After a long 16 months, the first episode of our WebTV series Sky Gardens ~ Greenroofs of the World will be up and ready to see on Sunday, November 8, 2009.  You can watch Episode 1: Rock Mill Park on the Greenroofs.TV Channel on Greenroofs.com and YouTube.   Download our Press Release here.

The Sky Gardens ~ Greenroofs of the World video series grew naturally out of my previous column “Sky Gardens ~Travels in Landscape Architecture” which ran from June, 2003 through April, 2006 here on Greenroofs.com.  With that column I was combining my various fields of expertise, and the description read:

“What do you get when you cross a landscape in the sky with an ecological designer, greenroof website publisher, and an international flight attendant?  Why, a column entitled “Sky Gardens ~ Travels in Landscape Architecture” of course!  Welcome to the ramblings of my unique bird’s eye perspective of the world, as I continue to visit new cities and noteworthy landscape architecture projects ~ both at ground and greenroof level.”

My hectic schedule proved too much for such an indepth column, and it evolved into this Sky Gardens ~ where cool green meets lofty blue Blog.  But I still wanted to pursue the thought of examining greenroof projects in-depth: the who, where, what, why and how’s of the entire planning and design process.  Our oldest son, Joey, is a screenwriter with film experience and so with the help of his film production company, Red Hand Productions, last year I decided to channel this vision into a more visual medium – video.

We selected one of my own designs here in Alpharetta for the first episode, and it’s been a true labor of love.  I’ve been involved with the Rock Mill Park project since 1999 when I interned as a student of landscape architecture with the City of Alpharetta.  I was thrilled when my design for “Celebrating Ecological Design in a Native Landscape” became a reality with construction of The Greenroof Pavilion and Trial Gardens of Rock Mill Park in 2007.  So many talented and generous people contributed to this endeavor, and being able to film and share this project built on such an environmentally sensitive and culturally important former Cherokee-owned site was an honor for me.  See 2008’s Love the Earth: Plant a Roof! and What I Did on My Summer Vacation… for a little more background info.

I think you’ll enjoy our first episode, where we interviewed many people involved in the project and filmed on site at Rock Mill Park; Alpharetta City Hall at Mayor Arthur Lechtas’ office; the City of Alpharetta Engineering/Public Works Department; the historic Log Cabin at the former site of Milton High School; Saul Nurseries “Swamp” location; and the former Cherokee capital, New Echota in Calhoun, GA, now a Historic Site.

We’ve had some trials and tribulations along the way, but that just makes it more special now that it’s done!  On November 8 you can see Episode 1: Rock Mill Park in four 10-minute installments on our home page and the Greenroofs.TV page on our website, where they will be added to the Greenroofs.com playlist on the greenroofstv channel on YouTube, found at http://www.youtube.com/greenroofstv.  All four videos will be lined up in order for easy viewing.

Look for our second Sky Gardens ~ Greenroofs of the World episode which highlights the gorgeous Cook+Fox Architects LLP corporate headquarters in Manhattan, NY, and details some of the greening initiatives that New York City is spearheading, coming soon to GreenroofsTV!

~ Linda V.

In celebration of greening the Earth through organic architecture, Greenroofs.com founder and publisher/editor Linda Velazquez enters the blogosphere and kicks off Sky Gardens ~ where cool green meets lofty blue, a blog about greenroofs, the living roofs community, and awesome sustainable design in general.

“Cool green?” Cool green architecture, cool green people, cool green environments, etc.
“Lofty blue?” As in sky high spaces, places, ideals, and ideas ~ you get the picture.

Hello Greenroof World,

Part informal commentary, discovery, reflection, imagination, and – if we’re lucky – sometimes even inspiration, with the Sky Gardens Blog we’ll be talking about the experiential nature of space, eco-aesthetics, eco-style and eco-responsibility, or maybe just share a rant or two about something going on in the greenroof world.  And how about eco-responsibility in terms of spiritual sustainability?  True spirituality is about respect.  Here’s a new favorite quote of mine:

“If we unbalance Nature, human kind will suffer. Furthermore, we must consider future generations: a clean environment is a human right like any other. It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy as, if not healthier than we found it.” -His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Beliefnet Buddhist Wisdom, 2008, From “The Pocket Dalai Lama,” edited by Mary Craig, 2002)

It’s our individual social responsibility to pursue an environmentally friendly and energy-conscious ecology, and healthy environmental design is one way for all of us to collectively tread lighter on the shared resources that is our Earth.  And greenroofs, sky gardens, and green walls are fast becoming green staples of chic sustainability in mainstream architecture and high performance building.

A little background history: The first incarnation of Greenroofs.com inaugurated in 1999, the current format in May 2003, and my Sky Gardens ~ Travels in Landscape Architecture column promptly followed a month later in June 2003.  The rigor and research of first a monthly column, then a bi-monthly quickly turned into the “occassional” column for me!  We welcomed our first contributing editor, Ed Snodgrass (AKA “Ask Ed”) in August 2004 and over the years have added seven more contributing editors, all of whom now write their own occassional columns as time permits.  And so the lure of the Sky Gardens Blog was conceived.

Sky Gardens ~ where cool green meets lofty blue comes on the heels of the enormous interest in greenroofs and our contributors, who are some of the industry’s leading professionals in their respective fields – and who can now blog away without the grind of a full article (but still look for their in-depth columns, too)!  Not to mention it allows us a quicker and more interactive opportunity for sharing fascinating roofscapes, thought provoking dialogue, and just engaging in good old social networking.

We’ll explore vibrant old & new projects through our real and virtual travels across the globe – and we are a globetrotting bunch!   We’ll also throw in all the cool new innovative stuff we stumble upon everyday from news media, our own practices & businesses, and readers like you.   Look for posts about and interviews with people near and far – those who design inviting spaces with living architecture, contribute important research, develop new technologies, and influence the marketplace – plus those green thinkers or trendsetters who open new doors in one way or another.

Learn more about all of us on the Blog Team here.  To wrap up my inaugural Sky Gardens Blog post, our ultimate goal is just like Greenroofs.com’s overall mission, but with a personal twist: to share news, project info, and experiences that are relevant and fun, while continuing to promote the earth friendly technology of organic greenroof architecture!

You can always visit Forums to talk amongst yourselves, and you’re now invited to celebrate Earth with us here for regular, and sometimes irregular, commentary and musings on the poetry that is our world of green and blue.  As always, we welcome your ideas and comments and the infinite promise of stoking two-way dialogue.  Enjoy!

Happy Greening & Safe Travels ~

Linda S. Velazquez
Greenroofs.com Publisher & Editor
Sky Gardens Design Principal