What defines the edge

Starting up 2011 with discussion on how to define the edge of the roof.

As you know, with M House, the roof is the physical presence of our design philosophy (read more HERE); how that roof finishes itself at the outside of the house, where visible by whoever walking past it, will set its first impression.

Again, we have constructed a 1:1 mock-up of the roof edge to help us thinking and deciding (by the way our builder, skeptical and resistant at first, now LOVES the idea of making 1:1 mock-ups!  They see the value in checking prior to construction on site - saves so much time and cost!)

our first go was to align the edge of the roof plane with the edge of the exposed timber rafters. By doing so the entire composition of the roof (rafter, ceiling/ bracing, insulation, roof sheeting) becomes one element, and was inevitably visually heavy.

we then tried pushing out the roof plane (ceiling/bracing, insulation, roof sheeting) proud of the roof rafters by the thickness of the fascia board. What this does is starting to break down the mass of the roof composition visually and gives it a slightly finer presence at the edge.

then we pushed the roof plane out further.. further... stop! It looked good there! Let's see how much we have pushed it out..

now the roof plane and the rafters are visually distinguishable, and gives a sharper definition of the roof edge!

the cavity between ceiling bracing and the roof sheeting is where the insulation will be. The cavity is 20mm bigger than the insulation material in order to have some airflow for ventilating the moisture during the wet summer seasons

looking between the rafters towards the outside of the house....the gap between rafters, roof plane and top of wall will be filled with clear glass, so the extension of roof rafter to the outside of building will be visible.....and permitting natural light to enter the building (the timber beam over top of the wall will be continuous rather than broken as seen here in mock-up)

testing the edge gutter....it was initially a box gutter at the edge of the roof plane (so hidden behind the fascia board) but for practical reasons it is now hanging out at the edge... we decided to go with the bracket on the right, which has fixing at the same level as the bracket (the one on the left has fixing points above the bracket) so the gutter will be raised higher to better catch the roof water, and allows for more room for gradient along the gutter.  The gutter will be in the similar silver colour as the brackets.