Roof to Office Building, Lancaster Road,
Notting Hill, London

The architectural idea for this roof in Notting Hill was expressed as being a hovering plane suspended over the building like the dot on a letter 'i'. The parameters of 'thinness' and thermal performance pushed us almost automatically in the direction of a prefabricated stressed skin design.

The form was created by curved glulam beams. Then layers of birch plywood were glued and screwed to the skeletal framework. The skins act like flanges on an I-section, with the top skin usually in compression and the bottom skin in tension. The interstitial spaces were then filled with insulation.

Architect Munkenbeck and Marshall
Awards Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Environmental Award 1992 & Royal Fine Arts Commision Commendation 1992