Glazing Vision: Period North London property

Linework Architects imaginative use of architectural glass rooflights was key to transforming this period north London property. Lineworks director, Robert Haworth, collaborated with Glazing Vision. The objective – to deliver natural daylight and a touch of glamour to some tricky spaces whilst maintaining privacy where needed. 

The design brief for the project called for an ultra-minimalist final finish. Therefore, it was important that all of the glazing featured minimal framework and a clean integration with the building fabric itself. Glazing Vision’s philosophy of ‘minimum framework, maximum daylight’ was the preferred solution and met all of the design requirements, providing enough flexibility to tackle the various challenges that the  scheme presented.

The property comprises of three stories with a mixture of extensions added to increase usable living space, the problem with this is that some of these areas can be starved of natural daylight, making them gloomy and uninviting, in order to combat this, several types of rooflight needed to be specified to tackle each of the areas. 

Beginning on the ground floor, a wrap around extension has been created featuring a modern and contemporary kitchen dining area leading on to the garden. A large set of sliding glass doors provides natural daylight and access to the outdoor space, but their effectiveness at delivering enough daylight is limited as you go deeper into the building where it would begin to feel darker and more claustrophobic. 

To address this, a Glazing Vision modular rooflight system measuring over six metres in length runs along the entire length of the extension,  this unit is fixed structurally to the original wall of the building creating the feeling of a ‘glass roof’ when transitioning from the original building to the new. Manufacturing the unit in three sections allowed it to be successfully manoeuvred on site without the use for an expensive crane and the structural silicone joints between the sections maintained the frameless appearance needed to  compliment the minimalist interior.

Robert Haworth comments: “All three rooflights were quite tricky to install because the property was a terraced house and there was no ability to use a crane. Somehow the team got them in!” 

The creation of a second storey extension was essential to provide a large family bathroom space, but this meant the stairwell leading to it was another area potentially starved of natural daylight. 

Installing a rooflight overhead was a logical  solution, but this was complicated by the position of the stairwell being located beneath two opposing pitched roofs. 

An off the shelf solution would not be acceptable as any rooflight installed above would need to be designed to accommodate this tricky. As rooflight  specialists, Glazing Vision were able to design and manufacture a custom shaped fixed Flushglaze unit specifically for this part of the building.

An additional benefit of these Glazing Vision VisionVent rooflights was that they offered excellent overall thermal performance with concealed insulation, as tested and certified by the British Board of Agrement. 

Securing roof access 

The single SkyHatch Roof Access rooflight was specified by the architects to fulfil two criteria.

It had to provide a valuable source of daylight to the third bedroom, but, more importantly, it needed to provide a clever, cost effective way of accessing the roof space. Given the structure of the roof, a mix of flat central membrane and a perimeter thatch, and the likelihood of maintenance and cleaning issues occurring in future years, RB Studio needed to ensure that there would be an easy, unobstructed route out.

Therefore maximising the amount of overhead glazing and thus lighting the stairwell sufficiently so that it can be used safely without the need for artificial lighting.

Perhaps one of the most quirky and inventive parts of this renovation is the use of glazing in the bathroom, the client had specified a large walk-in shower area which was easily achievable given the space available but would have resulted in the shower being located in a dark corner of the room necessitating the use of artificial lighting. Natural daylight is critical when attempting to achieve a minimalist scheme, so Linework 

Architects wanted to ensure that this element was carried through to all corners of the building. 

Robert adds: “We were trying to make a really exceptional bathroom space, so we decided to use the Eaves Rooflight, and play with the transparencies in the glass.”

Glazing Vision’s ‘Eaves’ Flushglaze rooflight was specified and designed to be installed as part of the walk-in shower area. This rooflight comprises of a vertical section of glass, and an overhead section in line with the eaves of the roof.

The resulting installation delivers a floor to ceiling vertical glass window section which transitions into the roof seamlessly with no  additional framework, this creative solution provides a unique design element to the  bathroom and the much-needed daylight to open up the space. 

Being a bathroom, privacy also had to be addressed, particularly in the shower area. Glazing Vision recommended the use of opaque satin etched glass which provides enough translucency to allow light to permeate, but also presents a frosted glass finish sparing the blushes of anyone using the shower. 

Taking around five months to complete, this was not a straightforward scheme to deliver, however the end result can be considered  transformative.

Linework Architects uncompromising and inventive use of glass rooflights has proved incredibly successful in this project and contributed greatly to the feeling of light, air, and space in this minimalist haven. 

Contact:

Glazing Vision Ltd,
Sawmills Road,
Diss,
IP22 4RG

01379 658 300

[email protected]

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