Our client had bought a penthouse with a promise that she would be able to transform the roof space into a garden. However, little did she know that the roof needed to be made structurally sound to be load bearing. We helped her by working with a structural engineer to make sure her garden in the sky could be realised. Roof gardens require many considerations that gardens at ground level do not.

The client wanted a place to relax, an area with a small outdoor kitchen and a place for outdoor dining and entertainment. The boundary of the roof had no safety barrier. It was impossible to install any balustrading onto the walls as they had a cavity. The challenge was how to create a safety barrier that would satisfy the planning regulations. We came up with a solution by designing large bespoke steel powder coated containers that were set at different heights and were positioned fifty centimetres in from the edge. The additional height would be added through the planting. The planning office approved our design.

We divided the space into different zones that fulfilled the client’s requirements of cooking, dining and relaxing. The lighting scheme creates a cosy ambience and allows the client to continue using the garden late into the evening.

Roof gardens can experience extreme heat, cold and wind. All of these cause evaporation and water loss for the plants. The planting scheme was specifically designed to withstand these conditions. A special lightened soil was used to reduce the weight loading on the roof. We planted mature olive trees, lavenders, erigerons, pennisetums, rosemary, pittosporums, grasses, salvia, roses, hemerocallis, perovskia, verbena and trachelospermum.

A dull blank roof top has been transformed into a usable outdoor space with a garden in the sky.