Green Roof

A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely

covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing
membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage
and irrigation systems. Container gardens on roofs, where plants are maintained in
pots, are not generally considered to be true green roofs, although this is debated.
Rooftop ponds are another form of green roofs which are used to treat greywater.

Green roofs serve several purposes for a building, such as absorbing rainwater,
providing insulation, creating a habitat for wildlife, increasing benevolence and
decreasing stress of the people around the roof by providing a more aesthetically
pleasing landscape, and helping to lower urban air temperatures and mitigate the
heat island effect.[1] They effectively utilize the natural functions of plants to filter
water and treat air in urban and suburban landscapes.[2] There are two types of
green roof: intensive roofs, which are thicker, with a minimum depth of 12.8 cm,
and can support a wider variety of plants but are heavier and require more
maintenance, and extensive roofs, which are shallow, ranging in depth from 2 cm
to 12.7 cm, lighter than intensive green roofs, and require minimal maintenance.[3]

Environmental Benefits:
Green roofs are used to:

 Reduce heating (by adding mass and thermal resistance value)

A 2005 study by Brad Bass of the University of Toronto showed that green roofs
can also reduce heat loss and energy consumption in winter conditions.[6]

 Reduce cooling (by evaporative cooling) loads on a building by fifty to

ninety percent,[7] especially if it is glassed in so as to act as a terrarium and
passive solar heat reservoir – a concentration of green roofs in an urban area
can even reduce the city's average temperatures during the summer
 Reduce storm water run-off[8] — see water-wise gardening

—A study presented at the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Conference in June
2004, cited by the EPA, found water runoff was reduced by over 75% during
rainstorms. See the PDF at [9] for more information.

 Natural Habitat Creation[10] — see urban wilderness

  Filter pollutants and carbon dioxide out of the air which helps lower disease
rates such as asthma[11]— see green wall
 Filter pollutants and heavy metals out of rainwater
 Help to insulate a building for sound; the soil helps to block lower
frequencies and the plants block higher frequencies[12]
 If installed correctly many living roofs can contribute to LEED points
 Increase agricultural space
 With green roofs, water is stored by the substrate and then taken up by the
plants from where it is returned to the atmosphere through transpiration and
evaporation.
 Green roofs not only retain rainwater, but also moderate the temperature of
the water and act as natural filters for any of the water that happens to run
off.

Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of green roofs is that the initial cost of installing a green
roof can be double that of a normal roof.[28] The additional mass of the soil
substrate and retained water places a large strain on the structural support of a
build. This makes it unlikely for intensive green roofs to become widely
implemented due to a lack of buildings that are able to support such a large amount
of added weight as well as the added cost of reinforcing buildings to be able to
support such weight.[29] Some types of green roofs do have more demanding
structural standards especially in seismic regions of the world. Some existing
buildings cannot be retrofitted with certain kinds of green roof because of the
weight load of the substrate and vegetation exceeds permitted static loading.
Depending on what kind of green roof it is, the maintenance costs could be higher,
but some types of green roof have little or no ongoing cost. Some kinds of green
roofs also place higher demands on the waterproofing system of the structure, both
because water is retained on the roof and due to the possibility of roots penetrating
the waterproof membrane. Another disadvantage is that the wildlife they attract
may include pest insects which could easily infiltrate a residential building through
open windows.

Info on the house:

Edgeland House is a modern take on the ‘pit house’, one of the oldest forms of
primitive dwellings which were often partially dug into the ground and then
covered with sloped roofs. While modern building techniques have permitted more
elaborate structural forms to be incorporated into Edgeland House, namely the
hollow channel which runs through the center, the building does stay true to the pit
house vernacular and reaps many of the rewards offered by the technique.
As the living spaces are built approximately 2 meters below ground level, the
surrounding earth serves to regulate the ambient temperature by absorbing and
mitigating the effects of the hot and cold periods of the Texan climate. The living
green roofs laid over both flanks of this divided dwelling also offer thermal
insulation and ensures that Edgeland House doesn’t occupy land that would
otherwise have been colonized by vegetation.
While most ‘eco’ dwellings take (sometimes token) measures to reduce the
negative effects of the building on the environment, Edgeland House is one of the
few structures that actively improves its surroundings. It is built on a brownfield
site on the borders of a former industrial area which was occupied by the oil and
gas industry for the storage of equipment. The land was also scarred by the hasty
removal of an underground Chevron pipeline and Edgeland House follows the
same path left by this fissure in the land.
After years of neglect, Bercy Chen Studio collaborated with the Lady Bird
Wildflower Center to reintroduce over 40 native species of wildflowers and grass
to the area (via the building’s green roof), in an attempt to recolonize and restore
the pre-existing ecosystems
The chosen site and the resulting futuristic dwelling couldn’t have been more
suited to the client, ‘a science fiction writer enthralled with 21st century human
habitation in the urban frontiers of abandoned industrial zones.’ Edgeland House
was designed by Bercy Chen Studio, an architectural practice who have designed
some unique (and often bold) houses that stay remarkably sympathetic to their
surroundings. If you want to see some of the initial concept sketches and diagrams
of the technology integrated into Edgeland House then check out this 2010 article
on design boom written before construction began.
Located on a rehabilitated brownfield site in Austin, TX, the Edgeland House is a
unique, triangular home designed by Bercy Chen Studio that is built into the earth
and covered with a thick layer of sod. Because it is an earth-sheltered home, the
Edgeland House is highly efficient, and it can stay warmer in the winter and cooler
in the summer from the added thermal mass and insulation. Additionally, the high-
tech home features hydronic heating and cooling, geothermal heat exchange, and
phase‐change thermal heat storage.
The form of the home itself is shaped like a scar, perhaps commenting on the site’s
industrial past, while the lush sod represents healing. According to the architects,
the home is a modern reinterpretation of the Native American pit house, which is
one of the oldest types of housing used in North America. Like a traditional pit
house, the Edgeland House is built below grade, and it takes advantage of the
earth’s thermal mass for more efficient heating and cooling

In order to build the house, the architects excavated 7 feet of soil from the site, and
they installed a lush green roof. The home also features a “smart pool,” which
provides additional thermal mass that ties into the geothermal heating and cooling
system. “The project raises awareness about a diminishing natural landscape and
its finite resources by creating a balance between the surrounding industrial zone
and the natural river residing on opposite side of the site,” according to a statement
from Bercy Chen Studio LP

On your approach, you probably wouldn't even know this house is a house. The
front rises out of the ground like the facade of a secret underground lab, but from
the back, it's a giant windowed beauty. It's called the Edgeland Residence, and it's
a re-interpretation of a Native American pit house.

A pit house is a dwelling that's sunken into the ground to take advantage of the
earth's natural insulation to keep temps cool in the summer and warm during the
winter. As far as the Edgeland House is concerned, the heating part isn't so much
of an issue. It's located in Austin, Texas, where in the summer, sweltering triple
digits are status quo. Thus the amazing pool on the back of the home, the giant airy
windows, and the grass-covered roof. It's probably a nice place to hide out from the
elements, and you can imagine that no one leaves the pool area come July.

Bercy updated the idea with a concrete foundation, a structural steel frame, and
glass walls that look toward a rift that divides the house into two parts. One side
contains the kitchen, dining, and living room spaces, while the other side contains
two bedrooms and a writer’s loft. Brown shares the space with his girlfriend,
Agustina Rodriguez, an architect and designer, and his 18-year-old son, Hugo
Nakashima-Brown.
Furnishings in the space are of two categories: “Stuff we had before we moved
here and white cabinetry from Ikea,” Brown says. He didn’t want any wood in the
house, as a matter of personal preference, but some did make its way inside in the
form of modern backless stools by local furniture builder Ryan Anderson. The
stools provide seating for a large, custom, bent-steel counter surface in the
kitchen.

There are also little treasures throughout the house—“Easter eggs,” Brown calls
them—found on the property or during walks in the woods out back: Heart-shaped
rocks, brightly colored feathers, a bird skeleton, turn-of-the-century glass medicine
bottles, and pieces of teacups can be found in the bathroom, in clay pots, or in
terrariums that Rodriguez made.

Not that anyone passing by would notice any of this. Few people even realize
there’s a house there at all: Tucked beneath a grassy roof covered by nearly 200
species of plants and grasses, the structure is virtually invisible from the nearby
street. In fact, the 1,400-square-foot house is so well hidden in the earth that it
doesn’t seem to register on the radar of local wildlife either.
A Jens Risom side chair centers the living room, which looks across the courtyard
to the bedroom pavilion.

Birds, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, hawks, snakes, lizards, and frogs all treat the
house like just another grassy knoll. This nature show is visible from nearly every
room in the house through the glass-and-steel walls that look toward the rift. “We
move between rooms and treat the natural environment around us as a very big part
of our home—as our living room,” Brown says. “The sensation when you sit in
here and look up is like Avatar—everything buzzing and flying.”

But covering the highly geometric roof with all that greenery was a big challenge
for Bercy, who had to incorporate anti-erosion mats in the design in order to hold
the soil in place and support the hundreds of plants, which are watered by a drip
irrigation system. “It was a way of healing the site’s industrial past,” says Bercy.
“The green roof became about restoring the prairie, which created this whole
ecosystem. So now the house is alive.”

The forward-thinking approach paid off in efficiency, too: Nine inches of soil work
wonders on reducing energy bills, especially when coupled with a radiant cooling
and heating system and an energy-exchange method that makes the house “60 to
70 percent more efficient than other houses in Austin, Texas, and even the USA,”
according to Bercy.

And, as a constant reminder of where everything began, those cliff swallows from
the nearby bridge arrive at dusk and dawn every day, flying in remarkable
“bombing patterns, eating all the flying bugs,” Brown says. The whole experience
has been eye-opening; he’s come to realize that “you don’t have to go to a park to
be in nature—it’s right here in the middle of the city, under the freeway, seen from
your living room; if you can learn to perceive it.”

The building is constructed from a structural steel frame, fitted with double-glazed
tinted low-E glass and topped by a green roof. Its angular juttings directly follow
the lay of the land. "The sloped site is in a light industrial zone bordering a
riverfront greenbelt in the east side of Austin used mostly by transients," Chen
says. "We discovered, along with the client, many ingenious makeshift tent
structures nearby, which might have influenced us subconsciously." The building's
concrete retaining walls, half-buried underground, are exposed and also serve as
interior walls. Exposed concrete is repeated for the floors and the ceiling panels are
painted sheetrock.
Edgeland House is the result of aesthetic, ecological and practical harmony
between architect and client. Driven by larger concerns for land stewardship in the
face of wasteful use of industrial land and loss of habitat for wildlife, it is
heartening to see Bercy Chen brave the challenges of building on a brownfield site
given that good greenfield sites remain in abundance. As Chen explains: "In the
US, there is such abundance of space that often sites grown through
suburbanisation and hundreds and thousands of acres of land are abandoned
because it is cheaper and politically expedient to develop greenfields instead of
brownfields."

The project also shows that you don't have to build on a wildlife reserve to get
close to nature, and that well-maintained brownfield sites can offer just as rich an
experience. "We wanted the house to enhance one's experience of nature. Some [of
these aids] were deliberate designs, and some were just happy accidents," Chen
says. "We were interested in a more intimate way of living, where one becomes
more aware of nature."

EBOOK:
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zlHMCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA411&lpg=PA411
&dq=edgeland+house+characteristics&source=bl&ots=ijoZ0C-
71E&sig=Y5MKPnQregW481fzf4mSgxZS5vs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEsQ6AEw
CmoVChMItu3h97L4xwIVEXOOCh0wlwic#v=onepage&q=edgeland%20house
%20characteristics&f=false

As you get close to the Edgeland House located in Austin, Texas, you might be
left wondering if there really is a home located on this green plot of land
surrounded by plenty of natural ventilation. Designed in a delightfully conspicuous
fashion by Bercy Chen Studio, the roof of this fascination underground home looks
like a couple of sloped grass banks and most people walking by might never even
realize that there is a large, spacious and stunning modern residence right next to
them.

Yet, a peek inside will amaze you with sleek and stylish design couple with
sustainable green architecture that borrows largely from the concept of the ‘Native
American Pit House’ and uses the landscape as a thermal regulator to keep the
home’s internal temperature always under control. Crafted out by excavating the
area, the Edgeland House uses the earth’s mass to maintain a moderate temperature
inside the residence, while the green roof also helps in natural insulation.
This means the underground home remains cool in summer and warm in winter
and obviously places less demand on artificial heating needs. The gorgeous and
expansive use of glass offers ample natural ventilation and the house is divided
into two main quarters to ensure that you get a bit of natural freshness as you walk
from the living enclosure to the sleeping dig.

A cool pool, elegant contemporary décor and interesting form combine to pretty
much present a look that reminds of the famous glass pyramid at Louvre!