Watson Manning Penthouse

London

The client wanted to construct a new conservatory for a budget of £15,000. The conservatory was to link their top floor apartment to a large roof terrace, and to provide natural light into the centre of the deep plan space below.

Given the extraordinarily tight budget it was clear that a glass conservatory was going to be far too expensive and the solution developed was based on an inexpensive combination of polycarbonate sheeting and a braced softwood frame.

To deal with the high levels of thermal movement associated with polycarbonate sheeting, a cladding system was developed that allows the weatherproofing skin to move both vertically and horizontally, and yet visually the components and materials that make this possible are effectively invisible both internally and externally. A key part of this system is the use of a particularly strong but flexible double-sided tape.