Green SarnaVert roof for Cadogan Gardens school

An extension for Holy Trinity Church of England School's Cadogan Gardens site will go ahead due to the inclusion of the Sarnafil SarnaVert living roof installed by Cambridge Polymer Roofing.

The Southwest London primary school is split across two sites in the Kensington and Chelsea area and the proposed extension was subject to stringent conservation area planning issues.

With the school established in 1873, planners and local residents were keen to ensure that the new single storey nursery extension was sympathetic to its surroundings and as unobtrusive as possible.

NBF Partnership architect Andre Wong worked with the school to incorporate the green roof into their proposal and, as a result, the planners gave the 'camouflaged' building design their blessing.

"By specifying a living roof, the design aim was to visually blend the building with the area.

Andre explains "The extension is visible from above, so we wanted the roof to look like a garden area".

The 150sq m SarnaVert roof was installed by Sarnafil registered contractor Cambridge Polymer Roofing (CPR), with planting completed by Blackdown Horticultural.

"This was a relatively straightforward job for us," says CPR contracts manager Romeo Pascuzzi.

"All went smoothly thanks to some strong project management from main contractor Priory Gate and the finished green roof looks very attractive".

Priory Gate's Nick Viscusi agrees that the extension was a success.

"Making a building of this size as unobtrusive as possible is no small task, so it's great that the team achieved a suitable, cost-effective solution through the design and development process".

"The speed of installation and long life of the SarnaVert system certainly played its part, with the subsequent use of a Sarnafil membrane on an exposed kitchen extension roof further testament to this".

Andre says that the team's familiarity with Sarnafil was key to its specification.

"NBF has been using Sarnafil for quite some time and I felt this project needed a tried and trusted roof membrane".

"Subcontractor CPR is also a long-term Sarnafil collaborator and played a prominent role in its specification".

"Having effectively hidden the extension, the green roof brings a number of other benefits to the school and the environment - in particular, it has increased the roof's thermal values to offset the large areas of glazing opening up onto the school playground".

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