A new bee discovered this year in a small park in London is making the news. The English name for the new species is the Viper’s Bugloss Mason Bee (Hoplitis adunca) after the species’ main food plant. As Viper’s Bugloss is common across the green roofs of London, we are wondering whether it is already using London’s green…
Paris, unnoticed, launched a new license scheme on 1st July 2016. Essentially, the new programme is a license for citizens to ‘vegetate as much as you want’. In short, with this new scheme, Paris is certainly leading the way in Europe and perhaps the world.
Whilst a good green roof designed for biodiversity will be attractive to many pollinators, providing nesting habitat is also an important consideration. Green roofs not only provide adequate forage for pollinators, but can also provide nesting for some species in the substrate. London has probably one of the largest bee hotels on a green roof in the world.
This new video is of a green roof barn in Essex. The two roofs design provides to meaningful habitat on the green roofs. Firstly there is a good green roof designed for dry grassland species and then a second water that retains more rain water. Thus creating an ephemeral wetland green roof.
Welcome to “Le Jardin sur le Toît” at Vignoles Gymnasium in the 20th arrondissement (District) of Paris. Amidst soft scents of moist earth and fresh herbs, buzzing bees and colourful flowers – people of the 20th arrondissement come to meet nestled in the Parisian skyline. The oasis in the sky is perched above the drone…
Rooftop farming has featured widely this last month when it comes to news. From Brussels to San Francisco via Paris a number of projects highlight the growing interest in urban farming on roofs. Staff are using green roofs to grow food all over the world. In London we are aware of several such roofs on corporate headquarters in the City.
Linz in Austria has been one of the leading green roof cities in Europe and the world. In addition to being one of the early starters at have incentives, It has one of the densest green roof areas in the world. This is from as yet unpublished data that livingroofs.org has produced for 20 well known green roof cities in the world.
8th September 2016 San Francisco has dominated the green roof news this week. However, below the radar of most English-speaking media is another news item from back in July. The first city in Argentina to require green roofs, Cordoba, launched its bylaw. Cordoba’s new green roof bylaw Argentina’s second city, Cordoba, announced a landmark ruling…
Sheds – whether for prams, bins or bikes – electricity sub-stations and other small buildings pepper the urban landscape, especially on housing estates. Though small, they add up to a pretty significant area of roof space in any given city. Greening these can create small pockets of habitat, and provide added visual amenity to green space for urban residents.…
The Swiss approach to delivering green roofs has been driven by a nature based approach. This was developed in 1990s and early 2000s. This innovative approach was developed, in the main, by Dr. Stephan Brenneisen. For example a study of bees, in London and Switzerland, showed that native pollinators are attracted to dry grasslands at roof level.…
The Northern Forest in cities should not just be about trees. In fact #gladesinthesky should be an important part of the urban forest concept. In other words, the urban forest needs green roofs too. The Northern Forest – green roofs From Hull to Liverpool, the proposed Northern Forest has a many an urban centre. Whilst…
Do blue roofs or a green roofs store water and reduce run off? A few weeks ago we ran our #greenroofpoll No 3. The blue-green roof theme. The twitpoll aimed to establish a snapshot of people’s understanding of the concept of blue roofs. In fact, most voting in the poll – supported on twitter by CIRIA and…
Green roofs heed to offer high flower abundance from spring through to autumn. Whilst sedum species are the ‘work horse’ of green roofs, they do have a limited flowering period. There is a need, therefore, to increase the wildflower diversity on green roofs. This is one of the key findings of new research in Vienna…
Green performance may well not mean green roofs are green all the time. And the results of our second green roof poll suggest that most respondents understand this. There is a misconception sometimes that a green roof has to be green all the time. Most landscapes in Northern climes are not permanently green. So why…