To obtain a copy of a specific publication, users should contact the publication's publisher directly.
Abstract
As we build more and more cities with higher densities for increasingly complex human activities, we must replace the paved-over, lost ground with regenerative organic environments; thereby we are humanizing the city and return some ecological balance; the health of the city depends on the absorptive organic surfaces, especially the roofscape of major buildings. We can no longer afford sterile tar and gravel roofs or send rainwater down sewer drains, nor can we waste energy, winter and summer, through these traditional roofs. While volumes of information are being collected and studied to refine and develop new technologies for green roofs, to measure performance and to test products, the aesthetic beauty of the planting is often not a consideration. Technical performance is the only goal. As landscape architects we must consider, not only the design of the system, but the aesthetics as well. Visually, roofs blanketed with a layer of green are far more interesting that an asphalt roof but a roof designed to reflect the changing seasons, to respond to the wind, to have forms that are pleasing to the eye and to incorporate cultural and historical references is much richer than a roof covered with three different sedums that have been selected from a list of reliable plants.
As we build more and more cities with higher densities for increasingly complex human activities, we must replace the paved-over, lost ground with regenerative organic environments; thereby we are humanizing the city and return some ecological balance; the health of the city depends on the absorptive organic surfaces, especially the roofscape of major buildings. We can no longer afford sterile tar and gravel roofs or send rainwater down sewer drains, nor can we waste energy, winter and summer, through these traditional roofs. While volumes of information are being collected and studied to refine and develop new technologies for green roofs, to measure performance and to test products, the aesthetic beauty of the planting is often not a consideration. Technical performance is the only goal. As landscape architects we must consider, not only the design of the system, but the aesthetics as well. Visually, roofs blanketed with a layer of green are far more interesting that an asphalt roof but a roof designed to reflect the changing seasons, to respond to the wind, to have forms that are pleasing to the eye and to incorporate cultural and historical references is much richer than a roof covered with three different sedums that have been selected from a list of reliable plants.
Date
5/2005
5/2005
Author(s)
Cornelia Oberlander; Elisabeth Whitelaw
Cornelia Oberlander; Elisabeth Whitelaw
Page(s)
Keyword(s)
green roof; organic roof; roof vegetation
green roof; organic roof; roof vegetation