Amazing but true: the price of solar panels after dropping at about 6% per year for a decade, the price of solar panels is now dropping at 20% per year. If this continues for 5 years solar power is going to be cheaper than coal power. But the cost of electricity transmission is not falling […]
This blog has often discussed green roofs and green roof typologies but they always need more consideration: Green roofs c3500BC Turf was the standard roofing material in Neolithic North Europe. You can still see this roofing technique in Norway and Iceland Roof garden c1000BC The most famous elevated garden in history, the Hanging Gardens of […]
Jorn Utzon called green roofs ‘the fifth façade’ and there are many ways in which the public can interact with the new landscapes evolving on roofs in our cities. Green roofs can be public space, private space or ecological space. Fly-over roof (photo courtesy Eyesplash Photography) The Vancouver Convention Centre is a great example of a green roof that is […]
Seeing Green over new ground cover proposal for Parliament House One way of promoting green roofs and investigating the question of their accessibility is to look at some of the excellent examples which now exist. Parliament House, Canberra is probably one of the world’s earliest and most successful green roofs. The Parliament House building was […]
Thank you to Allen & Overy for opening their offices under the Open House scheme – and congratulations to them for having an office with genuinely green credentials. Roof space is used for solar panels, roof gardens or wildlife habitats (brown roofs). As the office brochure remarks ‘One of the best features of Bishops Square […]
In Germany, vegetated green roofs are often classified as: intensive (ie treated as a garden, typically with exotic plants, irrigation, turf and social use) extensive (ie treated as habitat, without irrigation or maintenance) I prefer to look at green roofs from a more Vitruvian standpoint and consider their roles as: visual space [Delight] ecological space [Firmness] […]
