Known as “The Rose City” for its famous yearly Rose Festival and The Grand Floral Parade in early June, Portland Oregon could also be easily known as “The Eco City” or perhaps even “The Green City” because of their ongoing commitment to preserving their magnificent waterways and forests while promoting sustainable design and development through progressive urban policies and public outreach.  The last time we were there was for the 2nd Annual Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities Conference, Awards & Trade Show in 2004.  And we spent some time here in late 2003 when I was compiling info for my Sky Gardens ~ Travels in Landscape Architecture column on the area.  Such a beautiful city!

On March 12-13, the lovely City of Portland will be sponsor and host to their annual free Ecoroof Portland.  What an amazing city for supporting greenroofs – or ecoroofs, as they refer to them here.  Currently with about 200 projects within the city, ecoroofs cover about 10 acres, leading the U.S. in total area greened after Chicago.  And they were one of the first, if not the first, municipality in the nation to offer incentives.  As part of the Grey to Green Initiative, the City of Portland is offering an incentive of up to $5 per square foot for ecoroofs towards a target of 43 additional acres by 2013.  In the past year, the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) awarded the incentive to 50 projects for a total of over 4 acres.  Read more in Industry Support and the City’s Incentive Project Page for more information. You can visit ecoroofs and other sustainable stormwater projects in Portland with these self-guided tours, and the City maintains an Ecoroof Blog, which is very informative, too!

The premier champion there of stormwater mitigation, and ecoroofs in particular, is Tom Liptan, ASLA.  I’ve known Tom for over 12 years, when I first contacted him about greenroofs back when I was a landscape architecture student at UGA a had “discovered” them myself.  Gracious, kind, and accommodating, he nurtured and fueled my passion for this earth-friendly sustainable technology.  And Tom has always put his money where his mouth is – he installed one of the first ecoroofs in Portland atop his garage in 1996.  The now famous Liptan Garage Greenroof served as early a demonstration project and testing grounds for a variety of factors – read more in the profile.

Designed to inform a varied audience of professionals and homeowners, the lineup of speakers will educate and inspire you to consider a greenroof on your next project.  A Vendor Fair with over 60 professionals and organizations will be on-hand both days to share their ecoroof experience, products, and services.  Featured speakers include Dr. David J. Sailor, Ed Snodgrass, and me!  Dr. Sailor is a full professor at the Mechanical and Materials Engineering faculty at Portland State University, Member Faculty of the Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST), and directs Portland State University’s Green Building Research Laboratory.  Ed Snodgrass is co-owner of Emory Knoll Farms/Green Roof Plants, a fifth generation farmer and nurseryman specializing in plants and horticultural consulting for greenroofs.  An accomplished speaker and writer (“Green Roof Plants: A Resource and Planting Guide”), he’s also our Plant Editor who writes his occasional column “Ask Ed“  – read my “From Llamas to Greenroofs: An Interview with Ed Snodgrass.”  See full profiles here and a complete list of all the speakers and Agenda here.

See Ed on Friday at 12:00 pm at the Welcome and Keynote Address where Environmental Services Director Dean Marriott will welcome attendees and introduce Ed as the Keynote Speaker.  His presentation will focus on the role of ecoroofs in sustainable cities.  On Saturday at noon, Commissioner Dan Saltzman will welcome attendees and introduce me – I will be presenting “Hot Trends in Greenroof Design,” a compilation of my favorite international projects from our Top 10 Lists from the past with a look at some of the new, innovative, leading vanguard and projects for 2010.  On Saturday at 4:00 pm Ed will be part of a panel where you can get some help getting started on your own ecoroof project – “The Ecoroof Doctors are IN,” along with Tom Liptan, David Elkin, and Alice Meyers from BES, and Patrick Carey of hadj design, a Green Roofs for Healthy Cities trainer, and our Architecture Editor.  Patrick writes an occasional architectural column entitled “A View from the Sky Trenches,” where he selects and discusses pertinent greenroof industry topics.

Don’t miss Ecoroof Portland!  It will run on Friday and Saturday, March 12 & 13, 2010 at the Leftbank Annex, located at 101 N. Weidler St in downtown Portland.  It’s very close to the Rose Quarter – you can find directions by clicking the following link.  Learn all about Ecoroof Portland 2010 at the City’s BES website.

If you can attend, please stop by and say hello!  Happy greening,

~ Linda V.

In all the hustle and bustle of editing feature articles, posting news stories, upcoming events, industry news and project profiles, amid other publisher duties, I sometimes forget to acknowledge the outside accomplishments (from Greenroofs.com) of our contributing editors…  This oversight will be addressed as one of my upcoming New Year’s resolutions, but for now let’s start with George Irwin, our Green Wall Editor:

George Irwin, C.E.O. of Green Living Technologies, discusses the design of an A-frame planter his company makes.

George was recently interviewed for the “Business of Green” article by Ken Belson titled “The Rooftop Garden Climbs Down a Wall” that appeared in the Energy & Environment section on nytimes.com of November 18 and the New York Times print version on November 19, 2009.  One of his Green Living Technologies‘ living wall products was featured when NYC architect Brad Zizmor had an edible wall installed on the backyard deck of his first-floor Manhattan apartment. 

The article really delves into the “Business of Green” – costs are included and Barthelmes Manufacturing Company, the sheet metal fabricator, was also highlighted as well as Kari Elwell Katzander, a landscape designer who designed the 3-panel green wall.  Although the author points out that these small greening solutions can be costly, he refers to another of George’s collaborations, the Urban Farming Food Chain green wall project in Los Angeles, and says:

“Mr. Irwin has shown that edible walls can work on a larger scale. At four locations in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, there are walls with more than 4,000 plants growing: tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, spinach, leeks, even baby watermelon. At one location, a homeless shelter, residents tend to a six-foot-high, 30-foot-long wall, eating some food they harvest and selling the rest.

The project, urban farming advocates say, is just the start of something larger.”

Make sure to also click on the slide show “Edible Walls of Green” – there are 12 awesome photos of the Zizmor wall, a living wall at the College of Applied Sciences and Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology, and cool manufacturing shots, with just a few below:

Oh yeah, while I’m am it, I should tell you that George Irwin won the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Award of Excellence in the Green Walls category this year.  Presented on June 5, 2009 at the 7th Annual Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities Conference, Awards, and Trade Show at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, he won for his involvement and contribution to the Urban Farming Food Chain green walls, truly a dedicated community affair of residents, manufacturers, students, professors, activists, and designers.  We were very proud of him, of course, and I should have blogged about this very prestigious accomplishment after the conference, but somehow didn’t.

You can read more about this award from the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities website, and see each of the initial four green wall sites of the Urban Farming Food Chain in The Greenroof Projects Database:  Skid Row Housing Trust’s ‘The Rainbow’; The Weingart Center Association; Miguel Contreras Learning Complex and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Green Wall.

I should also probably mention that because of his work with this project, George has also been on Good Morning America and invited to the White House, too.  I am a forgetful editor, indeed!  George writes about this exciting, worthy, and humbling experience in his upcoming Green Walls column, which should be up very soon.  Kudos, George!

~ Linda V.