Tall Buildings, Green Roofs
New York is on top of many things regarding climate change vulnerabilities and potential adaptation strategies. But Chicago has us beat on the Green Roof thing. This is not to say that New York City’s efforts on the green roof front are intangible but City Hall and our tallest buildings do not have any such green spaces yet. In Chicago, they do.
Their City Hall got a 20,300 square foot green roof in 2001. It has 20,000 herbaceous plants installed as plugs of more than 150 varieties including 100 woody shrubs, 40 vines and 2 trees – a Cockspur Hawthorn and Prairie 
Crabapple. New to the green roof team in Chicago is the Sears Tower, which is now the Willis Tower, but Sears still gets the name rec.
For the full story, check out the Chicago Tribune. Costing about $200 million, the green roof is being designed on this landmark building–the tallest in the western hemisphere. But it happened to be designed at a time when energy efficiency was a non-existent term in the world of American architecture. And the green roof appears to be only one part of a massive efficiency face lift for the building. Now, how about that freedom tower…?
Comments (1)
Great! Its always good to hear when the big guys catch onto the green ideas. That is what it is going to take to get green roofs and solar panels to be the de facto standard is when all of the big companies do that as a matter of course. Then the home users will follow suit.
-Tyler