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:: URBAN ROOF GARDENS ::
To a casual passer-by there is little to distinguish Tony Blake’s fine Georgian town house from any other. But the property harbours a secret: nestled between the peaks of its valley roof is a most extraordinary glazed extension. This elevated eyrie boasts a curved glass ceiling and glazed side walls with huge windows which can be opened to the elements. And it is invisible from the street.
At £130,000, the project was not cheap, but it has given the period house a new lease of life. “It was asking to be done,” explained Tony, 67, who lives in Highgate, north London. “The other rooms are a traditional shape and size, they are either formal reception rooms or bedrooms. Having this studio room is actually very useful.”
Before architect Ian Hay (www.ianhay.co.uk) started work on the house it had two small pitched attics forming an M shape. Hay sliced out the two central roof slopes, reinforced the rest of the roof, and covered the gap in the middle with glass creating a 50 sq metre space.
The work took around six months to complete and was, according to Tony, “just as disruptive as you might imagine”. None the less he is delighted by the high-spec design and his new views of the London skyline.
The need for extra space is surely the number one complaint of home owners unable or unwilling to move to a larger property. The answer may be to simply look upwards.
Roof gardens, pods and terraces can provide a glorious oasis of outdoor space perched up above the prying eyes of neighbours. Unsurprisingly more complex architectural projects are very much a London phenomenon. It is currently the only area where property values can sustain such a costly operation. But don’t be surprised if the trend begins to creep into other high-value cities such as Bristol, Brighton and Edinburgh. Property developer Blaze Stojanovski’s (www.blazeandco.co.uk) starting point for a rooftop build was a three-storey house in Fulham, west London. He wanted to supersize the two-bedroom property so he added an entire extra top floor by ripping off its existing sloping roof. Onto the flat surface he created he built a slate-clad extension big enough for two bedrooms, a bathroom, a study and a 120 sq ft balcony. The project cost an estimated £150,000 – but Stojanovski estimates it added £500,000 to the value of the property. A few miles away in Clapham, architects Tony Brohn and Debra Parker, of Studio B3 (www.studiob3.co.uk), have created a dramatic zinc- and timber-clad pod on the roof of a classic late Victorian property. The owners, with five children, were in desperate need of an extra bedroom. Fortunately, the three-storey house had a flat-roofed back addition and Brohn and Parker designed an extra room plus a balcony sitting on it. They won planning permission because the addition is lower than the house’s main roof. The project cost around £100,000, but Brohn believes that it will have easily paid for itself. “The balcony gives extraordinary views over the whole neighbourhood – it is like flying, really.”  How to build a roof terrace  Will I need planning permission? As a rule of thumb, says landscape architect John Wier, of Bowles and Wier (www.bowleswier.co.uk), if you can see the new structure from the street you will most probably need planning consent.  What other rules must I obey? Hand rails must be at least 1.1m high, the surface of the new space must slope to allow water drainage.  Can my roof can cope with the extra weight? Hire a structural engineer to assess whether it will need reinforcing.  If I have a pitched roof is there any way I can build a terrace? Yes, but it won‘t be easy. Options include slicing away a section of the existing roof to create a flat space or bridging a valley roof to create an upper deck.  What impact will it have on property price? A recent study by the Bradford & Bingley building society found a terrace can add 10 per cent to the value of a home. How much will it cost? Anything from £5,000 for simply revamping an existing terrace, says Sarah Bevin of Urban Roof Gardens (www.urbanroofgardens.com) to £10,000 to £25,000 for turning an unused flat roof into a balcony. Projects which involve adding extra rooms will creep into six figures. The Telegraph, Ruth Bloomfield 13 Apr 2011