The Muse is home and office for Bere Architects and is one of London's exemplar green roofs. The combination of intensive, semi-intensive and extensive green roofs on one building shows how amenity, enjoyment and biodiversity can be designed into one building providing as wide a range of environmental and ecosystem service benefits.
The Muse - Bere Architects from dustygedge on Vimeo.
The Muse - Bere Architects from dustygedge on Vimeo.
The building is also an exemplar as it combines both Solar thermal and photovoltaic panels with green roofs . All too often developers and designers consider solar power and green roofs incompatible. This is not the case and the arrays at The Muse show how the green roof can increase the efficiency of the PVs and the panels can actually help the wildflowers, herbs and other plants to flourish.
The roof is also home to beehive. Although there are many examples of beehives on roofs there are very few that are actually on green roofs. As urban areas are awash with roofs that could converted to green roofs this means that if habitat for bees is provided, the green roof can help increase honey production.
The roofs are part of a passivhaus building designed by Justin Bere. The roofs were designed by Kim Wilkie and Dusty Gedge, of the green roof consultancy , and were installed in 2008. They consists of four different levels. The upper level consists of the solar and photovoltaic panels with a dry extensive green roof. A mixture of native herbs and sedums were sown into a substarte provide by Shire Minerals southern.
The level is an extensive green roof with a deeper layer of substrate - about 150mm (6"). Both seeded and planted with native wildlfowers. The seeds were provided by Emorsgate seeds and the native plugs by from British Wildflowers the roof is now home to beehive. The Honey bees actively collect nectar and honey from both the roof and the surrounding gardens, trees and parkland. The roof has also been planted with a range of bulbs that flower in the spring giving an early nectar source to native bumblebees.
The garden level is a Hazel grove underplanted with a variety of woodland plants including Solomon's seal and wood spurge. Several birds have nested in and around the grove in nest boxes or nests that they birds have built - Great tits, blackbirds and wren have all raised young on the roof.
The last green roof sits above a small studio flat and acts as a screen, bocking out the back of the buildings at the n end of the Muse. This has been planted with a number of Hawthorn trees ad underplanted wtih Foxgloves and is home to the birdfeeder.
In 2012 the roof is being monitored by the University of East London for invertebrate biodiversity. This is part of a continuing project on biodiversity and green roofs that started in London in 2002.
