Rhepanol a natural choice for green roof of RIBA award winning Dartmoor idyll

Rhepanol a natural choice for green roof of RIBA award winning Dartmoor idyll

Client: Private home
Architect: Van der Steen Hall
Type of works: supply of Rhepanol hg roof membranes to create a green roof system.

Green innovation was at the forefront of designs for a stunning, award-winning family home created at Manaton, in the heart of secluded Dartmoor.

Rhepanol hg was selected for the three distinctive green roofs that help to shape the character of the large, four bedroom Devon property, which incorporates a raft of measures to minimise its environmental impact.

Architect Peter Hall of Van der Steen Hall in Chagford was asked to create the house as a permanent home on the site of the owner’s well-used holiday bungalow. Materials from the bungalow were recycled and used in the new house.

He said: “We chose Rhepanol membrane and accessories for the complex and varied profiles of the roof planes, very different from the large, predominantly flat areas of typical grass-roofed office blocks, because of the help and advice we received from the approved subcontractor and from the D&T representative.”

The roof, which covers a total of 250sq m, was key to creating a home in harmony with its rural setting. It complements the unique ground-hugging lines of the house and outbuildings, which are set down into the sloping countryside, nestling in surrounding woods and farmland to create a magical setting.

The roof make-up comprised natural, local meadow grass and site-excavated topsoil on cuspated drainage layer/root barrier on Rhepanol hg with a stainless-steel gravel stop profile adhered to membrane at perimeter and at intervals up steep slopes. The Rhepanol hg membrane was laid over softwood boarded roof, dressed into softwood eaves gutters and onto top of the fascia. Rhepanol also forms fascia, cill and jambs of the window in the roof.

As the grass roofs, thick granite walls and oak joinery slowly weather, they will blend into the surrounding landscape. There are also plans for the future to provide heating and hot water by extracting heat from the surrounding ground.

Peter Hall continued: “The natural materials, high insulation levels, thermal inertia and ground-hugging profile all contribute toward a very low environmental impact.”

The Manaton house was awarded Devon’s 2008 RIBA Arnold Sayers Housing Design award.

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