Filed under: Uncategorized
This week we had a really interesting lecture on roof gardening. I found it really interesting because we discussed the difference between a roof top garden and a green roof which I had always wondered.
Historical:
- Hanging Gardens (Babylon)
- Scandinavian Turf Roofs
*I think that it is interesting to learn the historical background of things such as roof top gardens. People have been practicing this for many years and it is useful to see the different techniques that we today can use, seeing what worked and what didn’t.
Modern Experiments:
- Le Corbusier’s concrete roof, garden with a nursery school
Green Roofs and Roof Gardens
- Amenity and Aesthetic Benefits: recreational space, public and private, high quality in high density.
- Environmental Benefits: biodiversity and wildlife value, storm water management, air pollution, urban heat island effect
- Economic Benefits: increased roof life, cooling, insulation and energy efficiency, green building assessment and public relations
BASICS: 3 Types of Roof Construction
- Inverted: roof deck->water proof, root proof-> insulation
- Cold: insulation-> roof deck-> water proof, root proof
- Warm: roof deck-> insulation->water proof, root proof
Green roof layer: roof deck->water proof, root proof-> insulation-> drainage layer-> filter mat-> substrate/growing medium
Roof Greeing Typology
Green Roof:
- inaccssible
- more environmental
- extensive maintenance
- less expensive
- no watering
- moss/sedum
- dry meadow
Roof Garden:
- Accessible
- Enjoyable
- intensive maintenance
- more expensive
- irrigation and fertilization
- meadow/lawn
- perennials/trees/grasses
*Important to consider substrate depth and weight of vegetation
Over all I came to the conclusion that a roof top garden is a place to enjoy, where a green roof can also be enjoyed its main purpose is to help the environment.
Today everything is about going green, solar powered buildings, low flow toilets and compact fluorescent light bulbs. However, another, more internal way to move towards a greener lifestyle is to eat locally. Not only is it better for you personally, but also the environment.
Why Eat Locally?
1. Eating locally grown food tastes better.
- Food grown locally means less pesticides, less preservatives and less time spent transporting. When you eat food grown far away from where you live it has to be harvested early in order that it does not go bad by the time it gets to you. Therefore, eating locally grown food means that it will taste better because it can be picked at peak ripeness since it has only a short distance to travel. Also food will taste better because it will be in season.
2. Eating locally is good for your health.
- Eating locally grown food is good for your health because smaller farms are less likely to use large amounts of chemical pesticides than bigger factory farms. It is also fresher, meaning more nutrients. Lastly it also preserves biodiversity which will prove to be helpful in the long run.
3. Eating locally helps to stop global warming.
- Eating locally grown food helps to reduce the amount of pesticide use as well as the need to transport food across the world. Less transporting of food means that there will be less burning of fossil fuels, helping to preserve the atmosphere.
4. Eating locally helps your economy.
- Eating locally grown food helps the economy because farmers can get the amount of money that their food is worth. It also provides more jobs, farming, packaging, and selling, at a local scale. It also encourages people to use the land that they have been given, utilizing it to its fullest potential.
*Information based off of http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/locally_grown.htm
Jae-Sung’s final lecture in Natural and Human Systems was fabulous! Seeing some of the work that he (and on some projects, Kim) had done, and hearing him describe his triumphs and failures throughout his design carreer was inspiring.
I particularly loved the home designed for the elderly women with the 14 cats. It was unbelieveable to see how everything came together, even with every weird detail to be included that the women left the designers to deal with. I loved how the home was quarky, and designed specifically for one person, down to the very last detail. The bedroom placement, the bathroom lookout, and even the elements incorporated into the home exclusivley designed for her cats were all designed so carefully, and every aspect of the women’s life was taken into consideration.
The story as told by Jae was hilarious, and held so much meaning for him and for us as future designers who in the will one day have stories just like this one.
This week’s lecture inspired me to further my knowledge on hanging gardens, as the guest lecturer had noted that these gardens were what inspired the green roof.
It is said that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were built by King Nebuchadnezzar to cheer up his home-sick wife. His wife, being from a land that was green with ruged mountains, Nebuchadnezzar re-created her home by building a roof-top garden which hung over artificial mountains. The gardens, which were approximately 400 ft x 400ft x 80ft tall, consisted of vaulted terraces covered in pillars, trees, and layers of grasses, reeds, and soils “…which both for greatness and beauty might delight the spectators.”
No one knows whether the wonderous Hanging Gardens of Babylon ever existed, as nothing of Babylon remains. One can only marvel at the thought of these awe-inspiring feats of landscape architectre.
This week’s lecture on urban roof design proved to be very useful for the upcoming Ecology and Design project where our proposed building was to have a greenroof.
Green roofs started as ancient hanging gardens and Scandinavian turf roofs, supplying vegetation and insulation. Today there are used for much the same purpose, but today, they are also used as a public space.
There are three types of green roofs. The basic green roof is inaccessible, low cost, low weight, and low maintenance, where dry meadow grasses and mosses are used. The green roof hybrid requires simple intensive roof-greening, it is accesible, requires little watering, and perennials, grasses, shrubs are used for vegetation. A roof garden is also accessible, however it requires intensive roof greening, is quite heavy and expensive, but there is an extensive range of vegetation that can be used from lawn, to perennials, and even trees.
The benefits of a green roof prove to be an excellent reason for implementation:
- Amenity and Aesthetic: recreational space, public and private, high quality in high density
- Environmental: biodiversity and wildlife value, stormater management , air pollution urban heat island effect
- Economic: increased roof life, cooling, insulation and energy efficiency, green building assessment and public relations
At the end of the presentation, it was determined that for our project we would use a basic green roof, as our building proposal would be a reletively inexpensive project, where the added cost of a roof garden, and even the maintenance fees of a green roof hybrid could not be justified.
This week, Ed Epp came in to speak to us on flood architecture, and the University of Manitoba’s (Faculty of Architecure) involovement in the International Center for Flood Architecture. Involved in this project are universities and research facilities from around the world. Founded by Ed Epp and the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba, the foundation’s goal is to ”…document innovative architectural / structural solutions for living in flood prone regions of the world (and to use these as a framework to guide further research within the context of the Red River Basin).” Researching land use and codes, settlement,infrastructure, landscape, built form, and product to determine structure and scale within the built environment is an essential part of ICFA, furthering the knowledge of not only local planners dealing with the issues surrounding the Red River, but planners all across the globe.
Research has been done on a global scale, looking at flood cases around the world, and how the issues were dealt with by design.
- The Rhine River Basin (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), where homes actually float on the water, rising with the flood
- The Ganges River Basin (along the Bay of Bengal, India)
- The Yangtze River Basin (Shanghai, China), Three Gorges Dam being built, concrete landforms around river basin
Continual research allows for the Floodarc Studios at the University of Manitoba to further propose alternative solutions to living and working around the Red River.
Filed under: November 27, Uncategorized | Tags: Data Collection - New/Alternative Projects
The lecture on green roofs and gardens really got me thinking about the many opportunities and different methods of implementing these into the urban environment. Daniel Libeskind’s has designed a green new york tower that combines urbanism with trees and greenery. This 54 foot condo building is made out of many glass windows with green gardens throughout the tower. Openings are cut into the tower where these green “roofs” are placed. These openings also provide balconies for those situated near them.
LINK: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/4726/daniel-libeskinds-green-new-york-tower.html
This design caught my eye because it solves the problem that my studio group members and I struggled with in the creation of our artificial city. Since our “airport” city was very dense and consisted of only large towers (no smaller forms residential housing), we had searched for a way to provide individual green space to these towers inhabitants. Our solution was to implement rotating towers. We hadn’t exactly worked out the details, but had intended to eventually use this technology to provide greenery. Daniel Libeskind’s design is exactly the idea we were looking for. It literally takes the outdoor environment and brings it inside. The residents living in the upper portion of the tower may no longer feel as if they are as far from the ground as they really are. They can look out into a green garden they may only be a few stories down. It’s a brilliant idea and a step towards solving the many issues we need to address now and in the future.
Hanging gardens use layers of trees and vegetation. There is a Poem which describes these layers.
Scandinavian Turf Roof – berch bark.
Modern Experiements: in the 50’s. There can be a social point on the rooftop, like a daycare.
Green roofs and roof gardens: Small, high density housing with green roofs in Switzerland. Cannot see the high density nor does one feel it, because the view of the green/trees etc.
Amenity and Aesthetic benefits: recreational space, public and private, high quality and high density.
Environmental Benefits: biodiversity and wildlife, value stromwater management, air pollution, urban heat island effect.
Economic Benefits: increased roof life, cooling insulation and energy efficiency, green building assessment and public relations.
1 of 10 roofs in germany are green. The main reason being that Germans have a law to preserve nature. Must compensate for what they consume, many decide to use a green roof to do so.
Three types of roof construction: - inverted (roof deck, waterproof root-proof, drainage layer, filter mat, substrate/ growing medium) – cold (insulation, roof deck, waterproof root-proof) – warm ( roof deck, insulation, waterproof and roof proof)
Green Roof: extensive roof-greening (maintenance extensive, inaccessible, low weight, low cost, no watering), moss/sedum communities, dry meadow communities, 10 kg/m2 (weight of vegetation).
Green Roof Hybrid: simple intensive roof greening (maintenance extensive, accessible), dry meadow communities, low-growing drought-tolerant, perennials, grasses, 10-20 kg/m2 (weight of vegetation)
Roof Garden – intensive roof-greening, 10-150 kg/m2 (weight of vegetation)
Works:
-Castle Horst in former times
- Ackermannbogen Apartment Block
- Park Village Unterfohring – underground parking preventing trees from being planted directly on the plaza (just around the edges), grass growing between stones.
- Five Courtyards in Munich
- Portiahof
- Promnadehof
- Perusahof
- Light Well – rooftop surrounded by doctors (waiting rooms, etc.)
- Roof Terrace
“Green spaces link to the urban networks”
