The Barnes Foundation’s 93,000-square-foot building designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, conceived as a “gallery within a garden and a garden within a gallery,” is set within a four-and-a-half-acre site with landscape architecture by Olin Partnership. The building provides significant new facilities for the Foundation’s core programs in art education, as well as for temporary exhibitions and visitor amenities. At the same time, the legendary Barnes art collection is presented within a 12,000-square-foot gallery that preserves the scale, proportion and configuration of the original Merion gallery, as well as the founder’s conception of a visual interplay between art and nature.

On September 27, 2012 The Barnes Foundation?s new building was the first major art and education institution in the U.S. to achieve Platinum LEED from the USGBC.

The 13,000 sf green roof on the newly opened Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia is a compliance green roof intended to satisfy the Philadelphia Water Department?s stormwater management requirements. Established with pre-grown Sedum mats which were interplanted with perennials, the simple, extensive green roof is unusual because of its ability to support flowering plants in a thin un-irrigated assembly. Throughout the spring and summer Achillea, Talinum, Dianthus, and Phlox will provide a progression of color through the green carpet.

In addition to the vegetated roof, other green project elements include the site selection that focused on redevelopment and accessibility, significant energy use reduction, materials selection of rapidly renewable, local, and recycled content?including floors reclaimed from Coney Island?s boardwalk?and water efficiency measures both inside and outside the building. A design that will reduce potable water consumption by 44%, will work in concert with plants in the beautiful gardens surrounding the building which were chosen in part for their hardiness and drought-tolerance.

Designed by Roofmeadow and installed by G.R.A.S.S. the green roof lies on a roof which protects a priceless and historic art collection. The collection, relocated to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway from its original home in Lower Marion Township, is a destination for art lovers and tourists intent on seeing Dr. Albert Barnes‘ impeccable selection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings. A quality installation is of utmost importance to any client but even more so when the green roof sits on a roof that is protecting a priceless art collection.

Not just a stormwater management device, the green roof is in harmony with the striking minimal architecture designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Olin Partnership designed ?The Garden? for the gallery. EDA Contractors provided the waterproofing. Roofmeadow Certified green roof media was provided by SkyGarden.