Cool idea, and really does a lot more than just grow food and flowers.
Plant, mow and water the ... roof?; A new 'green' concept comes to Maine:
Using soil and plants atop buildings for environmental benefit
JOHN RICHARDSON Staff WriterPortland Press Herald (Maine)November 7, 2006
Copyright 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Maine rooftops are starting to sprout grass, trees and other plants, and nobody's complaining about poor maintenance.
In fact, said Carol Dayn, the principal at Portland's East End Community School, ''there's a lot to be said for it.''
The new elementary school has what may be the state's first ''green roof,'' a covering of soil and low-growing plants on a first-floor roof section just outside the second-floor window of the teachers' room. Another living roof, one that doubles as a small park with grass and trees, was just created on top of the parking garage at Back Bay Tower in Portland.
Portland's new elevated gardens, all on flat roofs, are the first signs here of a trend that has spread from Europe and Canada into American cities and college campuses.
While they definitely are a way to dress up an ugly roof, what's really driving the trend is less visible.
Green roofs absorb and filter stormwater much as fields and forests do, so less pollution washes into streams, rivers and the ocean. They clean and cool the air around the buildings. Some green roofs help insulate buildings and reduce power bills. They also protect and extend the life of the roof surface beneath them.
While the roof at the East End school no longer has the deep-green shades of summer or the spring blossoms, it's still doing its job, said Joe Hemes, an architect who designed the school for Steven Blatt Architects in Portland.
''This is the way roofs should be,'' Hemes said. ''It solves a lot of problems.''
