PLANT SALES GLASSHOUSE

Location: Edinburgh

Client: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Programme: Completed 2012

Retail sales are a major source of income for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and our glasshouse extension to the John Hope Gateway adds shopfloor space for sales with an emphasis on living plants.

Maximising natural light for plant growth was a major consideration but overheating, often associated with a glass roof, would have discouraged potential customers. Our solution was a glass roof which concertinas to the side to open the space to the sky in sunny weather.

This arrangement is common in agricultural glasshouses where rapid ventilation is required, so for speed and economy, we adapted a standard commercial glasshouse to sit over an existing external terrace.

The zig-zag form of the glasshouse roof would have looked out of place against the front of the existing building so we added a slatted timber parapet. The chunky sections of untreated Scottish-grown larch hide the roof and echo the larch cladding and strong forms of the rest of the elevation.

The extension was built under two separate contracts – enabling and finishing works and the glasshouse itself – and was finished in time for pre-Christmas business.