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Each week you can expect to learn What’s New here on Greenroofs.com through our “This Week in Review” video. Here is the transcript from April 27, 2012 from our daughter, Anjuli – click on the photo below to see the video, or here. Enjoy!
– Hello, I’m Anjuli Velázquez and welcome to “This Week in Review” for April 27, 2012 on GreenroofsTV.
– Our project of the week is the Nathan Phillips Square Toronto City Hall Podium Green Roof built in 2009 in Toronto, Canada. The public square surrounding Toronto City Hall was designed with the original architectural structure in mind. The landscaped gardens, courtyards, terraces, furniture and walkways provide unique views of downtown from this urban oasis in the heart of the city. This 3,400 square meter green roof is the largest in Toronto and the recipient of a 2011 Canadian Society of Landscaped Architects Regional Honour Award, a 2011 Design Exchange Award Silver Award for Landscape Architecture – Public, and the 2011 Green Roofs for Healthy Cities 2011 Award of Excellence in the Extensive Institutional Category.
The green roof consists of three formal conditions: a sedum mosaic, a paved courtyard that frames the curved chamber and a deck café that occupies the prow. The perimeter garden is treated as a field in purple, pink, yellow/orange and green sedums. This ground cover is planted in a pre-vegetated tray system with shade tolerant species concentrated in the shadows of the City Hall’s towers. The Nathan Phillips Square green roof was constructed with the LiveRoof hybrid modular green roof system. It contains a combination of 6 inch deep and 4 inch deep LiveRoof Standard Modules; and the project was grown at the LiveRoof Ontario nursery during the summer of 2009, and installation started on September 1st, 2009.
– To learn more about the Nathan Phillips Square Toronto City Hall Podium Green Roof, click on our project of the week photo on our homepage (or on the above photos).
– Speaking of the Nathan Phillips Square Toronto City Hall Podium Green Roof, congratulations to our 2012 “Love the Earth, Plant a Roof!” Earth Day Photo Contest winner, Patrick Biller! Patrick submitted the Toronto City Hall entry and we featured that project as our Project of the Week this week, in honor of Earth Day and his submission. He’ll also be receiving $100 for his entry. Congrats!
– The Greenroofs.com eNewsletter
– Look for our April 2012 eNewsletter in your inbox or our homepage. If you’re not subscribed, you can click on the mail icon by our social media links on our homepage, enter your e-mail address and you’ll get our monthly eNewsletter to let you know what’s been going on that month here at Greenroofs.com!
– Read Ed Snodgrass’ “A Green Roof Day in New York“ (with The Martha Stewart Show) Blog post.
– Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2011 Video
– Watch our Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2011 Episode 20: “The Current Situation and Future of Green Roofs in China” by Wang Xianmin.
And find the rest of the videos in this series on our GreenroofsTV page and/or our greenroofsTV YouTube channel.
– LiveRoof ® Hybrid Green Roof System Selected for Chattanooga City Council Project.
– Joblinks
– Compost Supply is now hiring a Green Sales Hero in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
– Evergreen Environments is looking for a Green Roof Specialist in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
– Illinois EPA Interim Director John Kim announced the award of nearly $5 million in Green Infrastructure Grants designed to reduce the amount of pollution running into Illinois waterways from stormwater sources. Applicants applied for grant awards in three categories: Combined Sewer Overflow Rehabilitation; Stormwater Retention and Infiltration; and Green Infrastructure Small Projects. The $5 million in grants will result jobs for installation of green structures by construction workers and the trades, as well as to create work for professional engineers and public works staff designing Best Management Practices and developing and submitting permits, and construction oversight.
– In their recent report, Banking on Green, American Rivers explained the many benefits of using green roofs and other techniques like rain gardens and green streets to save money, reduce energy use and flooding, and keep people healthy and water clean. Now, working with Goodby Silverstein & Partners they’ve just released Get More Green – an interactive tool that lets you virtually “green” a roof in your own community to find out how much money you’ll save in heating and cooling costs as well as how much dirty water you’ll keep out of your local river!
– The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) has selected the top ten examples of sustainable architecture and green design solutions that protect and enhance the environment.
The projects will be honored at the AIA 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition in Washington, D.C. 2012 Top Ten Award Winners with Green Roofs include the Mercy Corps Global Headquarters in Portland, Oregon, the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the University of Minnesota Duluth – Bagley Classroom Building in Duluth, Minnesota.
– Over at Sky Gardens, check out Linda’s latest posts: “Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summit 2011 Episode 20: The Current Situation and Future of Green Roofs in China,” “Happy Earth Day! The Winner of the 2012 “˜Love the Earth, Plant a Roof!’ Earth Day Photo Contest is…,” and “Greenroofs.com’s “˜This Week in Review’ on GreenroofsTV: April 20, 2012.”
– “Upcoming Events“
– April 27th-28th: is Green Living Roofs, a Green Living Technologies International Professional Installer training module at the State University of New York (SUNY) Ulster, in New York, NY.
– April 30th: is the 3rd Annual Massachusetts Sustainable Economy Conference, in Boston, MA.
– April 30th-May 25th: is the WBK International Green Roof Course, ZHAW in Waedenswil (Campus Gruental) with excursions to various regions of Switzerland.
– May 2nd: is the “Making Engineered Green Roof Systems Work For Any Application” Seminar by Architek, The VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre, in Vancouver, Canada.
– May 2nd-3rd: is BuildingsNY/GreenBuildingsNY, in New York, NY.
– And May 2nd-4th: is Living Future – Women Reshaping the World, in Portland, Oregon.
– “In the News“
– Kaid Benfield of the NRDC Switchboard Blog, talks about “Toronto’s leadership for green roofs.” Since January 2010, Toronto has been paving the way for North American cities with their requirements of having green roofs on new commercial, institutional, and multifamily residential developments across the city; and next week, the requirements will include new industrial development as well.
Toronto’s municipal bylaw indicates that smaller residential and commercial buildings are exempt but the larger the building, the larger the green roof must be. The largest buildings are required to have 60% of their available roof space to be vegetated. For industrial buildings, the bylaw will require that 10% of available roof space be covered, unless the building uses cool roofing materials on 100% of the roof space and has stormwater retention to catch at least 50% of the annual rainfall. Last fall, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities announced that Toronto’s green roof requirements had already resulted in more than 1.2 million square feet of new green space in the city.
– Lorena Galliot of the State of the Planet Blog, says “There’s no one-size-fits-all green roof, studies show.” Researchers are looking at how the types of vegetation used in greenroofs affects their functioning. Sedum is a popular choice for green roofs because of their hardiness, shallow root systems and low maintenance requirements. Two new studies are showing that grasses or taller shrubs may actually be more effective than sedums at reducing stormwater runoff. It all depends on where in the world you are, there is no one-size-fits-all greenroof.
An author of the UK study, Nigel Dunnett, said that previous research on the efficiency of greenroofs had focused on their design and structural components, not on the types of plants used. He also said, “There is a tendency in the green roof world to imply that all greenroofs are the same, and deliver benefits in the same way,” but that “vegetation choices can, to some extent, also influence green roof performance.” Co-author of the Italian study, Sergio Andri, agreed and stressed that rooftop vegetation should reflect local growing conditions, and imitate natural ecosystems. Local grasses can be an effective and a low-maintenance way of covering a greenroof.
– To learn more about these stories and new ones posted daily, go to our In the News or Newslinks section of our website.
– Send us your green articles, videos and images to editor@greenroofs.com and share your greenroof or greenwall info with the world!
– Make sure to keep up with everything Greenroofs.com by following us on Twitter, liking us on Facebook, being a member of our network on LinkedIn, and subscribing to our greenroofsTV channel on YouTube!
– This has been This Week in Review for April 27, 2012 on GreenroofsTV. I’m Anjuli Velázquez and I’ll see you next week!
*This week’s episode is sponsored by The Greenroof Directory, brought to you by Greenroofs.com.*
Did we miss something? We’d love to hear from you!
~ Linda V.
