Blog Posts By Category: Green Roofs

What is Growing at the O'Hare Airport?

Next time you fly into Chicago O’Hare be sure to look out the window. And when you do, instead of seeing a span of gray and white rooftops you will see an amazing array of greens, browns, and oranges covering over 230,000 square feet of rooftops (with an additional 126,000 square feet in the works).

The O’Hare and Midway Airport encourages the installation of vegetated roofs in an effort to reduce the urban heat island effect, conserve energy, and reduce stormwater runoff and noise.  Today, 12 green roofs can be seen from the air with sizes ranging from small roofs of 917 square feet to the largest roof to date of 174,442 square feet located on the ORD FedEx Main Sort Building. 

The FedEx green roof is approximately the same size as 3 football fields, is the second largest contiguous vegetated roof at any airport in the world (behind Frankfort Germany) and is and the largest vegetated roof on a free standing building in the greater Chicago area. In addition, the FedEx Main Sort Building is LEED gold-certified.

To learn more about O’Hare’s green roofs and other sustainability projects, download their 2011 Sustainability Report.
 

To learn more about the FedEx green roof, check out a news story from earlier this year from Chicago News 7.
 

Rooftop Playgrounds Inspire Play

We love that we have the opportunity to create amazing rooftop spaces that are not only beautiful but are also good for the environment and even better, good for us. That’s why when we learn about new projects like the Rooftop Playground and Park in Copenhagen’s Nørrebro district we have to share it with you. It is projects like this that truly inspire us.

This project was designed by Danish Company Julien de Smedt (JDS) Architects to provide a space for children play away from the crowded courtyards and parks in Nørrebro. It and features a playground with a shock-absorbing surface, a wooden deck and suspension bridge, and a giant roof terrace that includes rolling hills and curved steps. It is a great example of how innovation and design come together to create beautiful and functional spaces.

Check out the pictures on the JDS website.

Reactions to Sharp Hospital's Green Roof

While the cooler temperatures will keep most of the sedums dormant for a few more months, we are happy to hear about some of the positive reactions from Sharp Memorial Hospital patients already. Boy oh boy are they going to LOVE spring, when the plants begin to grow taller and thicker, and really start showing their true colors!

Yesterday's interview with KUSI's Mike Castellucci was a blast. We joined him early in the morning on the rooftop where he interviewed our own Jim Mumford, as well as the project Landscape Architect, Glen Schmidt, and Sharp Memorial's Cindy Murphy. We'll make sure to post links as they are uploaded to the KUSI website.

In the meantime, here's a clip from NBC 7/39 with Glen, the designer of this beautiful new view for the patients.

Sharp's Green Roof: COMPLETE!

Sharp Memorial Hospital is now the owner of a beautiful (and completed!) green roof! Our real pictures aren't in quite yet, but we thought we'd share some images from our fancy camera phones. (See below!)

And here's a link to Sharp Hospital's website, where they recently posted information on their new addition.

More pictures to come soon!

Completion is Near!

As plant people, we love rain. But as contractors doing exterior work, we're developing quite the love/hate relationship!

Regardless of the setbacks, we are nearing home base on the Sharp Memorial Green Roof project. The sedum tiles have been laid, the majority of our plugs have been planted, and we've begun assembling our planters and trellises. We'll spend the rest of this and next week finishing the planters, finalizing the lighting, adding cobble and capping the frame.

Onwards and upwards!!!

Sharp Progress - Foam Filler

To support the framework that make up the bars/measures of Beethoven's famous tune above the contours of the roof, we brought in special foam for help. Next big step? Growing media!

Sharp Hospital Green Roof Progress

Working on the Sharp Memorial Hospital's green roof has been quite the adventure! From mobilizing almost immediately after being awarded the contract and handling the pressures of an extremely tight deadline, to operating a high-reach lift in between the hospital's main entrance and the ER entrance - we've got our work cut out for us! Luckily, it's been a great deal of fun as well, from working with the staff at Sharp, to constructing a beautiful Schmidt Design Group creation, we're looking forward to completing a project that research has shown will help improve the experience of the post-op patients that will see the greenery out of their windows.

We do a great deal of presentations and the media has helped spread the message about the many benefits our products and projects offer, but the visual tools are hard to beat. In fact, we know how much people like to see, feel and touch the vegetation on a green roof and wall - so we're having a second Open House this year, to give you another chance to check out what we've got ..... more details on the Open House will be posted shortly. In the meantime, enjoy some of our progress shots from Sharp!
 

One of the project renderings....

A shot of our roof just prior to beginning construction (see our lift below).

The framework for the bars/measures of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

Another Satisfied Customer!

The second installment of Jim's article series in Interiorscape Magazine will highlight one of our favorite green roof projects, ArtHaus. See ArtHaus' Prez, Rich Williams' blog posting here - glad you're loving it Rich!