The Vicenza, or San Bortolo, Hospital is part of the ‘Corporate Health Authority 6 Vicenza,’ and is the main hospital of the city of Vicenza, Italy. The greenroof project area is about 2500 square meters on a flat roof above the “IV lotto” building in the interior of the public facility. The Hospital gave the assignment to the famous Italian architect, Paolo Portoghesi, to design a little chapel – Portoghesi’s Chapel – over the roof. Nobody was thinking about the “surroundings” of the little church. I (Enrico Dall’Osto) was often there researching another project in the same group of buildings, relating to using color design in healthcare.

I proposed my design point of view for the whole roof area, and later they approved my project. I wanted to extend some common principles, using color design elements while also planning a green roof. My mission was try to have not only a nice, well designed formal green area, but also a space which could contribute to the healing process of patients. Around three sides of the greenroof there are higher buildings with windows looking down onto this otherwise barren roof.

The inside of building “IV lotto” houses important and delicate hospital functions including: Casualty Department, Emergency Units, Intensive Care, Radiology, Cardiac Surgery, etc. At its highest point the building is three stories high (about 9 meters), with ground plan dimensions of 45 x 100 m. The graphics show the red and yellow sections as the intensive greenroof areas with plants including Hypericum ‘Hidcote,’ Rosa austrariana, Spirea bumalda, and Berberis “Rose Glow.”

The extensive areas are shown in green on the drawings, planted with various types of sedums. The system substrate is German, made from Flordepot, and imported in Italy from ClimaGruen. The cost was 44,50 euro/m2.