Beautiful and Edible Green Roof

Although this blog is dedicated to green roofs, I couldn't resist this piece about a green rooftop garden in Los Angeles called SynthE, on a building known as The Flat, which, by the way, is home to the famous restaurant, Blue Velvet.

Inhabitat.com reports in a story titled: "SYNTHe: An Urban Rooftop Garden Prototype in Los Angeles," by Haily Zaki, about this new green roof. $20 Off AeroGardens

The roof was designed by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) professor Alexis Rochas. As one can see from the pictures, there are furrows which are filled with edible plants such as herbs, lettuces, etc.

Inhabitat explains that the garden will be maintained and enjoyed by both the residential tenets as well as the chefs and patrons of Blue Velvet. Additionally, the waste products from the garden and produce will be composted and returned to the garden.

Rochas's plan was to use the space to reduce the heating and cooling costs of structure, as well as better management of the storm water runoff this building produces. Instead of using regular soil, the garden uses a synthetic growing medium, which I assume is much like Suntory's Pafcal. FREE SHIPPING on orders over $50.00 at InhabitLiving.com

Here is another of picture of the roof without the plants. It is quite a sight and I hope it encourages Los Angeles property owners and developers to consider a green roof in the future.

Not Just Any Green Roof

What interesting times we live in! I read an article in "The Economic Times," an Indian newspaper, titled "Green Roofs differ in Capacity to Cool Interiors." It discusses the green roof studies going on a the University of Texas.

At UT, there is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center that is hosting how different types of roofs impact temperature inside structures. In particular, they have built several identical steel structures and put different kinds of roofs on them and are measuring the temperatures and water retention.

Studies are clearly indicating that green roofs definitely reduce internal temperatures. From the article:

"During one 91-degree day, ... a black topped box without air conditioning reached 129º inside. Meanwhile, the green roof replicas produced indoor temperatures of 97 to 100 degrees F. "That's a huge difference to have a 20-or-so degree temperature drop," Simmons said, noting that green roofs' ... are also believed to double the lifespan of roofing material. "

However, in places like India and Texas, where flash flooding and storm water runoff are serious issues, different green roof materials perform better than others. Again, from the article, "Yet this feature varied the most among the six manufacturers. The better green roofs retained all of the water during a half-an-inch rainfall, and just under half the water when two inches of rain fell. "

Let's hope that the studies at UT, combined with the innovation in synthetic soil by Suntory, will spread the acceptance and use of green roofs world wide, as their ability to reduce air pollution and storm water runoff make a real difference!

Suntory Creates Synthetic Soil

Suntory, the Japanese company better known for whiskey and other beverages, issued a press release announcing it had created a way to grow green roofs and green walls without soil.

From the press release: "Suntory brings its unique roof-greening system, Midori no Yane (literally, green roof), and wall-greening system, Hana no Kabe (literally, wall of flowers) onto market on March 3, 2008. "

The synthetic soil, known as Pafcal, is made from urethane and is far lighter than organic soil. Wisegeek.com notes: "It looks much like regular soil, and can be used for a variety of planting products. The material is meant to help meet new Tokyo building regulations, which insist that any new building over a certain size limit must have a roof garden to offset carbon dioxide production. "

Let's raise our glasses to Suntory for creating a lighter weight material for growing and promoting green roofs.