Rooflight Company sheda light on a problem.

Conservation Rooflight and Replica Rooflight, architect Matt Briffa has provided Grange Street Mews with a bright, airy feel to the living environment.

When award-winning architects Briffa Phillips set out to create a spacious feel to the conversion of a constricted warren of commercial properties into seven highly attractive mews houses, specialist manufacturer the Rooflight Company was able to shed some light on the problem.

Combining an innovative, 'upside down' construction with the architecturally-designed Conservation Rooflight and Replica Rooflight, architect Matt Briffa has provided Grange Street Mews with a bright, airy feel to the living environment - without compromising the look of the original Victorian exterior.

Located in a central conservation area in St Albans, the site is almost entirely hidden from view by a single storey mews house.

This creates a level of peace and distance from the public thoroughfare, but also had the potential to block out a lot of daylight.

The existing buildings were previously houses that had over the years been combined to form an industrial manufacturing facility, and were purchased by Townstone Developments for conversion into smart, modern homes costing £384,000 upwards.

However, planning permission for the renovation work had not yet been granted by the local council at the time of purchase.

Nevertheless, Matt Briffa was confident that the design put forward by his team would be able to satisfy the strict requirements set down by local conservation and planning officers.

Matt said: "The plan was to create a 'mini-village', with a stylish contemporary design and an emphasis on quality".

"Our main concern, though, was to ensure that the development was in keeping with the local surroundings and architecture".

"Luckily, I have lived in the area for most of my life, so with local knowledge we were able to successfully combine an authentic, traditional feel with modern design values".

As well as considering conservation issues, the team had to maximise the amount of natural light that would be brought into the dwellings, overlooked as they are by neighbouring buildings, especially on the southeast elevation".

""A workshop and houses overshadowing the southeast elevation block out a great deal of daylight to the ground floor, so some lateral thinking was required".

"One action we took was to 'invert' the construction of four of the houses so that the bedrooms were on the ground floor and the living rooms and kitchens were on the first floor".

"This means that the rooms occupied most during the daytime benefit from more natural light".

"Having conducted a series of light studies we determined that, in order to create optimum lighting levels throughout the building, larger rooflights were required on the steeper northeast elevations, while the southeast elevation benefits from the use of standard sized products".

By offering the largest size range of rooflights in the country, the Rooflight Company were able to supply rooflights that ideally met the defined light levels.

Matt continues: "When it came to planning negotiations, what could have been a problematic issue - that of the use of rooflights - turned out to be fairly straightforward, as both the conservation officers and I were keen that the project use the Conservation model from the Rooflight Company".

"Its slim profile, authentic period appearance and high-quality, energy-efficient design made it the best - indeed the only suitable - option in this particular case".

"Having incorporated products from the company on a number of other developments, I was more than happy to do so again".

An accurate reproduction of a Victorian model meeting modern standards of insulation, weather tightness and safety, the Conservation Rooflight was specifically designed by architect Peter King to meet the need for a product appropriate for use in historic applications.

It is considered by architects, conservation officers, the National Trust and English Heritage to be the most suitable rooflight for buildings in a traditional context.

Site Agent Shaun Ross was appointed by Briffa Phillips to oversee the construction work".

"He says: "We had a few concerns about installing the rooflights as some members of the team had not installed products like this before".

"However, we were fortunate that the technical department at the Rooflight Company were able to provide clear instructions and, from that point forward, it was a simple and straightforward installation".

"Sitting almost perfectly flush on the roof, they incorporate ultra thin glazing bars so that a great deal of light is able to penetrate the interior, transforming the whole character of the building".

The external shell of the main factory part of the original building featured windows of an industrial size and height, with an interior structure rising from the ground to the internal apex of the roof.

To make the construction viable, a floor was installed so that the roof void could be utilised as first floor living space.

That meant that the original duo pitch roof, running from northeast to southwest, had to be stripped and rebuilt.

A timber cassette structure complete with 241mm joists, breather membrane, vapour control layer, mineral wool insulation and plasterboard linings, it is covered in prime grade 510 x 255mm Spanish slates.

These were selected as the best match to the local Welsh slate tiles, which proved overly expensive and difficult to source.

Both the Conservation Rooflight and the Replica Rooflight feature on the twin roofs.

The sides of the roofs facing northwest have the steepest pitches, and thus feature the larger, Studio-Designer Range Conservation Rooflights measuring 1.45 x 0.54 mm, joined together in groups of two and three.

Placed adjacently, they form six or nine low profile panes that flood any available daylight into the living space below.

As the southeast side sees more sun, standard-sized Replica Rooflights measuring 0.9 x 0.5 mm were used in smaller numbers.

Matt Briffa summarised "Our experience on this development and others has shown that meeting planning requirements in a conservation area needn't be problematic - in fact, it can be quite an enlightening experience".

The Rooflight Company manufactures a wide range of rooflights, as well as bespoke designs to suit any environment.

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