The East is not the West

[Chacal]

http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/y ... um=twitter

[Toripony]

Great idea; what a good use of idle time in this stressful, modern, hurry-up-and-wait world. It's good for the commuters and the environment, particularly urban environments which need more plant life to filter air, nourish beneficial fauna, reduce water runoff and the associated water pollution. Maybe this will catch on at airports for the increasing number of daily flyers. It doesn't all have to be a concrete jungle.

As far as east vs. west... the First Americans clear back to the Aztecs knew the human need for green space in the urban environment, it's just us "newcomers" who have in many cases lost the concept.

[philmoberg]

"Green rooftops" are an emerging trend/fad in urban design that began to show up in practice maybe half a decade ago. There have been some attempts to write this into local and national building codes as a requirement, and it is already in at least one recommended "sustainable building code" that I'm aware of. It's a nice approach in areas in which public parkland is extremely limited and suitable buildings exist with the structural capacity to support them. Apart form that, I'd say the usual arguments both for and against them are still very much debatable. The one concern I'd have with widespread implementation of this, off the top of my head, would go back to the Structures and Drainage classwork I did more years ago than I care to remember, that being the impact on storm sewer systems that depend on large volumes of runoff to be flushed out regularly. The notion of having to flush them periodically with city water resources would not appear to be sustainable - financially or otherwise - particularly where the city water infrastructure is old and/or the water supply is anywhere near being at capacity.

[Toripony]

...snip... storm sewer systems that depend on large volumes of runoff to be flushed out regularly. The notion of having to flush them periodically with city water resources would not appear to be sustainable - financially or otherwise - particularly where the city water infrastructure is old and/or the water supply is anywhere near being at capacity.

I never thought of that. My hope would be that over time as the practice became more widely used, storm drains could be smaller and require less water to flush them. Sounds like a 200 year initiative though. Perhaps mother nature will help flush them with heavier rainfall during storms due to climate changes, but that will require 25-50 more years of trending data to accurately predict and depend on. The garden shown here is very small in "plantscape" and would only slightly affect runoff... perhaps slow, controlled, long-term growth of the gardens is best.

I recently learned that moss can be beneficial to a well-sloped roof. It has no roots so it does not harm the roofing but instead protects it from the drying sun and harmful radiation that causes material breakdown. 20 year shingles can last 100 years under a layer of moss. It also regulates (not prevents) runoff to reduce downstream erosion.

Hmmm... am imagining a distant future where buildings look more like old Ireland instead of the Jetsons.... wow, what an unexpected concept.

Ok, I'll shut up now before I get scolded for being off-topic.

[buzz456]

Tory, you are safe in the jungle.

[mrbob19]

A friend of me lives near Tokyo and these kind of things are quiet normal over there. There are public parks on top of buildings over there... It might sound insane, but it's true.. There are also some great railfanning spots on top of those buildings (according to his words )


Cheers,
Bob