Project Location: A house in Leytonstone (London Borough of Waltham Forest)
Building Type: Garden office with wooden cladding
Project Timeline: Planned with landscape gardener to be installed in one day midway through the overall project.
Client/Owner: Family with small children.
Retrofit Team: Design developed with landscape gardener, extra assistance from FMTL
The office was designed to have a green roof added as part of the build. It is quite a tall building, nearly 3 metres high wrapped in a membrane with a wooden cladding outside that and a skylight on top.
Initially we were hoping to add a biodiverse roof to the office. However when we contacted the designers of the office for loading details they specified a maximum of 70kg/m2 which wasn’t enough for a biodiverse roof. This meant we had to go switch to a sedum roof with wildflowers sown into it.
Benefits of the roof
a more attractive roof when viewed from the surrounding houses.
The roof replaced the biodiversity removed when the office was initially constructed.
Cooling, the roof will absorb heat from the sun and retain much of it, releasing it more slowly over the day and evening to keep the building below cool
Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS), the roof will absorb rain and slowly release it to drains over time, reducing overloading and flooding in the area and contributing to a ‘sponge city’
I used a new system for this roof from Sedum Supply. This was ideal for the scale of roof and they were very helpful in arranging delivery in the morning when we did the install. This meant I could get to the site in the morning with my two assistants and have the roof complete by mid afternoon.
As the roof was higher than usual and the building had a wooden cladding we wanted to protect we opted to use a small scaffolding tower rather than ladders which made the whole process even easier and gave us some space to work with materials off the roof.
The black aluminium siding they provided was particularly smart, I would have liked to have used that on a previous project.
If you would like to know more or get a quote for your project email alex@ecoalex.com or call 020 8133 0190 and leave us a message.
