An extensive Blackdown green roof from Alumasc is a key design feature on a new award-winning mental health facility near St Albans.

The Oak and Beech units at Harperbury were built within a green belt environment, to a design by Dransfield Owens De Silva Architects. The project has since gone on to win a prestigious Building Better Healthcare Award for Best Mental Health Design.

Planted courtyards and green roof areas were incorporated into the design after service-users and staff identified the therapeutic qualities of green outside space. The sloping green roofs were installed by Approved Alumasc Installer Letchworth Roofing, over a layout of complex levels around the courtyards, ensuring the green sedum aspects were visible from ground level.

With their relatively shallow substrate, Blackdown extensive green roofs are ideal for lightweight decks, inaccessible roofs and flat or sloping roof areas. Their versatile and economic design provides a 'back to nature' solution offering strong ecological benefits, perfectly suited to the site’s green-belt location. The roofs at Harperbury support self-sustaining sedum plants that require minimal irrigation and are highly wind, frost and drought resistant.

Alumasc provides a wide range of green roof solutions from extensive to intensive roofs. All offer notable environmental benefits, providing a natural habitat for plants and wildlife, while helping to reduce air and noise pollution, cutting carbon emissions and assisting with rainwater retention and attenuation.

The roofs were installed over Derbigum single layer waterproofing, also supplied by Alumasc. Derbigum is a tried and tested roofing solution suitable for warm roofs with metal, concrete or plywood decks and inverted roofs with concrete deck. Manufactured under ISO9000 & 14001 Quality and Environmental Management Standards, it has a 30 year BBA accredited life expectancy and a 20 year warranty. Derbigum Anti-Root was also used in the roof gardens.

For further details on Alumasc’s Blackdown green roofs, visit the website www.alumascgreenroof.co.uk or to request literature, please contact Alumasc on (0808) 100 2008.