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