Rooftop Hopping in Metro Atlanta
by Linda Velazquez | October 17, 2009 |
Last Friday October 9 I spent the entire day greenroof hopping in Atlanta with Landon Donoho, a student film director from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and his crew (Rachel, Logan, and Curt). A friend of our youngest son, Ari, as a senior Landon has to make a documentary for school and decided to do it on greenroofs in the Atlanta area – enter me for a little help! I gladly obliged since I know so many people here and he is such a nice young man. 
We started bright and early (way earlier than I would normally get up) at Atlanta City Hall at 8:00 a.m., where Landon interviewed Bill Brigham who has been intricately involved from day one with the Atlanta City Hall Pilot Green Roof, the first municipal greenroof in the southeast U.S. If you don’t know Bill yet, you should – he’s a transplant from Jersey and is really funny – in a good way! He kept us laughing with his continual banter and commentary, with blatant teal blue socks in view. When asked what his position with the City of Atlanta was, he explained that after 17 years his title was really much more of an epithet: Bill Brigham, ASLA, Principal Landscape Architect/Project Manager, Bureau of Watershed Protection, Department of Watershed Management, City of Atlanta.
Greg Harper, the local GreenGrid rep, was there and afterwards showed us a mirror image testing area also off the fifth floor where they’re monitoring plant survival on various GreenGrid modules. We had quite an entourage as our oldest son, Joey (the screenwriter and director), and our daughter Anjuli (passionate about film herself and an aspiring producer) joined us for a while, too, along with Saul Nurseries‘ Kathy Saul and Robin Andrews.
From City Hall we travelled a couple of minutes north to the Southface Energy Institute Eco Office and their Turner Foundation Green Roof, where Landon interviewed Bourke Reeve, a seemingly mild mannered MHP, LEED AP, Technical Associate Commercial Green Building Services kind of guy, but he turned out to be a real natural in front of the camera! The views of downtown were spectacular.
After a very quick lunch next we headed a few blocks north again, and with Greg as our tour leader and were able to see all three of the greenroofs located on the property of the Woodruff Arts Center, home of the High Museum, the Alliance Theatre, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, among other facilities.
Via the higher, normally non-publicly accessible roof of the #1 Woodruff Arts Center SCAD Dormitory, we could see across to #2 the Frances Bunzl Administration Center of the High Museum of Art, and down to the actual overstructure roof (over the huge parking garage) of the #3 Woodruff Arts Center itself with one of its sculptures in the garden below in view.
The view of midtown Atlanta was great, and from this vantage point we could even see the intensive greenroofs on 1010 Midtown, 1180 Peachtree, and Colony Square. Greg spoke about the Woodruff Arts’ commitment to sustainability and their efforts to green a multitude of buildings on the campus, and how the SCAD Dormitory was the second GreenGrid roof here after the Bunzl roof.
We then rode north up 400 and visited Northpark 400 and Northpark 500, the award-winning office towers and corporate campus. We spent most of our time filming on 500, which has great vantage views of the some of the Atlanta skyline and the northern suburbs. While they got great shots of the surroundings and some cool time lapse photography of the gorgeous, fast moving clouds, Landon tried to interview me amidst some very high winds, which didn’t prove too successful – so we returned on Sunday afternoon and re-shot some of that sequence under more peaceful skies.
Other greenroof sites were visited by Landon and crew over the weekend including the new Chattahoochee Nature Center and 901 Moreland Avenue, a single family residence, where they interviewed architect David Butler. We got really lucky with a pretty spectacular, drizzle-only weekend as we were sandwiched by continuous thunderstorms on either end. These storms accompanied by flash flooding have been wreaking havoc recently on a multitude of Georgia communities, and many are still feeling the effects of the “Flood of 2009.” It really drives home some of the potentially dangerous effects of stormwater gone wild.
Landon hopes to have a finished documentary in about five weeks, and I know he’ll make a great director, he’s really kind and patient and passionate about his craft – all qualities that should guarantee success in life.
Can’t wait to see it! ~ Linda V.
