“William Penn Charter School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was established in 1689 by William Penn as a day school and is the oldest Quaker school in the world. It is an independent school that enrolls boys and girls in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” (Wikipedia, see below).

The new Gold LEED-certified Performing Arts Building for the William Penn Charter School was originally designed for LEED Silver, but at the end of the project had received enough for Gold.

The Performing Arts Building for the William Penn Charter School has an extensive greenroof system with a depth of 2.5″ and a weight of 18-20lbs /sf. Weight restrictions dictated the shallow growing medium depth, and an irrigation system was essential. The team got the entire roof covered with all the components in one day in mid August, 2009, followed by three days for the irrigation system. The 17,000 plants were installed in late September, all in one day.

“The reason behind having to install all the components in one day is because the structural engineer had requested we load the structure before finishing welding the steel decking to the roof trusses because of the amount of deflection in the steel that the weight of the growing medium created. No cracked drywall when we were done,” explains David Plechner, see contact info below. The after photos here show the greenroof almost fully vegetated after only 10 months with no irrigation (the owner never turned it on!).