves jutting out of one wall of this room are actually steppingstones for the pet cat to enter into the adjacent rooms through the openings placed higher up on the wall.

This arrangement leaves the ample staircase and landings, which double up as a library, undisturbed from the burst of activities of the feline member of the family, while the rest of the family uses them as a place of quietude.

Moreover, just as the garage became the visual focal point for the exterior of the house, the staircase, painted also brightly pink, signals a gathering of all the separate interior sections of Neko no Ie.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

By varying the sizes of the rooms and painting them in different colours, the architect has emphasized their uniqueness and separateness.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

At the same time, he has managed to link the rooms through small and large openings so that none of the rooms is completely isolated. Autonomy is respected but isolation is discouraged.

For instance, a large opening in the wall of the dining/living room, which looks into the kitchen, allows the person who is cooking to connect with the person who is being served.

In the meantime, the cat can slip into the study located above the kitchen through yet another, this time smaller, opening.

The rooms’ co-dependence is thus implicitly emphasized.

Neko no Ie is a symbolic celebration of the emergence of the modern Japanese family, more democratic than the traditional one preceding it, allowing each member to flourish independently while nurturing a supportive environment.

Ironically, a pet cat was an integral part of it.

Text by Yuki Sumner, 2011

See also:

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Yachiyo by Atelier Tekuto	House by Yoshio Oono Architect & Associates	House in Fukuyama by Suppose Design Office

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