See the GGW Virtual Summit Speakers page and Agenda to learn all about each presenter and their presentations or the panel sessions.
Speaking of our panel sessions, we have seven very distinct, innovative,and important collaborations that you are sure to enjoy and learn from personal experiences of movers and shakers in their respective fields from international non-profit, private and university level to U.S state, city, and borough level to professional association, private enterprise, and corporate experiences.
Click on the photos or titles to learn more about each scheduled time slot on the Agenda and each individual - they all have live Question & Answer sessions afterwards, so don’t miss them to pick their brains on how they are succeeding in greening our roofs and walls:
Christine is moderating the panel on “Biodiversity and Green Roofs” where she also speaks about her research on plant community development and ecological processes on extensive green roofs with time. Nathalie speaks about “Green Roofs / Natural Roofs = Biodiverse Habitats and Ecological Compensation in Urban Space: 15 Years of Experience in Switzerland.” Dusty speaks about “Designing and Working for Biodiversity on Green Roofs for Over 10 Years.” And Gary speaks about “My First Biodiverse Green Roof in 1992, Considerations for Planning and Design and Some Thoughts on the Future.”
This panel featuring: a State Senator, noted business leader, NYC project manager, health care manager, social service providers and a dedicated educator speaks to triple bottom line benefits, impacts and the uses of green roofs, green walls, and urban agriculture as highly replicable, critical components to creating and leveraging social equity and economic and educational opportunities in challenging times.
“The Portland Ecoroof Program: A Cross-section of the Green Roof Movement in Portland, Oregon” above left to right: Tom Liptan, Matt Burlin, Amy Chomowicz, Casey Cunningham, and Alice Meyers. The Portland Ecoroof Program started in 1996 when a city employee constructed an experimental ecoroof on his garage. From this small start, the program has grown and as of July 2011 there are over 420 green roofs of varying sizes, on all types of buildings, from multi-story apartment complexes and commercial buildings to humble sheds, kiosks, and garages. These green roofs cover nearly 30 acres of Portland rooftops (extensive and intensive roofs).
The Portland Ecoroof Program consists of technical support, incentives, education, policies, and research. The program is incentive-based rather than regulatory, and the city’s policies reflect this approach. This presentation provides an overview of how these program elements work with the private sector and general public to sustain the green roof movement in Portland.
U.S. Congressman Tom Reed from the 29th district of New York, Tom Ferraro, CEO of Foodlink – a national network of 200 food banks – and George Irwin, CEO of Green Living Technologies International (GLTi), provide interactive conversation and commentary concerning the impact of education, economics and opportunity around local food production with green walls and roofs. Rochester-based GLTi started in New York City and has since grown nationally and internationally through education and collaborative hands-on projects with local youth, the underprivileged and disadvantaged in New York and Los Angeles and with business partnerships in Santiago, Dubai, and beyond to include their Food Factory and more.
“Wind. Water. Heat. Grow. Greenroofs.” above left to right: Dr. Bill Retzlaff, David Aponte, Kevin Songer, and Joe Webb. Greenroofs are impacted by wind, water and heat on an unrelenting basis. Through wind trials and real hurricane survival stories in Houston, TX, Jacksonville, FL, Edwardsville, IL, and Puerto Rico, we have met those challenges and will discuss various projects’ responses and successes to Hurricanes Ike and (any others?). Drought, hot winds, and unseasonable 100° days can also quickly desiccate or kill greenroof plants.
Dr. Bill Retzlaff moderates discussing wind studies and plant trials for greenroofs at SIUE. Joe Webb talks about his project which endured 110 to 120 mph winds and 11” of rain in 24 hours and shares water mapping and Living Building Challenge Water requirements. Kevin Songer talks about the Outdoor Turbine Hurricane Simulator at the University of Florida, water conservation through ‘nature-based irrigation design,’ and the importance of biodiversity. David Aponte speaks to his experience of engineering and designing greenroofs with the correct growing media and plants in hurricane-prone, sub-tropical Puerto Rico.
“Greenroofs: Wind & Fire” Panel above left to right: Kelly Luckett, Mike Ennis, and Jim Kirby. No longer can the green roof be deleted from a project due to failure to comply with the fire code. After three years in the making from members of Single Ply Roofing Industry in cooperation with Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), we now have a green roof design guide for minimizing the risk of fire on green roofs. The securing of a place in mainstream construction through the International Code Council (ICC) has resulted in a milestone for the North American green roof movement. Fire concerns are only half of the code story as the wind design guide is still progressing through the ANSI process – we must overcome both the wind and the fire obstacle.
Kelly Luckett, President of Green Roof Blocks, moderates and shares his experiences representing GRHC with the consensus based ANSI/SPRI VF-1 and RP-14 standards. Jim Kirby, NRCA’s AED, Technical Communications, provides NRCA commentary about building codes, vegetative roofs and RP-14. Mike Ennis, Technical Director for SPRI, speaks to SPRI’s leadership leadership in the development of fire and wind standards and experience in the building code arena.
And, because the panel sessions weren’t stirring enough, we’ve ended with the “Green Roofs Without the Hype” Panel above left to right: Patrick Carey, Dr. Robert Berghage, Charlie Miller, and Ed Snodgrass. Here are four people with the knowledge to speak frankly about the current state of affairs in green roofing. This panel focuses on the designation and evaluation of expertise, appropriate background and training, roadblocks to research and education, design origination and control, chain of custody issues, installation, and the residential market.
We hope you join us for this very interactive virtual experience – think film festival meets 2-day webinar and online expo extravaganza!
Pre-register or learn more by visiting: virtual.greenroofs.com. Don’t forget to pre-register by this Friday, September 9 for the discounted Early Bird rate of only $49 ($25for students/faculty and government professionals).
Brought to you by Greenroofs.com, we’d like to thank to our Virtual Summit SponsorsTREMCO (Rare Earth) and American Hydrotech (Emerald) and our Exhibitors and Media Partners – make sure to visit them at the Expo Pavilions.
Our daughter, Anjuli, has been writing, filming and editing our “This Week in Review” video since August, 2010 and each week you can expect to learn What’s New here on Greenroofs.com. Here’s the transcript for April 1, 2011 - click on the photo below to see the video, or here. Enjoy!
- Hello, I’m Anjuli Velazquez and welcome to This Week in Review for April 1st, 2011 on GreenroofsTV.
- Our projects of the week are the Cheyenne I and III (251 & 253 Medical Center Blvd.), greenroofs built in 2007 and 2009 in Webster, Texas. Developer and General Contractor, Jacob White Construction Company, wanted the buildings to stand apart from all other commercial buildings in the Houston area. And they did just that when 251 East became the first LEED Gold certified building that side of Austin and 253 West gained LEED-CS Platinum certification in 2009. The most impressive and ambitious part of these projects are the greenroofs complete with gardens, walking paths, and a lush landscaped area. On September 13, 2008 Hurricane Ike went across the site as a strong Category 2 hurricane with 120+ mph winds and 11 inches of rain, yet there was no impact on the green roof nor the building. In both cases, Webb Architects designed a custom system using EnkaRetain & Drain from Colbond with a locally designed growing media mix – the material cost savings alone was in the neighborhood of $250,000 each. Approximately 73% of all rain water is retained, while the excess is transported to the roof drains that direct it to underground cisterns for storage and that reclaimed water is used for everything from irrigating the grounds to flushing the toilets.
- To learn more about the Cheyenne I and Cheyenne III greenroofs, click on our project of the week links on our homepage.
- The American Horticultural Society is pleased to announce that Ed Snodgrass is the 2011 recipient of the G.B. Gunlogson Award. The award is one of 12 Great American Gardeners Awards that the AHS presents annually to individuals, organizations, and businesses that represent the best in American gardening. Congrats to Ed, co-owner of Emory Knoll Farms and our very own contributing editor of the “Ask Ed” Plant Column here on Greenroofs.com!
- Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is pleased to announce the results of its 2011 Annual Industry Survey of Corporate Members which found that the greenroof industry grew by 28.5% over the course of 2010, which was up significantly from the 16% growth recorded in 2009! The City of Chicago was #1, with Washington D.C. #2 in the Annual Top Ten U.S. Cities List.
- Read our latest guest feature contributing editor blog post on Sky Gardens by Christine Thuring, “EcoBuild London (March 2011).” Christine talks about the world’s largest sustainable construction fair, the biggest EcoBuild yet with over 50,000 visitors, over 1,300 suppliers and more than 130 free seminar sessions feazturing over 600 speakers.
- Ross Dulmaine of IBTimes reports on “Green roof uberwork: Bjarke Ingels’ M2 House.” He says “from a distance the M2 house looks like just another little rolling hill. Approach more closely and you find a modern, subtly camouflaged residence whose roof is covered in beautiful, easy to maintain sedum.” Located in Denmark, the home was designed to blend into its rural surroundings and one side features huge, light-infusing glass sections which provide plenty of natural light to the living and kitchen areas. Check out the article on IBTimes for some more beautiful photos.
- Sandy Hingston of Philly Mag’s The Philly Post invites you to “Build A Green-Roof Birdhouse.” In Longwood Gardens, she took a birdhouse-making class with the most cutting-edge architectural design: a green roof. Longwood has been experimenting with bluebird houses in its fields for years hoping to attract more but with local summers heating up, eggs were reaching boiling points inside these birdhouses. Green roofs create a heat differential that aids airflow and reduces interior temperatures. The sedums used were specially grown at Ed Snodgrass’ Emory Knoll Farms in Street, Maryland where he focuses on perennial green-roof plants that can stay outdoors year-round.
- Jeffrey Tomich of stltoday.com asks “Five Questions with green roofer Kelly Luckett.” He talks about how Kelly Luckett, president of Green Roof Blocks, is taking back one rooftop at a time in St. Louis. Kelly explains that there are many benefits to green roofs: they soak up about half of the storm water that would otherwise run off into gutters, they keep rooftops cooler, saving energy in the buildings underneath and they provide a habitat for bees, butterflies and birds. Be sure to visit this article to read Kelly’s answers to questions like how he got into the green roof business, how green roofs are priced and what’s next for Greenroofs.com’s “Green Roof Guy.”
- To learn more about these stories and new ones posted daily, go to our In the News or newslinks section of our website.
- Have something you think we should know about and post on our website? You can send us your green articles, videos and images to editor@greenroofs.com.
Aramis and I were excited to attend and exhibit at CitiesAlive!, the 8th Annual Green Roof and Wall Conference on November 30 through December 4, 2010 in this beautiful harbor city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, co-hosted by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). Neither of us had been here, and we really had been looking forward to seeing this naturally gorgeous city surrounded by majestic snow covered mountain peaks, and we weren’t disappointed!
Celebrating its 125th Anniversary on April 6 of this year, Vancouver, B.C. is “Canada’s Cultural capital.” Originally inhabited by the Coast Salish people – the ancestors of the Squamish, Burrard, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam (Xw’muthk’i'um), Tsawwassen, Coquitlam (Kwayhquitlam), Katzie andSemiahmoo Indian bands, Spanish explorers first “discovered” Canada’s west coast in the early 1590’s. Captain George Vancouver arrived 200 years later, and fur trading, gold mining, and tree logging soon followed by the mid 1800’s. Vancouver’s cultural diversity is reflected everywhere – you have a huge selection of shopping, restaurants, bars, pubs, and nightclubs in various locales throughout the city.
Vancouver also has professed a steadfast commitment to sustainability – their long term goal is to lead the world in green building design and construction, and it promises to be “the greenest city in the world” by 2020. Vancouver’s targets include requiring all buildings constructed from 2020 onward to be carbon neutral in operations and reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in existing buildings by 20% over 2007 levels. Reportedly, Vancouver has the greenest building code for new homes in North America, but they don’t plan to stop here - they believe the technology already exists to support a more ambitious new construction requirement: net zero or carbon neutral new buildings. Read the “GC 2020 Draft Green Building Action Plan” here.
“These green building innovations will create thousands of new jobs, create a significant economic stimulus, increase the value of buildings, reduce property owners’ operating costs, help Vancouver become more resilient to climate change and energy price fluctuations, and position Vancouver as a global leader in green building technologies and expertise.” ~ Talk Green Vancouver/ City of Vancouver
As you may know, Corporate Knights, Canada’s magazine for clean capitalism, recently ranked Victoria and Vancouver, B.C. at the top of the list of Canada’s most sustainable cities – see the 2.9.11 Press Release.
Our hotel and venue were both beautiful and green. The luxurious Pan Pacific Vancouver Hotel is situated atop a pier at the magnificent Canada Place complex on Vancouver’s dramatic waterfront. And its iconic white sails have made it a prominent landmark for the city (currently being renovated).
Part of the Green key ECO – rating program (rated 4) itself, the Pan Pacific is conveniently located just a short walk above or below ground to the multiple award-winning venue, the LEED® Platinum certified for New Construction Vancouver Convention Centre. This expansion project is also known as the Vancouver Convention Centre West, and last year it served as the international broadcast and media center for the XXI Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games. (Haven and I included it in 2007’s Top 10 List under the #2 category, Bigger is Better – Mega Greenroofs.)
In addition to its massive 261,360 sf living roof – the largest in Canada - seawater heating and cooling, on-site water treatment and fish habitat are built into the foundation of the Convention Centre’s West Building, making the expansion project one of the greenest convention centers in the world. Located both on land and in the water, the views were breathtaking and spectacular! The floor-to-ceiling glass allow for maximum viewing pleasure of the North Shore mountains and the harbor, its boats, and even sea planes landing at will.
Planted with more than 400,000 indigenous plants and grasses from the Gulf Islands, the roof provides a beautiful flowering natural habitat to birds, insects and small mammals. Many people worked on this project- see this gorgeous video taken by David Buge with Bruce Hemstock of PWL Partnership Landscape Architects narrating on top of the Vancouver Convention Centre:
Although the greenroof is inaccessible to the public, the designers cleverly have allowed glimpses of the various angles and vegetated planes on two separate levels for visitors to enjoy, see below:
And the interior is just as cool andeco-friendly as the massive six-acre native plant greenroof overhead. For example, a phenomenal mosaic of cedar and hemlock pieces covering the interior walls creates a warm glow and adds multi-dimension to the expansive space.
Kudos to GRHC and BCIT for securing this fabulous, uber-sustainably designed venue!
Back to the CitiesAlive! Conference and Trade Show: We arrived on Tuesday, November 30 to make sure we were on time for the following day’s pre-conference activities (this was also the first day of tours, but we were too late to make it).
On Wednesday, GRHC offered five half-day education classes and one anticipated new one, the Introduction to Rooftop Agriculture – a topic that is really hot right now. Additionally, they had four 1.5 hour education sessions which all sounded interesting! But since I had to choose, I attended the 4-hour “Integrated Water Management for Buildings & Sites” seminar presented by Jeffrey Bruce, FASLA, GRP, President of Jeffrey L. Bruce & Company (and Chair of GRHC), while Aramis set up our exhibitor booth and attended the Corporate Members Committee Meeting.
I had heard mixed reviews about the course from its initial launch in Washington, D.C. last year, that it was certainly informative but a bit dry. But as someone with a degree in landscape architecture and a fairly good background in stormwater management, I enjoyed it. It wasn’t particularly dry, just quite technical and very in-depth in terms of definitions, policies, and procedures – although it said it was an introductory class, I would say it was definitely not for beginners! Developed by GRHC and the Association of Irrigation Consultants (ASIC), with leads Jeff Bruce and Lynda Wightman of Hunter, it embraces new approaches to design for Net Zero Water consumption.
The course covered water types and sources, and how we may manage water and energy resources more effectively including application and recapture methods. Jeff is a very good instructor – patient and extremely knowledgeable (his company also developed the course) -and the class was very interactive. We had some lively discussions from a really multi-disciplinary group of professionals from across Canada and the U.S., both from private practice and government at various levels. And the 98-page “Integrated Water Management for Buildings & Sites” Participant’s Manual is a veritable Bible of Integrated Water Management information.
Greenroofs.com was proud, once again, to be a Media Sponsor for the 8th year. The CitiesAlive! Opening Plenary on Wednesday night, sponsored by Architek.ca, was extremely interesting as we were greeted with a lovely traditional Coast Salish welcome from Elder Rose Point of the Musqueam First Nation and welcome song from Gerry Oleman, photo above from BCIT.
GRHC President Steven Peck was the Master of Ceremonies and he spoke about the many efforts and accomplishments of the industry association in the past year, including many firsts. We also heard from City of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who proclaimed his city would be the greenest in world, and from Rod Goy, the Acting Dean of the School of Construction and the Environment at BCIT, who spoke about their commitment to greening the built environment.
The always popular Paul Kephart of Rana Creek Living Architecture was the eloquent keynote speaker and shared his vision as a restoration ecologist and designer of living architectural systems. He also spoke about several of his collaborations with unique and large scale projects including the Gap Headquarters, Transbay Terminal Bay, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Croton Water Treatment Plant (Mosholu Golf Course) in New York which, when completed, will be the largest continuous greenroof in North America at nine acres.
Afterwards the Trade Show opened, the socializing started and didn’t stop until late. Thursday dawned overcast but the sessions started bright and early at 8:30 am. As usual, there was a huge number of expert international speakers in every track, with four tracks in all – Policy, Design, Research, and Expert Discussion Panels. In my opinion, it’s almost too massive a program, since it’s impossible to experience even a fraction of all the excellent presentations. What most people did was jump from session speaker to another to ensure they could hear their favorites. I think the ideal would be to send four people from each company or organization to attend each and then get together and debrief, but, really, who could afford that.
I found that I ended up splitting the next two days worth of sessions between the Design Track and the Expert Discussions. I started off the first day, Thursday, December 2nd, with the Barriers and Opportunities to Advance Collaborative Design Practices panel and heard from Paul Kephart, landscape architect David Yocca of Conservation Design Forum, and environmental engineer Greg Allen from Sustainable Edge. Jeff Bruce moderated, and these four highly seasoned professionals provided an intense interplay of personal opinion and practical experience, with plenty of audience interaction adding to the pot of working with disparate professionals.
The Temperate Green Roofs session followed and we learned about The Ted & Lois Hole Green Roof Healing Garden in Edmonton, Alberta. Designed by the wonderful Kerry Ross, Project Architect with IBI Group Architects and Ernie Webster, Landscape Architect with IBI/Landplan, this 22,500 sf hybrid extensive/intensive green roof is located at a new facility for holistic healing, the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Designed to commemorate Lois Hole, the former Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, and her husband Ted, it serves as a passive healing garden and visual amenity. The trees, shrubs, tall grasses and flowers were selected to represent the natural flora of Alberta, and were supplied by the family nursery. Some of the beautiful features include lots of seating areas, a water fall and reflecting pool, colorful glass screens, and places for art.
I hopped over to Expert Discussions – Standards Development for Green Roofs and Walls – Future Directions, Challenges and Needs with Mike Curry of Midwest Trading, Dr. Robert Berghage of Penn State, Kelly Luckett of Green Roof Blocks, and Blair Bennett of Soprema. Moderated by Zachary Williams of CarlisleSynTec, it was pretty interesting. There was a lot of candid sentiment about the process and practical issues from from what appeared to be an audience of mostly engineers, architects, city planners and the likes. Everyone wanted to know how their product or system might fare and how to get involved, and maintenance issues and ensuring maintenance contracts were included in deliverables were also a hot topic.
But I hopped back after about 20 minutes because I didn’t want to miss Nate Griswold from American Hydrotech and his presentation about the Lincoln Center for the Performing Artsand some of their unusual challenges with this project shaped like a hyperbolic paraboloid. Problems arose with the varying slopes as well as the high amount foot traffic and as a result, a new steep slope product and assembly for this type of greenroof was developed.
Unfortunately, I missed out on most of The Hugh Garner Green Roof Project – an integrated process, presented by Monica Kuhn of Monica E. Kuhn Architect, Inc. and Carolyn Moss of Moss Sund Architects, Inc., but I learned more about it when we featured this great multi-unit residential Housing Co-operative in downtown Toronto as our first Greenroof Project of the Week for 2011:
The GRHC 2010 Awards of Excellence Luncheon followed and twelve awards were given this year – eight for awesome buildings withgreenroofs andgreenwalls, including local favorite, the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project. Below is Peter MacDonagh, one of the principals of The Kestrel Design Group, who received a Special Recognition Award of Excellence for their work withThe City of Minneapolis Target Center Arena, which we featured in our 2010 Hot Trends Top 10 List in the #9 category, “Green Sporting Venues.”
There were some other really cool projects, see them all here, as well as four deserving individuals honored within our industry.
One of these was Kelly Luckett, above, AKA The Green Roof Guy, who won a Civic Award of Excellence for his hard work on the RP-14 Wind Design Guideline (read his Green Roofs, a Civic Award of Excellence, and a Lifetime of Memories article). Talk about someone who really should have been recognized! He has put in years of his life (not to mention probably tens of thousands of dollars from his own pocket) to further this important issue for our industry. And he was really excited and humbled about receiving it, too. I can only say how humble and proud I felt when he acknowledged me for giving him a platform to write. Way to go, Kelly!
The Lifetime Achievement Awardsceremony was truly poignant and inspiring as a special tribute was held for two legends of the roof garden/greenroofing industry. Author of “Roof Gardens, History, Design and Construction,” W.W. Norton, 1999, the late Theodore Osmundson, FASLA, was honored. Theodore Osmundson became a Fellow of the ASLA in 1963 and was ASLA president from 1967-1969. We heard about his lifelong passion for landscape architecture, and roof gardens in particular, from his son, Gordon.
Inspired by the Rockefeller Center Roof Gardens in New York City, industrialist Henry Kaiser hired Osmundson in 1958 to design the beautiful 3 and a half acre public park, the Kaiser Center Roof Gardenin Oakland, CA, which became Osmundson’s best known work. Gordon Osmundson, also a successful landscape architect, has taken on the task of working on a second edition of his dad’s highly successful “Roof Gardens” book.
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, OC, FASLA, FCSLA, LMBCSLA then graced the stage and spoke about “Reflections of six decades designing natural sites.” Educated at Harvard University, she expressed her love and gratitude for landscape architecture where she has shone brilliantly as a leader in garden roofs, and spoke about her early work while raising a family. She shared the visions of some of her numerous important projects, including the stunning Visitor Centre Green Roof at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens.
Designed by Busby Perkins + Willand Cornelia, the center is slated to meet the Living Building Challenge 2.0 (as per the Cascadia Green Building Council) as well as LEED Platinum standards. To receive its Living Building certification, the center will have to operate for 12 months with net zero energy while providing all of its own water.
Thursday afternoon was spent in and out of our Exhibit Booth on the Trade Show Floor, popping into a variety of sessions, and simply catching up with lots of people!
The Trade Show floor had a good turnout, and most exhibitors we spoke to were pleased with the quality of visitors to their booths (meaning designers and specifiers). I have to say our Greenroofs.com booth was hopping most of the time, and we had tons of visitors – thanks to all of you who came by to say hello!
This may have been due to our lively and lovely in-house booth mates, Contributing Editors Patrick Carey (and GRHC Trainer), Haven Kiers (also a GRHC Trainer), andCaroline Menetre, above, who camped out here off and on. We had some interesting booth neighbors, including the vivacious Kathy of BusyBee Gardening across from us, seen below, as well as neighbors Craig of MYKE® Pro Premier Tech Biotechnology andGenevièveNöel of Mubi Regenerative Consulting, below her:
Dr. Clayton Rugh of Xero Flor America, above, andXero Flor Canada were also close by and I have to say Thank you! to Joy Schmidt for giving me a copy of the lovely book “Vancouver 2010.” All about the 17 Olympic and 10 Paralympic Games days, it features stunning photos of Vancouver and their Xero Flor greenroof technology that covers approximately 56,000 sf of the Millennium Water Project - Vancouver’s Olympic Village. Here are more Trade Show pics:
That evening, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities put on a really nice, invitation-only GRP Reception for the first year’s class (2009-2010) of graduating Green Roof Professionals. It was casually elegant and beautifully set up - the beverage and food selection was wonderful and the service was excellent. Aramis and I saw a lot of our friends and colleagues here, and met quite a few new ones, too.
We heard Sara Loveland and Ashleigh Uiska (with Dusty Gedge) threw an awesome afterparty, but we had our own much smaller version with our band of Contributing Editors and colleagues. By the way, Sara won our free yearly Premium Listing in The Greenroof Directory.
The Friday sessions were just as bustling and varied. I sat through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Green Wall Case Studies II, starting withInterior Living Wall Biofilter Projects – Lessons Learned from Pioneering Experience from Dr. Alan Darlington of Nedlaw Living Walls and Birgit Siber of Diamond andSchmitt Architects. They shared stories of years of research and project monitoring, and how living walls have the capacity to break down hundreds of different kinds of contaminants found in indoor air; they demonstrated how a biofilter can substantially reduce the need to bring in fresh air by generating its own clean air indoors.
One of my favorite presentations was next, Innovative and Cost Effective Biofilters for Residential Applications from Robert Cameron and Dr. Robert Berghage from Penn State University. They have an experimental site on campus as well as the one Rob Cameron built at his home using a combination of materials on site, some donated, and some leftover from experiments from other Penn State projects. They conducted studies showing that living systems do not need to be highly sophisticated to work beautifully.
Rob Cameron asks, How can we take wasterwater and make it a resource? Using plants, from food crops to ornamentals, he showed us how the living wall with “Living Columns” – basically vertical plastic corrugated tubes – act like a constructed wetland and can filter out pollutants from an entire household. At his own residence he integrated these living columns with a greenroof for downspouts and rain water harvesting, and combined a living wall with an extensive greenroof to provide a vertical garden for tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and other veggies.
By the way, George Irwin of Green Living Technologies (GLT) was scheduled to speak during this session, and was deemed a no-show. Since he’s a Contributing Editor here, Caroline texted him to see where he was – he answered that he had indeed let GRHC know early in the week that something major had come up and would not be able to make it.
That morning I also sat in on a couple of sessions from Local Interest – From Barn Raisings to Green Roof Raisings: Community-Built Green Roof was presented by Bryce Gauthier, Director of the Projects In Place Society. What a great story! Projects In Place has taken the concept from the old community-based barn raisings and applied it to building sustainable projects. Using almost 100 volunteers including BCIT students, this small non-profit installed a 500 sf greenroof in two days on top of a business on the edge of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Projects In Place Society posted their CitiesAlive PowerPoint on their website, make sure to see it.
I skipped Retrofitting Existing Buildings With Green Roofs by Dr. Karen Liu of Xero Flor International because I had already seen and loved her similar (I hope) presentation at 2009’s CitiesAlive! in Toronto. Instead, I listened in on the Expert Discussion- How Green IS Your Green Roof: Devising a LEED Style Credit System for Green Roofs – Challenges and Opportunities with Steven Peck, Kerry Ross, Dr. Robert Berghage and Chuck Friedrich of Carolina Stalite.
Talk about a charged subject! Some argued that we should not create yet another rating system, but should rally to make the highly universally accepted (yet sometimes controversial) U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)’s LEEDprogram work better for our industry in terms of rating greenroofs. Others argued that GRHC knows our subject best and that starting new made the most sense rather than trying to fix another existing product. Having both my LEED AP andGRP designations, I have opinions, but will share them in another post.
So even though I was extremely interested in this subject, I returned to the Design Track andLocal Interest to hear about The Visitor Centre Green Roof at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens from Ken Larsson of Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture and the lovely Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, which was a treat, indeed!
Cornelia is a force to be reckoned with, and her exuberance shone through the entire presentation. It is a fascinating project – 3/4 of the 20,000 sf roof is greened, while 1/4 is “blue;” the undulating roof is based upon the shape of a native orchid – this project would have fit nicely in our Top 10 List as an example of the #3 position,“Biomimicry as Eco-literacy and Holistic Design.” Maybe for 2011. Lunch on the Trade Show Floor followed, along with the Poster Sessions.
Next up was Haven’s and my session where we were right in the middle of The Big Picture View, and we were very pleased at the turnout. Kerry Ross started with her extremely informative Nordic Adventures: a field study of green roofs in Norway. She highlighted cold climate greenroofs from a recent Scandinavian trip; through her research and documentation of projects has been able to better promote greenroof design and maintenance within Canada.
We followed with our Top 10 List presentation, and it was jam packed! This was the first time we had co-presented together, and Virginia (Jennie) Russell from the University of Cincinnati, our moderator extraordinaire, kept us in-line with methodical announcements for us to pick up the pace. So, it was a bit rushed, but fun (see our PowerPoint here). So many great projects to show, so little time!
We were honored to be in the same session as Cornelia Oberlander, who followed us and presented along with Ross Dixon of Phillips FarevaagSmallenberg. They shared their experiences with the Rooftoptop Renewal – The Redevelopment of Robson Square – An Intensive Green Roof in Downtown Vancouver.
This iconic rooftop civic center courthouse complex and public plaza was originally completed in 1983 by Arthur Erickson Architects and landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander; replacement of the original waterproofing membrane and restoration of the plantings is currently underway, and is expected to be completed sometime within this year. Refurbishments included surveying to see which tree specimens would be saved and evaluating the best methods for removal, safe keeping during construction, and then replanting.
The Closing Plenary opened with its own lively Top 10 List invitation to join GRHC at the 9th Annual CitiesAlive 2011 in Philadelphia by members of the Philadelphia Local Host Committee. Co-hosted by the City of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the next Green Roof and Wall Conference will be held in the City of Brotherly Love from November 29 to December 3.
The Panel Discussion Peak Oil, Urban Farming and the Roofs and Walls of Our Cities: Creating a Future We Desire wrapped up the Conference. Delivered by visionary yet practical Keynote Speaker Greg Allen, PE, LEEP AP, of Sustainable Edge, the presentation was forward thinking but set in a very grim reality – we must release our bonds with oil and embrace sustainable energy strategies as well as develop local urban farming on our rooftops and walls to ensure food security – basically we need to explore alternative food options more intelligently.
Panelists included Thomas Mueller of the Canadian Green Building Council, Vancouver Councilor Andrea Reimer, KeithAgoada of Sky Vegetables and Jeff Bruce, and a lot of people raised their own concerns about food supply and quality control, organics, and infrastructure for urban agriculture in the sky. Greenroofs.com was definitely in sync, as Haven Kiers and I had Tower Oases as Skyrise Urban Ag in the 2010 #1 category for our Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof and Greenwall Design.
We enjoyed our Habitat Havens Tour the next day on Saturday, and especially our tour guide, the lively and informative Tyrel Sutton from Flynn Canada. We had a beautiful, clear day to roam around four rooftops (really three, more on that later) that were selected because they were designed to either replicate a specific ecosystem or to provide food for birds, butterflies, or bees. We were lucky because the tours on Tuesday were rainy – in fact, at least one was cancelled.
There are quite a few publically accessible projects around Vancouver, and the Local Host Committee put together a 9-stop Self-Guided Green Roof and Wall Tour list that was included in the program. We didn’t see much, but Caroline did – this is her photo of the ING Green Wall, left, designed by CitiesAlive exhibitor Green over Grey – Living Walls and Design Inc.
I would say there were maybe 700 people at CitiesAlive. With the exception of a few hiccups – spotty snacks, flimsy conference program, tour time changes - overall, I felt that Steven Peck and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities did a fantastic job of planning and executing this first “international” conference. Kind of funny since they’re Canadian, but this was the first time the conference was held outside of the U.S. Plus it was the first time under its new name – CitiesAlive. (As you’ll recall, the previous seven incarnations were titled “Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities.”)
And the Vancouver Local Host Committee (Rod Goy, Marita Luk, Andrea Martinello, Blair Bennett, Nicholas Rousseau, Dr. Katherine Dunster, Helen Goodland, Andrea Linsky, Andrea Kausel and Lyn Ross) should be commended, too, for their outstanding accomplishments and participation in this successful conference! Visit Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ Acknowledgements page, where I borrowed this photo below:
In general, people were very happy with everything, with minor grumblings about not enough food at the Opening Plenary and dessert on the Trade Show floor after the Awards of Excellence Luncheon. Also, for the first time, CD’s of the conference proceedings were not available, but you can purchase video recordings of the over 60 speakers that go along with each’s PowerPoint presentation (“Full Compilation Streaming Media – Audio Synched to PPT”) from GRHC for $120.
In reflection, we should be happy the conference agenda is so big – I’m sure Greenbuild had similiar growing pains, talk about a massive, multi-day, multi-track program! Or ASLA, or AIA, for that matter. It simply, very clearly, illustrates the tremendous growth of our greenroof and greenwall industry, and acceptance of building integrated greenery into mainstream design. It is impossible to attend each presentation, so it’s great that GRHC developed the Living Architecture Academy – an online learning center with technical papers from all the past conferences and proceedings. Having such a resource at our fingertips is inmeasurable.
Regarding the Trade Show, we’ve all noticed a trend of some past exhibitors not exhibiting lately, sometimes due to the challenging economy, scheduling conflicts, or feeling resources could be better used elsewhere. So, I would also just like to add that all of us who are members of GRHC should pay a big thanks to all of the companies who have exhibited in the past, and who faithfully continue to do so. Being international for many of us, for Vancouver it was more cumbersome and expensive to ship everything, but conferences couldn’t be held without the support of exhibitors and sponsors. I would encourage everyone doing business within our industry to exhibit and work together to make our committment and exposure even better. Here are a few more Trade Show pics:
One of the very best things about all these conferences is the chance to meet new colleagues and see old friends from across the world and catch up on each other’s lives and happenings – we were happy to do this with the always effervescent Dusty Gedge of Livingroofs.org, Kerry Ross and her husband Bob, Chuck Friedrich and Ernie Higgins of ItSaul Natural – Mr. Natural (also from Atlanta), Contributing Editor Dr. Bill Retzlaff of SIUe, and too many other folks to mention! Many of our “usual” German colleagues were missing (Manfred Köhler and Roland Appl, among others), probably due to the numerous previous international congresses where we saw them, but it was great seeing several folks from the City of Portland’s Beaurau of Environmental Services and lots of international students, too.
I wish I had had more time with a bunch of people – the always wonderful Maureen Connelly from BCIT, Jennie Russell, and Andrea Martinello of N.A.T.S., for example, but there will be other conferences!
I’m sorry I couldn’t attend Maureen’s panel session of Expert Discussion: Taking Green Roofs and Walls to the Next Level in British Columbia – A Pathway to the Future! because it conflicted with our Top 10 presentation session. It included the fanstastic Deputy City Manager of the City of Vancouver, Sadhu Johnston – previously Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Chief Environmental Officer and Deputy Chief of Staff, where he headed up much of their greenroof program.
In my opinion, Maureen Connelly is the true greenroof champion in Vancouver with her many years of dedication and research at British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Centre for the Advancement of Green Roof Technology, and should be commended for an outstanding job – keep up the great work, and thanks BCIT for all that you do! (See their project profile in The Greenroof & Greenwall Projects Database here.) Their Mission Statement:
“The mission of the BCIT Centre for Architectural Ecology – Collaborations in Green Roofs and Living Walls is to conduct world-class, innovative research on green roof and living wall systems and to provide research-based education across disciplines, to students and practitioners.”
The BCIT Centre is evaluating the function and performance of extensive greenroofs and living walls in the rainforest climate of coastal B.C. Through collaborations with industry, government and academic partners, their vision is to help advance the widespread adoption of these technologies in this region. It would have been great to have visited the research facility, but, just like any working trip, there simply wasn’t enough time. Make sure to read BCIT’s “750 attend BCIT-co-hosted green roof conference” of December 13, 2010, where you can also see a huge gallery of photos.
We were here five nights and every day was devoted to conference events – although we didn’t get out to see the city and surroundings, many of our friends did (like Caroline and Janet Faust of JDR Enterprises). Caroline was fortunate enough to go up on a seaplane and took this wonderful aerial photo of Vancouver, above. Like most people, she also visited Whistler Mountain, one of North America’s top ski and snowboard resorts (and snapped this fun snow picture left).
The two greenroofed places I really wanted to visit but didn’t was the awesome Vancouver Public Library (also known as Library Square Building) with its pioneering rooftop built in 1995, and the fantastic 2010 Olympic andParalympic Winter Games Olympic Village, also known as Southeast False Creek and Millennium Water with about 287,000 sf total of greenroofs.
Read my 2.17.10 Sky Gardens post about it here. We featured Millennium Water in 2007’s Top 10 List in the #1 category – Visionary Proposed Projects since the City of Vancouver mandated that at least 50% of the buildings should be covered in green. Next time!
Not content to leave things alone, upon leaving the Vancouver International Airport (YVR), I had to take a bunch of photos of the 17-meter high YVR Canada Line Station 4 Living Wall, designed by the talented Randy Sharp of Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture. As you may know, the Canada Line is Vancouver’s new rapid transit rail link connecting YVR to downtown Vancouver, and visitors are greeted by this beautiful green wall of green and silver euonymus, mondo grass, and licorice fern. Read my 3.26.10 Sky Gardens post about it here.
We will defintely return to Vancouver, B.C. as a vacation destination, where we can take in all the sights and locations of this gorgeous city at our leisure! That’s it for now.
If you haven’t already, make sure to read our December, 2010 Guest Feature Article by Janet Faust of JDR Enterprises, “CitiesAlive! 2010,” where she did a great job in describing her reflections of this eighth yearly conference. Her account of compares the experience to a fine wine and Janet comments how these Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ conferences have gotten better with age! If you’d like to present at the 9th Annual CitiesAlive! Green Roof and Wall Conference in Philadelphia, the Call for Paper Abstracts will be released in a few weeks.
Next up will be a series of posts about individual tour sites from each of these unique cities we had the pleaure of visiting last year: Mexico City, Singapore, and the lovely Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Lovely Chicago is simply the greenest of the green cities, and there’s no doubt that Greenbuild is the greenest of the green conferences! See this short and fun video, “Generation Green: Redefining our Future” with tons of cool photos around town. It asks us to “Re: think Chicago” and is all about the merits of the Windy City - its 25 miles of public waterfront, for example, and how it’s “Re-evolutionizing the Building Industry” by greening everything from to parks and buildings to schools and jobs:
Thousands of building enthusiasts and professionals from across the globe participate at Greenbuild for three days of informative educational sessions, renowned speakers, green building tours, seminars, and various networking events. Chicago’s LEED-certified McCormick Place West on Lake Shore Drive – with its 96,000 sf Green Roof Blocks™ modular system greenroof that retains about 77,812 gallons of stormwater that would otherwise flow into Lake Michigan – is the host for this exciting annual event.
Held from November 17 through November 19, 2010, retired U.S. General Colin L. Powell kicked off Greenbuild 2010 this morning at the Greenbuild Opening Plenary:
General Powell inspired the packed room – filled with roughly 12,000 Greenbuild attendees – with messages of leadership and optimism – and a great sense of humor! ~ Greenbuild 2010
Showcasing the latest in innovative products and services, the Greenbuild International Expo is the world’s largest expo hall devoted completely to all forms of green building, including greenroofs and greenwalls! We try and attend at least the Expo every year, but weren’t able this time because of our heavy travelling schedule (Mexico City in October and Singapore at the beginning of November), but if you’re there you can:
Support Greenroofs.com’s Advertisers by visiting them on the Trade Show floor:
And Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has had a booth there for several years now, promoting the North American Green Roof Industry Association. Make sure to visit them at Booth # T24 and pick up a Green Roof Tour Map showing all their members’ booths, and get ready to attend the 8th Annual Green Roof and Green Wall Conference – CitiesAlive! in beautiful Vancouver, B.C. on November 30 – December 3, 2010.
Of course, the International Expo is just one great component of this great green show of shows, so for more information about this wonderful city, the line up of speakers, educational programs and activities for 2010 Greenbuild, please visit: http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/
Rooftop Garden – Public Access Having determined that the rooftop garden will be the place for people to gather and having provided access, one must ensure that the roof structure has the necessary structural capacity to support rooftop activity. Building codes may vary, so it is important to determine the local requirement for live loads and dead loads, and to understand how the green roof being built relates to weight requirement. The entire green roof assembly, including plants and the water required to saturate the growth media, is considered part of the dead load of the structure. Water in excess of that which saturates the growth media, snow and people visiting the green roof are all considered part of the live load of the structure. One must formulate a preliminary idea of what type of plants are desired and the proper growth media depth required to support them.
Saturated weight data should be available from the manufacturers of the intended green roof components. Typical rooftop gardens incorporate varying growth media depths and planters to support various plant choices. This will require calculations of the point loading of these various plant choices. Evaluating loading requirements and upgrading the structure to support the green roof is easiest and most economical in the design phase of the construction of the building. Evaluating the structural capacity and making upgrades to an existing structure is significantly more difficult and more expensive. Many retrofit green roof plans die at this stage due to inadequate structural capacity and the prohibitive cost of upgrades. While there are some creative strategies of employing irrigation systems to reduce growth media depths in order to reduce dead loading, live load requirements could mean abandoning public accessibility to the rooftop garden and opting to design a simpler, extensive roof.
Green roof – No public access When the green roof will not be a public gathering space, the live load structural requirements for the green roof are less complicated. Once the load requirements of the local building code have been determined, one must calculate the saturated weight of the green roof system to determine if structural upgrades will be necessary. Again, this is going to require some idea of the type of plants intended to grow on the green roof and the growth media depth required to support them. Typically the entire green roof will have a uniform dead load based on the saturated weight of the green roof assembly, though one may considering positioning planters or mounded growth media over structural support members to incorporate some strategically located deeper growth media for larger showcase plants. The plant palette is significantly expanded by increasing the growth media depth. As increased depth results in increased weight, there are often trade offs that balance structural cost with plant selection. Once the dead load of the green roof has been determined, a new structure can be designed with the required capacity. For an existing structure, one must begin by determining the structural capacity and design within those parameters. Irrigation systems have been successfully used to reduce growth media depth, and thus weight of the green roof system, for projects that would have otherwise required costly structural upgrades. For example, the green roof on the Ford Rouge Dearborn Truck Plant thrives in less than 3 inches of growth media and is sustained during periods of drought by the strategic use of supplemental irrigation.
As one of the contributing editors here on Greenroofs.com – you may know me as “The Green Roof Guy” – I’m starting a series of excerpts from my book Green Roof Construction and Maintenance. As President of Green Roof Blocks, I’ve been involved in the industry since 1980, am a LEED Accredited Professional, and a Green Roof Professional (GRP). Here we go:
Stormwater Runoff Discussions of storm water runoff are typically concerned with the impervious surfaces within a certain development or a certain watershed. Many municipal planning and zoning authorities have implemented policies restricting the amount of storm water runoff a new or existing development is allowed to generate. Some mandate no increase in the pre-development runoff volumes for new projects under consideration for building permits.
To help further promote green roof projects in the United States, we decided to make our Water Runoff Calculator tool available free of charge. The Excel based spreadsheet is available for download from the “Downloads and Calculators” page of the Green Roof Blocks website.
This storm water management tool quantifies storm water management values. Storm water runoff coefficients speak to the rate and volume at which water percolates into the ground rather than running over the ground’s surface. Where the surface of an undisturbed forest floor allows water to quickly be absorbed into the ground, a concrete or asphalt parking lot would instead repel water across the surface to lower neighboring grades. The difference in the permeability of the surface is sometimes referred to as imperviousness of the surface.
Green Roof Blocks Materials Estimating materials well in advance of a project can be a challenge. Always contact the product providers for assistance and specifics. For example, we developed an easy tool to help our clients using Green Roof Blocks and Green Paks- the Green Roof Materials Estimator, which is also available at the “Downloads and Calculators” page of our website. Assumptions in this Excel spreadsheet allow you to put in an advance date and receive an accurate estimate for your proposal based on that future time frame. Use this calculator to build multiple options based on your budget to present to your client. For questions, please contact us and we will be happy to customize a solution for your project.
As you probably know (unless you’ve just entered the greenroof field), Ed Snodgrass is a horticultural consultant who co-owns and operates Emory Knoll Farms/Green Roof Plants, a perennial nursery specializing in green roof plants that stocks over 100 varieties of green roof plants. To date they have and provided over 2.5 million sf of planted roofs!
Ed is also a seasoned speaker (highly in demand) and writer (who says he will try and contribute more here on Greenroofs.com!). By now I’m sure you’ve all read Green Roof Plants: A Resource and Planting Guide, by Edmund C. Snodgrass and Lucie L. Snodgrass, published by Timber Press, 2006 – I thought it was great, and a perfect resource – see my review here.
And, his brand new book, The Green Roof Manual: A Professional Guide to Design, Installation, and Maintenance, by Edmund C. Snodgrass and Linda McIntyre, published by Timber Press, 2010, is now available! I feel privileged that I was sent an early copy to review, which I’m working on along with finishing up another Contributing Editor’s book by Kelly Luckett – The Green Roof Guy -Green Roof Construction and Maintenance, published by McGraw-Hill’s Greensource, 2009 (it’s fantastic and I can’t believe I haven’t finished the review yet). Are they similar? Yes and no. Both are certainly unique with dinstinct perspectives.
But my early feeling for Ed and Linda’s new book is that it is simply great – much more overall in scope than the first (of course, it had a plant focus) and another must have for our greenroof and greenwall library! Order today from Amazon.com for quick delivery.
Happy Earth Day 2010! It’s the 40th anniversary of observing this date, and April has been unofficially dubbed Earth Month, too, in its honor. April is also Landscape Architecture Month, a fitting selection for a profession so dedicated to respecting the Earth through responsible environmental design.
So how am I celebrating Earth Day and Month? Well, you know we started our first annual “Love the Earth! Plant a Roof Earth Day Photo Contest“ - it’s open until April 28 for entering your favorite living roof and for voting. By the way, there’s one clear early leader so far with over 200 votes! Get your friends and colleagues to vote for your roof shot now. We’ll announce the winner on April 30.
My hands-on project involves a local area Daisy Troop – eleven young girls aged 7 and 8 who attend Birmingham Falls Elementary in Milton, Georgia. Their Girl Scout Leader, mom Sandra Nichols, contacted me a while back about speaking to the troop about the greenroof I designed at Rock Mill Park in Alpharetta, GA. The girls are working towards one of their badges, the Clover Project, which involves preserving and protecting a local treasure and saving resources. Since Sandra had been to the park before, she felt this would be a great learning opportunity to present the greenroof idea to the girls to educate them about saving water and reducing energy usage.
By the way, our Student Intern, Caroline Menetre – below, and I had just been up to the roof last week, doing routine weeding and taking notes to see which plants had fared well and which ones didn’t – more on that later.
Being a mom of three myself, and now a grandmom, of course I said yes! I met with them this past Tuesday and had a blast speaking about rain water, stormwater, and an introduction to greenroofs to this lively and rambunctious group. They especially loved touching all the plants in our four Greenroof Trial Garden tabletops – and they all got to try the garlicky Alliums in the Non-native Module!
I’ll be following up with them at their school this upcoming Tuesday to help them plant two 2′ x 2′ x 4″ greenroof modules of their own – both Green Roof Blocks and GreenGrid donated a module each, which will be on display at the school for all the children to have hands-on experience and learn about different types of greenroof plants. Thanks to Kelly Luckett of Green Roof Blocks, and Jim Lindell and Greg Harper of GreenGrid! I should add a thanks to GreenTech as well – they offered their larger 4′ x 4′ x 8 1/2″ module, but it was decided two smaller modules placed in two locations would better serve the students.
Also, Bobby Saul of Saul Nurseries here in Atlanta and Alpharetta, GA, is donating the plants for both modules, as well as the growing media from ItSaul Natural. After my little talk, I presented each girl with her own greenroof plant from Saul Nurseries to take home – a beautiful green Jovibarba ‘Green Carpet’ – succulent and spiky! You know how kids like to touch things, well, they loved these!
I know that many of you are passionate about protecting the planet, and hopefully you are doing something this April to honor our land. I’ll leave with this quote:
“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species – man – acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.” ~ Rachel Carson
After almost seven weeks of intense scrutiny and review, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) has relased the names of their first “graduating class” of GRP’s, or Green Roof Professionals (download the Press Release “First Green Roof Professionals (GRPs) Announced” of July 21, 2009 here. These hardy 100+ represent the inaugural group of professionals across multi-disciplinary fields to sit for and pass the GRP exam, held in Atlanta on June 5, 2009 at the 7th Annual Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities Conference, Awards & Trade Show.
The purpose of the GRP exam is to establish greenroof professional viability in our growing industrial sector. Jeffrey L. Bruce, Chair of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, whom I interviewed in May said, “We are very pleased with the caliber of the new GRPs and the fact that they come from both the green arts side, i.e., the living components of a green roof, and the black arts side, i.e., the nonliving components. Industry experts from both the black and the green arts have worked hard over the past six years to develop training materials and a professional exam that covers best practices across the spectrum of professionals, in order to improve multi-disciplinary knowledge and practice in the field.”
Congratulations to the new designees and so many people involved in the whole process! Many of our friends, colleagues, and several of our Contributing Editors received their GRP designtion, including Kelly Luckett, The Green Roof Guy; Patrick Carey, The Architecure Editor; and Haven Kiers, The Design Editor. In fact, Kelly was on the GRHC Training and Accreditation Committee which developed the Green Roof Professional Accreditation program, and he can attest to the countless hours put in by all to ensure quality, integrity and equity. But don’t feel too badly for them as, of course, everyone on the GRP Training and Accreditation Committee was grandfathered in and didn’t have to take the actual test!
So what about me? Remember when I said I was going to take it, too, and to join me? Yeah, well that never happened. Long story, but kind of typical for me, I waited too long to actually sign up for the exam and when I tried, it was closed. It was probably a blessing in disguise, because I hadn’t studied at all and was going to cram for the test at the last minute… Now I can plan accordingly, study like a normal person and take the GRP exam in any of these North American cities this fall: Chicago (Sept. 18), New York (Oct. 16), Toronto (Oct. 19), and Seattle (Oct. 30). And since I am also a greenroof designer, I do think it will be a good thing for me to have, along with my BLA and LEED AP.
So, did you take the test? What do you think about it? Share your comments here with us.
See the complete list of Green Roof Professionals in the latest issue of the Living Architecture Monitor online or download a PDF from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities here. Once again, a job well done to all!
All you golfers (and wannabe’s) should mark your calendars now for next Tuesday, June 2! Participate in the first annual Green Roofs for Healthy CitiesGolf Tournament at the lovely Bobby Jones Golf Course. This is a charitable event with all proceeds going to support the newly formed Green Infrastructure Foundation (GIF) that is open to all GRHC members, their employees, guests, spouses and prospective members. Create your own foursome or let GRHC assign you to one. This is a great networking event and an excuse to have some good fun in the sun (hopefully).
I think it’s a great cause and if you like to golf and are going to be here anyway, I’d encourage you to sign up here, and learn more about the whole experience on the Green Roofs for Healthy Cites Conference page. Some specifics:
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Tee Time: 1:00 pm (shotgun start)
Cost: $140 per person, and Fee Includes:
Green fees
Cart fees
Six pack of beer
Logo t-shirt
Barbecue dinner
The write up says, “The Bobby Jones Golf Course was recently renovated with new Champion Bermuda greens and is an 18 hole public golf course that rests in the heart of Buckhead and just ten minutes from downtown Atlanta. Built in 1932, this John Van Kleek design has a rich history dating back to the Civil War. The Battle of Peachtree Creek, one of the most pivotal battles of the Civil War, took place in the valley of the golf course surrounding the clubhouse. Today, Peachtree Battle Creek meanders through this tree-lined par 71 championship golf course and comes into play on five of the eighteen holes. Elevated tees on many of our holes offer scenic views of the midtown Atlanta skyline. The tightly placed greens offer a challenging round for the skilled golfer, while the open fairways create a pleasant round for golfers of all skill levels.”
And, I believe there may be some Sponsorship opportunities still available where you can profile your company and support the work of the Green Infrastructure Foundation:
Sponsor A Hole … Sponsor Longest Drive … Sponsor A Hole in One …
Sponsors will be recognized with signage on-site. Golden Intensive, Intensive and Semi-Intensive will all be offered four complimentary golf tournament passes for distribution to clients and colleagues. For more information, please contact Jennifer Sprout at jsprout@greenroofs.org or Tim Barrett, Barrett Roofing at timbarrett@prodigy.net.
Last week I told you about our Keynote Speakers for the Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2011 - Andrew Grant, Charlie Miller, Ed Snodgrass and Ralph Velasquez – awesome thinkers, designers, trend setters, eco-luminaries all of them! And among others, we have French botanist and modern green wall pioneer Patrick Blanc, whom I’m interviewing this afternoon in Chicago…
- Read our latest 
- Sandy Hingston of Philly Mag’s The Philly Post invites you to “Build A Green-Roof Birdhouse.” In Longwood Gardens, she took a birdhouse-making class with the most cutting-edge architectural design: a green roof. Longwood has been experimenting with bluebird houses in its fields for years hoping to attract more but with local summers heating up, eggs were reaching boiling points inside these birdhouses. Green roofs create a heat differential that aids airflow and reduces interior temperatures. The sedums used were specially grown at 
- Jeffrey Tomich of stltoday.com asks “Five Questions with green roofer 
- Coming Soon: Stayed tuned for our latest Sky Gardens – Greenroofs of the World episode, The Cook+Fox Architects Office in Manhattan, New York!
In reflection, we should be happy the conference agenda is so big – I’m sure 
I’m sorry I couldn’t attend Maureen’s panel session of Expert Discussion: Taking Green Roofs and Walls to the Next Level in British Columbia – A Pathway to the Future! because it conflicted with our Top 10 presentation session. It
Not content to leave things alone, upon leaving the Vancouver International Airport (YVR), I had to take a bunch of photos of the 17-meter high 
