Alden Rose

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

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The New Era of House Design

What Is a Biosolar Roof, and Why Is It Smart?

A biosolar roof is a combination of two powerful technologies:

🌱 A green roof, planted with vegetation to help insulate the home, manage rainwater, and boost biodiversity.

☀    Solar panels that generate renewable electricity for the household.

When combined, these systems actually enhance each other: the plants keep the panels cooler, improving their efficiency, while the panels provide partial shade that supports plant health. It’s a highly effective, low-maintenance solution that looks as good as it performs.

How Flat Roof Homes Are Changing the Game

Aside from the rooftop, flat roof homes bring a whole host of modern benefits:

• Clean, contemporary lines that offer a striking contrast to traditional homes
• Full-height interiors without the awkward sloping ceilings of pitched roof designs
• Large windows and open-plan layouts, creating bright, breathable spaces
• Easier integration of solar and green roof systems
• Potential for rooftop terraces or gardens, especially in urban areas

These homes reflect a new kind of living: one that’s light-filled, efficient, flexible, and sustainable.

Is It Goodbye To the ‘British’ House?

Walk through any classic British neighbourhood and you’ll see the familiar charm:  brick or rendered facades, steep-pitched roofs, and decorative chimneys.  For decades, even centuries, the quintessential British home has consisted of brick walls with a pitched roof.  

Windows are largely small in relation to the wall area, and are fitted inline with the outer leaf of brick.  

We design gables and dormers, and maybe a porch, but it is easy to spot a British house.  Our roofing overhangs the outside walls by around 200mm with fascias and soffits holding the guttering at minimal distance.

Larger developments have typically had no consideration for orientation, architects often create sweeping street layouts with irregular plot shapes often ending in cul-de-sacs or small closes.

So what is wrong with this design?

In terms of Passive, there are numerous fundamentals that will hinder any successful retrofit of existing homes, and to continue with this detailing will create a large stock of homes that will never be truly passive. Here are just a couple of issues:

•  Small windows do not maximise the solar gains available which can provide an incredible amount of free heat in the winter months
•  Shallow eaves overhangs and gabled details do not provide any shading to the windows allowing the room to overheat in hot summer months
•  Many homes cannot have the optimum level of solar panels as rooftops are not suitable reducing their ability to generate renewable energy

Design trends through recent extensions and renovations show the British public as wanting large full height windows and bifold doors to connect the inside and outside worlds, open-plan living and flat or crown roofing to create renewable energy, hidden from view.

Why Biosolar Rooftops Are the Future of British Housing

Look at any estate agent website around the world and you will see new home developments with smart and chic-looking homes adorning the pages.  What makes them different?  Architects around the globe have been designing modern flat roof houses—minimalist in form and packed with eco-conscious features—reshaping the way we think about “home.”

Make Way For Biosolar!

Fashion changes constantly—not just in our clothing, but in nearly every aspect of our lives. Technology and gadgets, car designs, hairstyles, language, and even fitness trends continuously evolve as do our lifestyle choices, eating Alfresco and meeting for a coffee.  

Our global interconnectivity and the rise of social media have accelerated this cycle, allowing trends to spread instantly and widely.

What is considered stylish or relevant can shift in a matter of months, as we’re constantly exposed to new ideas, aesthetics, and cultural influences. In this fast-moving landscape, our choices—whether in what we wear, drive, eat, or live in—become expressions of how we see ourselves and the world around us.

Just like fashion in clothing, trends in house styles evolve over time, reflecting changes in culture, technology, and lifestyle. What was once considered cutting-edge or desirable in home design—like open-plan living, minimalism, or bold colour palettes—can shift quickly as new materials, sustainability practices, and aesthetic preferences emerge. Both clothing and architectural styles respond to the values of the moment, influenced by media, innovation, and the way people live.

Ultimately, just as with clothing, house styles are a form of self-expression. They allow individuals to project their tastes, values, and aspirations—whether through a sleek modernist facade, a cozy cottage aesthetic, or a bold, industrial loft. And like clothing, house styles cycle through reinvention, with past trends often returning in new, updated forms—mid-century modern, once out of fashion, is now back in full force.

Why Its Time to Rethink the Traditional British Home

While older homes have plenty of charm, they can be energy-hungry and less adaptable to today’s standards. Retrofitting insulation or renewable tech can be expensive and complex. In contrast, new flat roof homes are often designed with:

•  Passive House principles
•  Advanced insulation and ventilation
•  Built-in smart tech and renewables
•  Lower running costs and carbon footprints

This isn’t just a design trend—it’s a climate-conscious lifestyle choice.

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What’s Driving the Shift?

Sustainability: As the climate crisis grows, eco-minded design is more important than ever.

Innovation: Advances in materials and construction make flat roofs and biosolar tech more accessible.

Wellness: Natural light, biophilic design, and thermal comfort contribute to healthier homes.

Social Influence: Design blogs, Instagram, and Pinterest have made modern, minimalist homes more desirable.

A Truly Global Movement

With growing awareness of climate risk, cities are now integrating biophilia (green roofs and walls) into building codes, planning regulations, and public funding strategies. Innovations like biosolar roofs are expanding the potential of rooftops even further—creating spaces that are productive, beautiful, and sustainable.

Shifts in attitude to how we perceive the “typical house” are happening right now around the world.

From simple sedum mats (extensive roofs) to fully accessible gardens with trees and walkways (intensive roofs). Green roofs help to:

• Reduce urban heat (by cooling the microclimate)
• Improve air quality
• Manage stormwater (by absorbing rainfall)
• Boost biodiversity
• Extend roof life and improve building insulation

Global Cities Leading The Green Roof Movement

Berlin & Stuttgart, Germany

Germany was a pioneer in green roof policy. Stuttgart began incentivising green roofs in the 1980s. Today, Berlin offers subsidies and requires green roofs on many new developments. Green roofs are integrated with sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and climate adaptation strategies.

Basel, Switzerland

Basel was the first city in the world to mandate green roofs on new flat-roofed buildings (since 2002). The city now has over 1 million m² of green roofs, combining stormwater control with urban cooling.

Toronto, Canada

In 2009, Toronto became the first city in North America to pass a bylaw requiring green roofs on new buildings over a certain size. The city offers grants and maintains a Green Roof Bylaw to promote ecological design.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen mandates green roofs on all new buildings with less than 30° roof pitch. It’s part of the city’s plan to become carbon-neutral by 2025, reducing runoff and heat islands.

Singapore

The city-state has led a dramatic greening of rooftops, integrating rooftop parks, vertical gardens, and biosolar roofs into its dense urban fabric. Its “Skyrise Greenery” initiative incentivises green roofs and living walls, aiming for food production, cooling, and biodiversity.

France

France introduced the new French Biodiversity Law in 2022 requiring all new commercial properties to install green or solar roofing nationwide. Since 2008, Paris has required green roofs on all new buildings and on renovations over 5000m2.

Is a green roof the way forward?

In our opinion - Absolutely! The green roof revolution is rapidly transforming city skylines around the globe—and it's about more than just aesthetics. As urban areas face the twin challenges of climate change and population growth, green roofs are emerging as a practical, scalable solution that addresses environmental, economic, and health concerns all at once.

Private Residence, Singapore

Stuttgart, Germany

Apartments in London

The Mid-Century Modern Revival

Mid-Century Modern is a design movement that emerged between the 1940s and 1970s, particularly post-WWII, with strong roots in both American and Scandinavian design.

Heavily influenced by the works of iconic architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Arne Jacobson, the original designs featured clean lines and minimal ornamentation, functional, open-plan layouts, large windows and a strong indoor-outdoor connection.  

Using a mix of natural materials like wood and stone with modern ones  like glass, steel and concrete, architects around the world are seeing this timeless  style as the way forward in combatting climate change and meeting our modern lifestyles:

- Large windows are at the top of most homeowners wishlists these days wanting to bring the maximum amount of natural daylight in, and creating a seamless indoor-outdoor feel.  

- Deep roof overhangs provide the shade required to combat overheating in the hot months whilst still maximising daylight.

- Flat rooftop designs allow for easier and cheaper construction, providing clean simple lines for a modern uncluttered feel whilst allowing the entire rooftop to capture 100% renewable solar energy regardless of the building’s orientation, and removing the solar panels from sight.

Housing our growing population largely means concreting over our open fields, so the simple, clean aesthetics fit perfectly into sustainability where the overall built profiles are lower than the traditional pitched roofs, preserving the openness and character of our communities.  Combining sedum and solar creates the perfect recipe to meet the Passivhaus Standards, provide resilient buildings and improve everyone’s wellbeing.

Why this timeless classic is taking the architectural world by storm

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