Living Roofs in Integrated Urban Water Systems

With the infrastructure to manage storm water threats in cities becoming increasingly expensive to build or repair, the design community needs to look at alternative approaches. Living roofs present an opportunity to compliment ground-level storm water control measures, contributing to a holistic, integrated urban water management system. This book offers tools to plan and design living roofs, in the context of effectively mitigating storm water. Quantitative tools for engineering calculations and qualitative discussion of potential influences and interactions of the design team and assembly elements are addressed.

1. Introduction, 1.1 Why Worry about Water? Water as a Driver for Living Roof Implementation, 1.2 Opportunities for living roofs, 1.3 Classifications, 1.4 Functional Components, 1.5 Three Fundamental Components, 1.6 Book Methodology, 2. The Role of Living Roofs in Holistic Stormwater Management Systems, 2.1 The Urban Water Balance in Municipal Regulations, 2.2 An Engineer’s Perspective on Quantitative Stormwater Design Objectives, 2.3 Technical Challenges Imposed by Municipal Stormwater Codes, 2.4 How a Living Roof "Works" to control stormwater runoff, 2.5 Stormwater Performance Expectations, 2.6 Evotranspiration, 2.7 Hydrologic Models, 2.8 Discussion, 3. Planning Considerations, 3.1 Planning Process, 3.2 The Step-by-Step Process for Planning, 3.3 Key Elements for Collaborative Planning, 3.4 Plants, 3.5 Stormwater Calculations, 4. Integrating Stormwater Performance and Architectural Design, 4.1 Growing Medium, 4.2 Water Retention Techniques, 4.3 Plant Selection, 4.4 General Planting Design Guidelines, 4.5 Drainage Layers, 4.6 Experiential Aspects, 4.7 Extent of Roof Greening, 4.8 Irrigation, 4.9 Accessibility, 4.10 Provision for Monitoring, 4.11 Design for Social Function without Compromising Stormwater Control, 5. Case Studies, 5.1 Introduction to Small and Large Scale Design Scenarios, 5.2 Case Studies, Conclusion, Glossary, List of Abbreviations

Daniel Roehr is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in Vancouver, Canada, a registered landscape architect in Vancouver and Berlin and a horticulturalist. Roehr has designed and researched living roofs for over twenty years with his most significant work being the ground-breaking water sensitive living roof design of the DaimlerChrysler project Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany. Elizabeth Fassman-Beck is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. She has worked extensively with regulatory agencies to develop evidence-based technical and practical design criteria for stormwater control measures. Her former research team in Auckland, New Zealand developed the first living roof design guidance prioritizing stormwater management.

With the infrastructure to manage storm water threats in cities becoming increasingly expensive to build or repair, the design community needs to look at alternative approaches. Living roofs present an opportunity to compliment ground-level storm water control measures, contributing to a holistic, integrated urban water management system. This book offers tools to plan and design living roofs, in the context of effectively mitigating storm water. Quantitative tools for engineering calculations and qualitative discussion of potential influences and interactions of the design team and assembly elements are addressed.