"Green Roofs defines the types of green roofs both extensive and intensive; introduces the vocabulary of green roofs; details the components available; describes the design and development process; lists recommended plant materials; and explains methods of installation, irrigation, and maintenance. Approximately 70 vivid and detailed case histories of major projects in Europe, where green roofs began, and contemporary examples throughout North America, copiously and beautifully illustrated with almost 400 images, make this book an invaluable guide to the state of the art."--BOOK JACKET.

Until recently, most green rooftop gardens were little more than variations on sedum mats on four inches of soil. Now, designers are creating cutting-edge green roofs that focus not only on critical environmental issue like heat, storm management, and ecosystem development, but also on the aesthetics, offering beautiful, livable, sustainable landscapes. The Professional Design Guide to Green Roofs is a comprehensive exploration of rooftop garden design and the process behind it. It covers everything landscape architects and garden designers need to know to create a beautiful garden in the sky. With lush photography, international examples, and solid how-to information, this is an essential resource for all design professionals.

Basic principles : "Sustainability" in context -- Principle 1 : Keep healthy sites healthy -- Principle 2 : Heal injured soils and sites -- Principle 3 : Favor living, flexible materials -- Principle 4 : Respect the waters of life -- Principle 5 : Pave less -- Principle 6 : Consider origin and fate of materials -- Principle 7 : Know the costs of energy over time -- Principle 8 : Celebrate light, respect darkness -- Principle 9 : Quietly defend silence -- Principle 10 : Maintain to sustain -- Principle 11 : Demonstrate performance, learn from failure -- Sustaining principles, evolving efforts.

Green roofs are the great green hope of many environmentalists, politicians, and architects interested in more efficient and environmentally aware buildings. From a design standpoint, however, there is less consensus. While some see the roof garden as a visual statement using plants, geometric lines, and sculptural elements, others believe concerns for sustainability should outweigh visual appeal. A green roof that combines aesthetics and mechanics has become the goal of many a landscape architect. In Green Roof Gardens, author Christian Werthmann explains the history, methodology, and design process of green roof garden construction, providing a rich source of inspiration and technical knowledge in the process for anybody interested in this simple solution to many of the environmental challenges we face today.

Green Roof Systems goes beyond the fashionable green roof movement and provides solid information on building accessible space, often as important public space, over structure. It offers brief coverage of the entire process, including planning and collaboration, and focuses on the technical aspects of these roof systems, their components, and their applications.

Sustainable architecture is one of the most popular trends today. With dense urban living and less green space available, green walls and roofs are helping to fill that gap. These living structures can be created with vegetation, which helps to absorb rainwater, provide insulation and lower temperatures while creating a habitat for natural flora and fauna. Green Walls Green Roofs features projects from all over the world, showing how these elements work in various climates. Ranging from the tropical houses in Singapore to inner-city buildings in North America, this beautifully illustrated book will show you how living architecture can enrich our world. Gina Tsarounas has coordinated and authored a number of travel guides for Lonely Planet before joining Images Publishing as a senior editor. Her wealth of experience is demonstrated in the beautifully designed books now being produced. Comparable Titles: Vertical Ecoinfrastructure, 9781864703863, Images Publishing Group, August 2010 The Green House, 9781568989501, Princeton Architectural Press, May 2010

This book studies the application of green roofs in ecoregions of the western United States and Canada. While green roofs were intended to sustain local or regional vegetation, this volume describes how green roofs in their modern form are typically planted with a low-diversity mix of sedums from Europe or Asia. The authors demonstrate how in the western USA and Canada many green roofs have been designed with native plants and have been found to thrive. Part I of this book covers theory and an overview of ecoregions and their implications for green roofs. In Part II vegetation from prairies, deserts, montane meadows, coastal meadows, and scrub and sub-alpine habitats are explored on seventy-three ecoregional green roofs. Case studies explore design concepts, materials, watering and maintenance, wildlife, plant species, and lessons learned. Part III covers an overview of ecoregional green roofs and a future outlook. This book is aimed at professionals, designers, researchers, students and educators with an interest in green roofs and the preservation of biodiversity.

Until now, the green roof movement has been limited to large-scale, professional endeavors and public buildings. But homeowners everywhere are catching onto the benefits of a green roof—water conservation, energy savings, and storm water management. In Small Green Roofs authors Dunnett, Gedge, Little, and Snodgrass profile ordinary homeowners who scaled green roofs down to the domestic level. Small Green Roofs is the first book to focus on small-scale and domestic green roofs. More than forty profiles of small and domestic-scale projects of all shapes and sizes include green roofs on sheds, garden offices, studios, garages, houses, bicycle sheds, and other small structures, as well as several community projects. For each project, details are given for design, construction, and installation, as well as how-to tips on how the roof was planted and cared for. For readers looking for inspiration when hiring a contractor or taking the adventurous step of building their own, Small Green Roofs provides the knowledge and encouragement to make it possible.

This book provides an up-to-date coverage of green (vegetated) roof research, design, and management from an ecosystem perspective. It reviews, explains, and poses questions about monitoring, substrate, living components and the abiotic, biotic and cultural aspects connecting green roofs to the fields of community, landscape and urban ecology. The work contains examples of green roof venues that demonstrate the focus, level of detail, and techniques needed to understand the structure, function, and impact of these novel ecosystems. Representing a seminal compilation of research and technical knowledge about green roof ecology and how functional attributes can be enhanced, it delves to explore the next wave of evolution in green technology and defines potential paths for technological advancement and research.

Extensively illustrated with photographs and drawings, Living Architecture highlights the most exciting green roof and living wall projects in Australia and New Zealand within an international context. Cities around the world are becoming denser, with greater built form resulting in more hard surfaces and less green space, leaving little room for vegetation or habitat. One way of creating more natural environments within cities is to incorporate green roofs and walls in new buildings or to retrofit them in existing structures. This practice has long been established in Europe and elsewhere, and now Australia and New Zealand have begun to embrace it. The installation of green roofs and walls has many benefits, including the management of stormwater and improved water quality by retaining and filtering rainwater through the plants’ soil and root uptake zone; reducing the ‘urban heat island effect’ in cities; increasing real estate values around green roofs and reducing energy consumption within the interior space by shading, insulation and reducing noise level from outside; and providing biodiversity opportunities via a vertical link between the roof and the ground. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers, from students and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and ecology, through to members of the community interested in how they can more effectively use the rooftops and walls of their homes or workplaces to increase green open space in the urban environment.