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See Skyhigh House project photos from SYMBIOS Eco-tecture. Read the winning Green Roofs for Healthy Cities 2013 Awards of Excellence profile for the Small-Scale Residential category. Learn about SYMBIOS Eco-tecture in The Greenroof & Greenwall Directory.

The Skyhigh Residence is built on a steep hillside that affords the inhabitants beautiful views of the surrounding wild lands and distant mountains. The main living spaces of the house are located on the upper floor of the residence. The second floor balcony and interior dining room are directly adjacent to the green roof. The green roof provides a direct connection to biological life; and the landscape of the roof has a design aesthetic that reflects a naturalistic and artistic expression.

The owners can access the outdoors via a wrap-around balcony that adjoins and overlooks the green roof of the lower levels of the house. In order to maximize the effect of a ‘garden in the sky,’ the green roof was developed to look much like a ground-based landscape.

To accentuate this point, the roof was designed with a dry creek drainage channel with lightweight large stones and boulders. The drainage channel was conceived to be an aesthetic element, but it also doubles as a maintenance path and eliminates the need for perimeter ballast strips. Also, the green roof covers a wing of the residence that contains several bedrooms, so it provides substantial building thermal performance benefits.

The green roof is irrigated using rainwater harvested from the upper metal roofs of the residence. An old pool on the property was converted into a 20,000 gallon cistern that stores water during the winter months and supports the roof garden during the dry summer months.

A bio-diverse plant palette with a mix of perennials, succulents and natives was chosen for their benefit to local pollinators. Over twenty plant species were integrated and their bloom times were staggered so pollinators can forage throughout the year. A multi-year maintenance contact is in effect to keep the roof in tip-top shape, and looking beautiful for years to come.

“The living roof serves as a biological bridge between the built environment and restoring lost habitat to birds, bees, pollinators, frogs and so much more.” – Kerrie Lee Cole, GRP, SYMBIOS

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