Conversions

Converting a theatre to a courtyard garden

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 3.04 PM

Hello all, We're considering buying a property which includes an 11m x 22m hall. It's of modern construction (about 20 years old), with a gable roof. It's like a village hall I suppose: no internal supports, just the walls and the roof. The walls are about 30cm thick; they've got pointed stone on the outside. I'm not sure if there are breeze blocks or something else on the inside though… What we'd like to do is remove the entire roof and effectively turn it into a courtyard garden. Amateurish 3D mockups of the starting point and goal: http://jmsbrdy.com/theatre.html I wanted to sanity check the plan first of all: - would the walls be structurally sound without the roof on top? - how could we re-proof the walls to make them last without the roof? - what about drainage for the (terracotta-tiled) floor? It looks level-ish, so it might turn into a swimming pool when it rained! We could remove the floor too but that would obviously drive up the cost. I know I'm lacking a bunch of important details at the moment. What would be most helpful to know about the building to get a better idea of what would be involved?