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RE: Living Roofs

I have been at a nature center in Schaumburg, IL that has a tall grass
prairie on the top of their visitor's center.  I think that was built
sometime between 1974 and 1983. I think they used concrete trusses like
the ones used in parking ramps for the roof. You may be able to get more
information on what plants work in that environment from the Spring
Valley Nature Sanctuary. Even if it didn't have a green roof it is still
be a pretty neat structure.  It has integrated passive solar heating
walls/tube barrels, integrated beehive with glass observation area, and
indoor habitat room complete with a pond.  There is an adjacent viewing
deck structure that was constructed like a silo.   

I attended one conference that had a session about green roofs.  In it
they talked a bit about where the original references for green roofs
came from.  A lot of early research was done in Germany - hence the
non-native vegetation to this area. And most of it was centered around
dealing with the problems of the urban architecture - heat reduction and
run-off containment being the two major categories.

Most of the species lists recommend dry species, but this is not
necessarily the case.  The design studies for these centered around high
rise buildings where wind-swept conditions were pretty much the way it
is.  If your roof is not that high in the landscape profile you should
be able to use just about any of the plants that occur on the ground.
Just take the example that Bob Wernerehl put out -
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/kinnaly1/images/aljohnson1.jpg That is
just grass. You just need to design the hydrologic profile that
accomodates the plants you want.


Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary
& Volkening Heritage Farm
1111 E Schaumburg Rd
(847) 985-2100
 
http://www.museumsusa.org/data/museums/IL/155445.htm
http://www.parkfun.com/dir/spv/environedu.html
http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Environment/html/RooftopGarden.html
http://www.cdfinc.com/Chicago%20City%20Hall.pdf


Hope that helps,
Patrick Daniels

-----Original Message-----
From: EM Robb [e*@mchsi.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 1:23 PM
To: prairie@hort.net
Subject: Re: Living Roofs


  We have been considering green roofs in the Des Moines area because of

the proposal to use this technology on the new DSM Public Library. In 
the course of researching them, I purchased a book by Theodore 
Osmundson, FASLA, who trained at Iowa State and went on to design roof 
gardens/green roofs in the SF Bay area, and elsewhere. His book contains

enough international technical information to get one started, and is 
nicely supplemented by some information on the web from  Linda Velasquez

at <http://www.greenroofs.com>. Linda came to DSM last Fall to hold a 
workshop on the topic which was very well attended. She is a recognized 
architect in the area.

You might also check out the Canadian website 
<http://www.peck.ca/grhcc/GRIM-Fall2002.pdf> for the Green Roof 
Infrastructure Monitor, from Canada.

There is, as usual, an explosion of information on the internet. You 
could also check out <http://www.communityresources.org/greenroof.html>
.

A quick google search with a fast connection turns up a lot of good 
stuff that I haven't seen before.

Many of the green roofs do not use the native plants, as I would prefer,

but rather  a mat of low-growing sedums and others. I should think that 
buffalo grass would be an excellent low-growing grass for this use, but 
whether the Iowa native grasses would handle it is something I have not 
seen considered.

Pasque flower strikes me as an intriguing possibility, as well. the roof

would be gorgeous in the spring.

Eileen

James Trager wrote:

>Interesting idea, Nikki. I've heard a little about the roofs of the 
>prairie settlers' sod huts. Rather leaky and buggy, those. Seems to me 
>a more modern version could avert those problems, but would be quite 
>heavy. I look forward to other contributions on the subject...
>
>James C. Trager
>Shaw Nature Reserve
>Gray Summit MO
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nikki Simmons [n*@mid-mo.net]
>Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 2:41 PM
>To: prairie@hort.net
>Subject: Living Roofs
>
>
>Hi all,
>
>Does anyone have any experience with living roofs?  I am building my 
>pottery studio this spring and am looking at doing a native planting on

>the rooftop. Would love to hear from anyone, especially if you can 
>point me to some resources book, people, or otherwise.
>
>Nikki Simmons
>Russellville, MO
>
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