Today we have the pleasure to air Dr. Clayton Rugh’s “One Decade of Ultralight Green Roof Proof-of-Concept on Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant” video presentation from our inaugural  2011 Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit on greenroofs.tv and our GreenroofsTV channel on YouTube.

We’ve known Clayton for years, and his company, Xero Flor America, has been a Sponsor advertiser of ours from the beginning.  Clayton is one of the coolest, funniest, and most laid back professor/researcher/greenroof expert types you’ll ever meet!  Maybe it’s the pony tail, I’m not sure, but we love him.

Below are Clayton, left, and Aramis, right, at the 2010 CitiesAlive  Conference  in Vancouver, B.C. at the Awards Lunch:

I was the one who suggested he talk about the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge Plant since I felt it was a great, ground breaking project which had received mixed reviews lately, and I wanted to offer him the opportunity to set the record straight.  In fact, we highlighted this 454,000 sf extensive greenroof for the month of June, 2008 in our inaugural  Greenroofs of the World™  12-Month Calendar.

And, we felt he did a great job on his video for the 2011 Virtual Summit – yet he was a bit unhappy with it, so he decided to re-shoot it for the release on   GreenroofsTV  and posterity – and it’s awesome!  The updated video presentation was recently (in early June 2012) re-filmed atop  Ford’s beautiful River Rouge Truck Plant and shows how thriving the very low greenroof profile is.

More info:

Clayton Rugh, PhD is Manager & Technical Director of Xero Flor America.  Dr. Rugh received his BS in Botany and Genetics and MS in Plant biology, both from The Ohio State University; and PhD from the University of Georgia.  Xero Flor America, LLC. (XFA) was formed concurrently with the 10.4 acre green roof installation on Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant.  XFA was borne out of 30 years of technical development by its parent organization, Xero Flor International GmbH, and extensive German and U.S. university R&D to develop various green roof systems tailored to individual project design goals and regional North American climates.

Xero Flor pre-grown vegetated mats are installed on custom designed base layers as “instant” green roof systems, which are independent laboratory certified against weed encroachment, wind uplift, spread of fire, or surface erosion.  These features and more on the Dearborn Truck Plant and an additional 400+ Xero Flor green roof installations throughout North America since the initiation of the Ford – XFA – Michigan State University collaborative green roof research trials in 2001.

In 2001, the Ford Motor Company, Xero Flor America, LLC., and Michigan State University began collaborative green roof research trials resulting in the installation of the massive 10.4 acre green roof on Ford’s River Rouge Truck Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

The Ford project held the record of “The World’s Largest Green Roof” for several years and has matured into a thriving, healthy, low profile vegetated roof which is being continually evaluated.

By the way, as testament to Clayton’s sense of “humor,” when I asked him to send me a photo of himself for the Virtual Summit Speakers page, this is what he sent me, at left:

So, although I was temped to use this lovely photo from 2011’s Durham, NC Zombie Crawl, I found another online (above) that I felt may have been just a tad more appropriate.

Enjoy!  Visit greenroofs.tv to see “One Decade of Ultralight Green Roof Proof-of-Concept on Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant” or click below:

Watch earlier videos on our exclusive Virtual Summit greenroofs.tv play list, or see the following Virtual Summit videos now available on our GreenroofsTV channel on YouTube:

If you’re looking for an overview, make sure to see our 2011 Virtual Summit Highlights video (6:18) and our 2011 Virtual Summit Trailer (2:59).

Check back next week on GreenroofsTV for our  28th installment from the Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2011 – our next to the last!

~ Linda V.