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April 28, 2006
'Green roofs' growing more popular
NEW YORK (AP) -- An architectural organization has unveiled a new "green" roof for its own building to showcase a trend toward environmentally-friendly technology.The leafy rooftop of the American Society of Landscape Architects building in downtown Washington is a model of the techniques used increasingly to cool temperatures, filter air, and lessen the burden on sewers by absorbing rainwater.
Visitors are surrounded on three sides by a variety of plants, and the aluminum grating that serves as a walkway is suspended over more vegetation.
Green roofs, first championed in Germany, have grown in popularity around the world, and experts predict more growth as the practice sprouts as far away as China. In North America, green roof space grew 70 percent last year.
"What you're going to see is a meteoric rise in this industry because it takes serious issues like storm water and offers multiple solutions," said Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a non-profit industry association.
Germany, which helped launch the trend beginning in the 1950s, now has 50 square miles (32,000 square acres) of green roof space and adds an additional five square miles (13 square kilometers) per year, estimates Christian Werthmann, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.
Green roofs began to spread when some German cities encouraged building owners to substitute ballast and tar rooftops with vegetation. Werthmann estimates 40 German municipalities require green roofs in at least some cases.
The United States has only a fraction of the green roof space found in Germany -- but a study this month found U.S. green roof space grew 80 percent last year. North America has a total of 2,150,000 square feet (200,000 square meters), according to the study by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.
Chicago was the U.S. leader, planting nearly 300,000 square feet (27,900 square meters) of green roof space last year.
I remember reading a news story a few years ago about a guy in New York that started planting organic roof top gardens and even has bee hives to help pollinate the rooftop crops! I can't find the exact story now, but he sells his produce to local fru-fru, shi-shi gourmet restaurants and apparently had quite the business. And the allure of roof top gardens is growing. It's a brilliant idea and it does help lower temperatures in the buildings themselves, along with providing a place to help naturally filter rainwater keeping the sewers from becoming overwhelmed. It also helps add oxygen to the air and all the other good things that plants do and goodness knows a little fresh air in a city isn't a bad thing. It's a very interesting concept.
Found via CNN News.
Posted by Dianne at April 28, 2006 2:12 PM
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