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Green-Roof Leaders, Cutting-Edge Projects Recognized with Awards

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

More items for Building Envelope

An Olympic legacy and the world’s longest green roof were among the winning projects presented with Awards of Excellence in green roof and wall design, research, and policy at the recent CitiesAlive: 9th Annual Green Roof and Wall Conference in Philadelphia.

Leaders in the green roof and wall industry presented a total of eight design awards and two individual awards, the Civic Award and the Research Award. The awards honor individuals who have advanced the green roof and wall industry through their work, Green Roof for Healthy Cities (GRHC) announced.

GRHC held the conference in partnership with the City of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society.

2011 Design Awards

“Since 2003, the Awards of Excellence have defined the leading edge of innovation for living architecture,” said Jeffrey Bruce, GRHC chair. “The class of 2011 demonstrates the universal acceptance of green roofs and walls as an important green infrastructure tool in North America with dozens of multi-faceted, highly visible projects. With an exceptionally competitive program, this year’s winners should be proud of their accomplishments in challenging the boundaries of the industry.”

Green Wall Award
Project: Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Ariz.
Award Recipient: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc. (landscape architect)

Photos courtesy of Green Roof for Healthy Cities

In a quest to make the desert city of Phoenix more comfortable, sustainable and in harmony with its natural environment, this project created a habitat garden that thrives on the urban structure where it is located.

Green Roof—Intensive Industrial/Commercial
Project: Brooklyn Grange, New York, N.Y.
Award Recipient: Brooklyn Grange (owner and manager)

Combining a prolific rooftop farm, chicken coops and an apiary, the Brooklyn Grange is considered a pioneer of rooftop agriculture in the most urban of environments.

Green Roof—Extensive Institutional
Project: Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Ontario
Award Recipient: PLANT Architect Inc. and Perkins + Will Canada (architect/landscape architect)

This transformation of the roof of Toronto’s City Hall has resulted in a beautiful and accessible public park space that will serve as a mecca for city celebrations.

Green Roof—Extensive Residential
Project: Hood Canal (private residence), Quilcene, Wash.
Award Recipient: Hadj Design (green roof designer)

The green roof on this coastal residence serves as an example of a small-scale project with an even smaller development impact.

Green Roof—Intensive Institutional
Project: High Line, New York, N.Y.
Award Recipient: Kelco Construction Inc. (installer of green-roof system, vegetation and irrigation)

A public park built on a 1.45-mile-long elevated rail structure, this project has succeeded in integrating an industrial past with a vision of reclaimed nature. It is also the longest green roof in the world.

Green Roof—Intensive Residential
Project: Millennium Village, Vancouver, British Columbia
Award Recipient: Durante Kreuk Ltd. (landscape architect)

Built as the Athletes Village for the 2010 Winter Olympics, this project incorporates almost 200,000 square feet of green roof with rainwater harvesting, therapeutic considerations, and sophisticated landscaping.

Green Roof—Extensive Industrial/Commercial
Project: EcoCenter, San Francisco, Calif.
Award Recipient: Habitat Gardens (project manager, horticulturalist, designer)

Situated on San Francisco’s first 100% off-grid building, the EcoCenter’s green roof is seen as an excellent example of a project that uses a closed-loop water system and is perfectly integrated into its natural surroundings.

Green Roof—Special Recognition
Project: Central Avenue Constituent Services Center, Los Angeles, Calif.
Award Recipient: Paul Murdoch Architects (architect)

The green roof on the Central Avenue Constituent Services Center brings publicly accessible green space and excellent design to one of Los Angeles’ most concrete-heavy areas.

More information: 2011 Awards of Excellence.

Civic Award

Howard Neukrug, commissioner of the Philadelphia Water Department, was honored with GRHC’s civic award from.

Howard Neukrug

GRHC said Neukrug has been a “steadfast champion of green infrastructure and stormwater management principles for decades.”  He founded the “Office of Watersheds” within the department in 1999, an innovative and unprecedented approach for a major city utility.

The office runs a series of programs including the Green City, Clean Waters initiative, a 25-year plan with $2.4 billion in future expenditures. It has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and is expected to revolutionize urban stormwater management policy and programming across North America, GRHC said.

He also serves as chairman of the Clean Water America Alliance’s Urban Water Sustainability Council.

Research Award
 
Paulo Cesar Tabares-Velasco of the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., received GRHC’s research award. 

Paulo Cesar Tabares-Velasco

The organization called Tabares-Velasco “a rising star in the world of green roof research and more will definitely be heard from him in the near future.”

In the last four years, he has published four groundbreaking papers on heat transfer and green roofs. His first published paper received three awards from ASHRAE. The papers are helping to promote green-roof research to a larger green infrastructure market, the group said.

More information: www.greenroofs.org.