let there be light

Charlie Luxton, TV presenter and architectural designer, details the structural and technological developments in lighting his self-build

This month I want to discuss two key features of the build: the rooflights and the smart tech. First, the rooflights: we went for

Velux’s Longlight solution. They were originally designed for commercial use, but I’ve had my eye on them for some time, so when they were made available for residential projects, I jumped at the chance.

We’ve got six units that have come together as a six-metre long stretch of glazing, which introduces a tremendous amount of light to the living space, and another four individual rooflights spaced out.

I installed the rooflights with one other person, and we got two fitted in about four hours — it’s a really good kit. If you follow the instructions, it flies on. The process was one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in ages.

Before they were fitted, standing in the middle of the floorplan was like being in a black hole. But as we uncovered the rooflights and built all the surrounding kit, we’re suddenly standing in a light-bathed room — everything was designed around these rooflights. It’s enormously satisfying and reassuring because quite a lot of this house has looked a bit like a dark bunker for months!

It’s a high performance bit of kit too: all the rooflights are triple glazed (required to reach the high thermal performance we’re aiming for) and run on actuators so they can be controlled by electric motors (some of them also feature blinds that can be electrically controlled, too).

Another big job that’s happened recently has been the first fix electrics and plumbing. This relates to the rooflights because we’re putting in an intelligent house system by Loxone, which is being installed by smart home specialist Halo Haus. The system will not only control these rooflights and tie them into the ventilation system, but it also controls the external louvres on the windows, the heating, the entry system and the lighting system. It allows the whole house to work together like an intelligent organism, rather than a series of systems.

You need a lot of wiring to achieve a smart home set up like this, however. There are massive bundles of cable running all the way through the house — probably a good few miles worth.

The Loxone is really the brain of the house. For example, all of the switches around the building have thermostats and humidistats (which monitor humidity), so if they feed back to the ‘brain’ that the interiors are getting a bit hot, it can open the rooflights to vent the room (or rooms) out and deploy the louvres to stop more heat getting in. It’s a real opportunity for refining the building as a tool to provide a comfortable living environment for people.

There are also other levels of functionality. There are motion sensors throughout the building so you can control the lighting as you’re moving around.

As such, the motion sensors also then become your security system. I love it in architecture when one product or one structural piece can perform two actions, and that’s what this system can start to do.

There are multiple levels of complexity within the system that I don’t fully understand yet, but I’m sure I’ll come to appreciate when I’m living in the house.