Although many aspire to live in a home designed by an architect, few can afford to do so. Some savvy housebuyers, however, have discovered that a search of Scotland's former local-authority stock, throws up the occasional unexpected gem.

Take Adrian Welch and his wife Isabelle Lomholt. He is a practising architect, and it was his knowledge of architectural history that brought him to Abbot's View in Haddington, East Lothian, a 1960s council estate that won awards in its day for its architectural merits.

Approaching from the south, along the A1 dual carriageway, there's not much to stir the blood. It appears to be nothing more than an unprepossessing early 1960s council-house estate. Any appeal in the jagged line of its roofs is dulled down by by the monochrome render.

But a stroll around the estate begins to warrant a dramatic reassessment. First, there's the complete lack of graffiti. Then, you spot touches of wooden panelling by the windows. You quickly notice how few gutters and downpipes are on view, and how the buildings are set at interesting angles and dislocated positions to each other.

Careful thought was clearly invested in the design of this estate, home to about 200 households. The steps around the footpaths may be a little steep for the more elderly residents, but they incorporate ramps that would have suited the prams. Essentially comprising two large cul-de-sacs, it's an estate for pedestrians.

On the ground floor of Welch and Lomholt's four-bedroom home, No 97, the layout is half open-plan, half cellular, with a stepped floor space that connects the lounge with the dining room and kitchen. “There's a hint of there being three separate rooms. The semidivisions create a subtle shift, from area to area,” says Welch.

“I think it has really informed the way we live, because nobody is shut away, even when you are cooking,” adds Lomholt. “We are always talking, doing things together. It is going to be so sad when we leave.”

Ian Arnott, the principal architect of Abbot's View, says: “We tried and largely succeeded to make sure that the living room of every property - and also the back garden - faced either southeast or southwest, to capture the sun.” It's a guiding concept that is also transparent in the impressive light-catching double-height entrance hall at Welch and Lomholt's house.

“We also decided to locate the bathroom in between the upper floor, where the bedrooms are, and the ground floor,” Arnott adds. “That way, it makes for a short journey from wherever you are in the house. As a bonus, it also makes for an interesting pattern of windows on the exterior of the buildings.”

Rather than seeing the aesthetic limits of estate housing, Arnott advocates the virtues: “Scotland has been badly served by its mass, speculative builders, who only really build semi-detached or, for the more upmarket, detached homes - buildings that stand in isolation to each other.

“That approach is fine if you are building a castle. My preference is for buildings that can relate to each other to form streets or interesting spaces.”

The benefits of Arnott's design are evident to Welch. “I like the way the properties are set slightly apart from each other, which means you do get a tremendous amount of privacy,” he says. “We have only one neighbour overlooking us, so you get a bit of neighbourliness, but lots of privacy.

“Also, it's great that the kids can cycle all over the estate without bumping into cars. It's a shame that the public spaces now have signs saying, ‘No ball games', because there used to be some great games of football going on.

“There are two things in particular I like about the inside: the rooms are large and the space flows. There are lovely details that tell you an architect has been here, such as the door handles, which are elegant and simple.”

When the estate was built, it was entirely council housing, partly to accommodate - amazingly - families relocated from Glasgow. Now, over half of the properties are owner-occupied, the remainder a mix of local authority and East Lothian Housing Association.

Abbot's View is now the subject of a £2m improvement, commissioned by East Lothian council and being carried out by Edinburgh-based landscape architects, Urban Design Futures.

Phase one of the four-year improvement package, which is expected to be completed in about a year, involved mainly vehicular issues, including traffic calming and residents' parking.

“We sought to engage with the residents at a very early stage,” says Selby Richardson, director of Urban Design Futures. “There was a lot of consultation and some residents volunteered to run a working group, which continues to operate, and acts as an intermediary between us and the wider community in the estate.”

Another objective has been to bring into “semi-private” ownership nine public courtyards on the estate. They might not legally belong to the neighbours, but the spaces are being reconfigured to encourage residents to take care of them. “The intention is to create areas that are semi-private, so that the residents can personalise them, and essentially take them over, even if they don't own them,” says Richardson

The footpath network is being relandscaped. The steep steps are, where possible, being re-engineered as ramps. Where not possible, replacement steps will at least be of a lower height.

In addition, an environmental artist is helping to improve the signposting, and adding plaques that tell of local incidents. Indeed, it is expected that Daniel, Welch and Lomholt's son, is to be celebrated in his very own, along the lines of, “Here, Daniel fell off his bike”.

As for brightening the monochrome render, given the high proportion of owner-occupiers in the estate, it is up to them, individually, as opposed to a central organisation.

Arnott reveals that the dispiriting grey colour was never his intention: “I remember arguing with the central government quantity surveyors about cost. More important to them was capital cost, not value-for-money. So, we were required to use a cheap render, which began as white, but was not self-cleaning, as we wanted. White would have at least acted as an interesting foil to the trees in bloom, and preferable to the grey the houses became.”

Welch and Lomholt have now decided to move on, leaving - with Daniel and their daughter, Harriet - for a location nearer schools and sports facilities. They marketed their home for £149,000 and last week accepted an offer of £176,000.

If you like the look of the estate, however, don't despair. There are two other Abbot's View houses for sale right now.

No 14 Abbot's View, offers over £155,000, Adams Property Centre, 01620 825 555, www.eastlothianproperty.co.uk

No 38, fixed price £163,000, McKinnon Forbes, 01875 611 211, www.mckinnonforbes.co.uk

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