The average annual rainfall in the Wellington region is 1270mm – with 850mm falling in the city centre. With an estimated 1,000,000 square metres of rooftop surface in the C.B.D 850,000,000 litres of water is siphoned away from the city contributing at times to wastewater overflow problems at the Moa Point Wastewater Treatment plant. Wellington [...]
Having just returned from a visit from Christchurch I’m excited to see the Christchurch City Council have recently launched their draft city plan to help guide the rebuild after the earthquakes. The garden city as it is known will hopefully become the elevated garden city with promising signs that green architecture will be an important [...]
The Wellington City Council recently reported on the 2040 strategy – a project to develop a vision for the central city. Along with bio-swales (plant based filtration of stormwater), pocket parks and tree planting the council recognised the need to promote green walls and green roofs. More information here: http://www.wellington2040.co.nz/ http://www.wellington.govt.nz/projects/new/wellington2040.html
The work of Friedensreich Hundertwasser continues to provide joy around the globe. Hundertwasser was an important advocate for green building technology integrating roof gardens and ‘tree tenants’ into his building designs. In New Zealand the Hundertwasser designed green roofed toilet block at Kawakawa draws tens of thousands of tourists every year. 50km south of Kawakawa a [...]
With roof gardens/living roofs/green roofs in their relative infancy here in New Zealand it helps to look abroad for direction in their uptake. Two years ago Toronto passed a by-law to make it mandatory for all new building constructions to have a certain percentage of green roof. Starting with residential and now moving onto industrial [...]
With consideration to the rebuild of Christchurch and public support for ‘elevating the garden city’ to the rooftops, I thought this study quite poignant. “Research into tuned liquid dampers revealed potential for the green roof to act in a similar fashion due to the drainage layer being able to store free water which would flow in [...]
Thanks to my friend Sean for emailing this link. This is an incredible home on the waters edge somewhere in Singapore. It’s also a fantastic example of what you can do with sloped roofs. Habitat Roofs has access to the technology and materials in order to build a green roof upto 45%. There is a [...]