Greenroofs.com Project of the Week: 4/04/16

International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) – Instituto Internacional de Dasonomía Tropical
San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
12,600 sf. Greenroofs

Project of the Week Description & Details

Created in 1939, the International Institute of Tropical Forestry is a research and technology transfer institute located in Puerto Rico, part of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The IITF serves as a focal point for bringing external research and educational resources to bear on issues affecting tropical forests and grasslands and recently underwent a long restoration of its headquarters complex. With stormwater and urban heat island mitigation as goals, the new LEED-Gold Institute has 50,000 square feet of modern, state-of-the-art facilities that include a green, pervious parking lot; rainwater harvesting; retention ponds; and a green roof research station.

Architect Jeannette Rullán from RMA Architects, green roof consultant David L. Aponte from PRGD, and USDA engineer Juan Vissepó designed the green roofs as an experimental intervention that would further the understanding in hydrological, thermal, and ecological behavior and benefits in a sub-tropical scenario. Test green roofs were installed on four buildings and sub-divisioning resulted in 7 green roofs and 1 cool roof. A total of 22 species were used – around 16,000 plugs, with some seeds. Materials used include: Firestone 90 mil EPDM membrane; ZinCo green roof material; and Rooflite extensive growing media. Four cisterns collect 6,800 gallons of harvested stormwater, used for general cleaning and irrigation, including the green roofs when necessary. The monitoring scheme compiles the green roofs’ effectiveness regarding balances of energy, water, and nutrients with two Campbell weather stations to monitor air temperature, humidity, wind speed, impact energy, and rain. Sensors were placed on the ground surface, inside the volume of the soil, and the roof surface – on both cool and green roofs, for a total of 80 sensors. During the hottest times of the day, the green roof temperature is about 10° F cooler than ambient temperature. The differences in temperature between the green roof and ambient temperature mean less burden on the internal control of the temperature of the building and therefore result in energy savings on this iconic, historic building site.

Year: 2012
Owner: USDA Forest Service
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
Building Type: Municipal/Government
Type: Semi-Intensive, Test/Research
System: Custom
Size: 12,600 sq.ft.
Grade: 1%
Access: Accessible, Private

Designers/Manufacturers of Record:

Restoration Lead: Juan Vissepó, Engineer, IITF
Restoration Architect: Jeannette Rullán, RMA Architects
Green Roof Specialist: David L Aponte, President, PRGD Inc.
Greenroof System: Nick Smith, ZinCo USA
Waterproofing: Firestone Waterproofing Products
Growing Media: Peter Philippi, rooflite
Collection and Analysis of Green Roofs: David Aponte Dones
Original Architect: William Ellis (W. Ellis) Groben, US Forestry Service

View the PROJECT PROFILE to see ALL of the Photos and Additional Information about this particular project in The International Greenroof & Greenwall Projects Database.

Project of the Week Video Feature

Watch the International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) Project of the Week Video below or see it on our GreenroofsTV channel on YouTube:

[iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/NRHkz35GxrA” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” aspect_ratio=”4:3″ maxwidth=”560″]

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