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Rooftop Gardens |
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- Rooftop gardens are gardens on the roofs of buildings.
- Green roofs can help address the lack of green space in many urban areas.
- Urban greening has long been promoted as an easy and effective strategy for beautifying the built environment and increasing investment opportunity.
- In addition to possibly doubling the life of the roof, green roofs provide additional benefits including: stormwater retention, improving air quality - plants filter the air -and they help to decrease the urban heat island effect.
- A rooftop garden mitigates the urban heat island effect by replacing what often is a black tar roof with green plants. Rooftop gardens absorb less heat from the sun than tar roofs, keeping buildings cooler in summer and requiring less energy for air conditioning. Green roofs can provide an energy savings of between 10-15%.
- Rooftop habitats can also be designed to mimic endangered ecosystems/habitats and thereby connect natural isolated habitat pockets with each other.
- Research has proven that people living in high-density developments are less susceptible to illness if they have a balcony or terrace garden. This is partly due to the additional oxygen, air filtration and humidity control supplied by plants but also from the therapeutic benefits that result from caring for plants. The variety of sounds, smells, colors and movement provided by plants, although not quantifiable, can add significantly to human health and well being.
Click here to check out the High Line Project, another creative use of urban space.
Chicago
The City of Chicago leads the nation in installing green roofs.
In the center of downtown Chicago lies an oasis of green.
In 2000, Mayor Richard Daley had a green roof installed. Consisting mostly of prairie plants native to the Chicago area, the garden includes 20,000 plants of more than 100 species, including shrubs, vines and two trees. When the roof was installed, it was an oddity. Today in Chicago more than 200 green roofs have been constructed or are under way - the most in any American city.
Now other cities, hoping to cool and clean their air and help with storm drainage, are beginning to emulate Chicago. . .
"You look down on the prime real estate areas of this country - downtown Chicago, Manhattan - and so much is unutilized, all these rooftops," says Sadhu Johnston, Chicago's environment commissioner.
In Chicago green rooftops sit atop the Apple store, a Target, and a McDonald's. Even Chicago's Wal-Mart will soon have one - the company's first.
The idea is simple: bring back some of the organic material displaced by buildings, streets, and parking lots. Advocates tout benefits that range from reducing the urban "heat island" effect - which makes cities several degrees warmer than surrounding areas and can translate into millions of dollars in energy costs - to lengthening the life span of a roof, providing community garden or recreation space, and contributing to a building's energy efficiency.