Coplands Lodberry is a Category B listed building located on Lerwick’s historical seafront overlooking Bressay Sound.
A lodberry is an 18th/19th-century structure unique to Shetland, combining courtyard, store and dwelling-house, which projects, pier-like, into the sea. The building was unoccupied for many years, was falling into disrepair, and has a history of flooding given its location and rising sea levels.
The client purchased the building with a view to conserve and repurpose it as a workshop and training space for a local marine engineering company. Extensive repair works have been carried out using traditional materials and techniques and, where interventions have been necessary, these have been completed in a manner sympathetic to the original building.
One unusual and necessary intervention was flood protection, including installing a tanking system to the ground floor with integral drainage system to specialist design.