The National Great Rivers Research and Education
Center serves as both a museum and a scientific research facility for
individuals interested in how the ecosystem functions at the confluence of the
Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers.
Guided by its Quaker values, the prestigious Sidwell Friends School is committed to practicing responsible environmental stewardship. Sidwell’s Middle School Building is the first K-12 school in the United States to earn a LEED Platinum rating and the first-ever LEED Platinum building constructed in Washington, D.C.
Vegetative and photovoltaic (PV) systems have yet to dominate Kansas’ roofing landscape, and that’s just fine with the owners of Diamond Roofing in Manhattan and Dodge City, Kan.
The green movement has taken over our way of thinking. From hybrid cars traveling the streets to reusable shopping bags being offered in grocery stores, we find these green initiatives everywhere we go.
Completed in the spring of 2008, the cool and green roof demonstration/research project of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based architecture and design firm A3C took place atop its UrbEn Retreat. The project was implemented with the assistance of Firestone Building Products and in collaboration with Prof. Moji Nawab of the University of Michigan’s Sustainable Design Research Lab.
As green building strategies evolve to keep up with increasingly stringent building energy codes and standards, so do cool roofs. A roof, as any other building component, can be selected to best serve a particular purpose, such as weather resistance or thermal regulation. Cool roofs are optimally designed to minimize the transfer of heat from the sun to the interior of a building.
Sustainability and green design are the largest emerging trends driving change in the roofing industry today. Frequently you will find the terms used separately or synonymously, indicating confusion in true meaning.
Garden roofs are a scenic application that is swiftly gaining popularity globally for commercial buildings in metropolitan areas. They are found on convention centers, college campuses, airports and medical facilities, just to name a few.
Designing and choosing a sustainable roofing system is not a new idea to architects. Garden roofing systems give architects another avenue of design while providing building owners the best of all worlds - beauty, innovation and energy efficiency.
