Fibre cement profiled sheeting from Eternit has brought a sympathetic treatment to the roof of a former storage barn that has been transformed into luxury holiday homes

Bath-based architect Ian Bower RIBA specified Eternit’s Profile 3 roofing in Slate Blue not just because it was in keeping with the surrounding buildings and rural location in deepest Wiltshire but because it was visually softer than the rusting galvanised steel it was replacing.

Ian had seen a sample and case study of Eternit’s profiled sheeting, as used to roof and clad another architect’s home/office, in the architecture gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

“I looked at a bituminous-based corrugated roofing sheet at first but I didn’t like the look. It was too hard and not so robust or perhaps as long lasting and the colours not subtle. I wanted something with a visual softness,” he said. “The fibre cement was pricier but lower maintenance and thermally and acoustically efficient so I persuaded my client that she needed to use this material.”

His client was Stephanie Szakalo, owner of The Stone Barn in Norbin, Wiltshire, 10 miles from Bath, who wanted a new lease of life for a 100-year-old derelict stone-built storage barn in her garden adjacent to a working beef farm.

“We managed to find a design to work not only in satisfying the rigorous requirements of the local planning office, made more so because of our location in a Green belt area, but more importantly as two stylish and unique houses for holidays,” she said.