Deep in the heart of Soho, the rare Black redstart (Pboenicurus ochruros) has been living it up with it's young on a  roof near Brewer Street.

LEND LEASE RAISES THE GREEN ROOF
AT THE EVENTS VENUE AT BLUEWATER

The Events Venue at Bluewater, the unique 5,200m² events and exhibition space that opens at Bluewater later this year, has created one of the largest green roofs in the UK, covering an area of over three square kilometres.

Created by urban ecologist, Dusty Gedge, of the Green Roof Consultancy, and Blackdown, specialists in green roofs with over 12 years’ experience.  The Events Venue at Bluewater’s green roof spans 3,120m², and took 620 hours to complete.

Nigel Dunnett's excellent New Wild Garden won a silver gilt at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year. We at Livingroofs would like to congratulate Nigel on this achievement and GreenRoofShelter's for their innovative new Home Office Shipping container. This was a central feature of the garden.

Livingroofs.org is again a proud supporter of the second Integrated Habitat Design Competition (IHDC). We hope that this becomes an established and influential competition as interest grows in the delivery of ecosystem services and green infrastructure. Green roofs are only one element of how urban areas can not only be designed but also retrofitted with green infrastructure such as rain gardens, green roofs, trees, pocket parks.

A new book is to be published by Timberpress - written by Nigel Dunnett, Dusty Gedge, John Little and Ed Snodgrass this we join a growing canon of books on the subject of green roofs. However this is one of the first to focus on the small scale and includes case studies of small scale projects from around the world, including UK and USA.

The University of Helsinki is looking for a student for a doctoral position to study and research green roofs. For details of the post and contact details see below:

A three year study of green roofs and biodiversity study between 2003 and 2006 has recently been published by Lambert Academic Publishing :

Green roofs and biodiversity - Can Green Roofs provide habitat for invertebrates in an urban environment?

by Dr. G. Kadas

In urban climes, where green space is already limited, green roofs may provide the ideal and in many cases the only habitat for species conservation. Could green roofs provide an opportunity to incorporate biodiversity within the built up environments? This study investigated the biodiversity potential of green roofs in urban environments. The main objective was to collect and quantify invertebrates on green roofs over a three-year study. By quantifying invertebrates it was possible to derive fundamental principles regarding the design of green roofs with the aim of maximizing their biodiversity value.

For livingroofs.org this is an important milestone. Much of the research, articles and work of livingroofs.org has run in tandem with the research undertaken by Dr. G. Kadas. In fact Dr. Kadas was one of the founding members of our organisation. A number of key green roofs in London were installed during the study, including Barclays HQ and the Komodo Dragon House.

Livingroofs.org contributor Gary Grant collected two awards at the Landscape Institute Awards 2010 recently.