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Investments in urban green infrastructure is the solution to extreme weather events, writes Luigi Petito for Living Architecture Monitor. The good thing is that we have solutions to mitigate these extreme phenomena. One of these solutions is investment in urban green infrastructure. In cities we must and can restore the natural water cycle with existing technologies. We must renature densely populated areas with blue-green infrastructure on roofs, allowing water infiltration, rainwater harvesting, evapotranspiration, urban heat island effect mitigation and decentralised stormwater management. straight from the source Rotterdam, The Netherlands, June 3, 2018: close-up of some of the shops and the public park on top of them at Dakpark Rotterdam, The Netherlands, June 3, 2018: close-up of some of the shops and the public park on top of them at Dakpark
Green and blue infrastructure give an essential contribution to urban biodiversity, writes Luigi Petito in the Summer edition of Living Architecture Monitoring. On June 22, the European Commission proposed the first EU Nature Restoration Law in the form of unprecedented legally binding urban biodiversity targets. Such targets are intended to boost a systematic integration of vegetation into urban planning, including in public spaces, infrastructure, and in the design of buildings, in particular of their roofs and facades, and their surroundings.
Municipalities need to act as ‘moderators’ and involve the local community in urban planning, suggests WGIN board member Jure Šumi. This is the way to go to make our cities more sustainable and inclusive In his intervention, Jure stressed the need to bring nature near to every citizen across Europe for their health and wellbeing. To meet this goal, EU cities can rely on the implementation of green roofs and green walls as an easy and affordable solution bringing several other benefits: from biodiversity to stormwater management and climate adaptation.
We have already been talking about the real performance of green roofs, in terms of improved energy efficiency, better storm-water management, lower heat-island effects and more – because it’s all about achieving good environment performance. However, this time we look at the expectations of green roofs from the customer’s perspective. There are certain local aspects and requirements that contribute to the fine-tuning of green roof design. Let’s narrow these aspects down to 4 crucial elements: • climate conditions where the green roof will be set-up • type of building and type of roof where the green roof will be installed • the future purpose of the new green space being installed • local legal requirements We will not go into any theoretical debates here, but rather focus on two borderline case stories, where customer needs particularly determined the type of green roof construction, and where employing a traditional green roof simply doesn’t work. DUBAI, UAE Let’s first start with the climatic conditions that green roofs need to survive under extreme heat and humidity. And when talking about extreme, we’re talking about summer daytime temperatures that can easily exceed 50º C / 120º F. a roof on a four-storey building that connected two residential skyscrapers recreational space where residents could meet and relax There were a few main requirements on the investor’s side: The green roof needs to be lush, so that residents will see it as a real field of flowers and grasses The green roof should not be too heavy, as the area dedicated to installation of the green roof was a roof covering meeting rooms below The green roof can be irrigated, but should not require more irrigation water than what the Dubai code specifies for parks and gardens Initially, this seemed too much of a challenge to overcome. Knauf Insulation had to design a green roof no larger nor greater than 60 kg/m2 (12 lbs/ft), that would not consume more than 8 litres/m2 (0.3”) of water per day in the highest summer months, and would continue to look lush and green. Just look at what they were able to develop using only 6 cm (2.5”) of growing media, which weighed less than 50kg/m2 (10lbs/ft) fully saturated. A roof on a four-storey building that connected two residential skyscrapers recreational space where residents could meet and relax RIGA, LATVIA This other project was entirely different in terms of climate conditions. The project was executed in the Baltics – in Riga, Latvia – where winter temperatures can easily drop well below -20º C / -5º F. Like the Dubai case, the Riga green roof was built in a residential area. The roof between the residential buildings was meant to be a recreational space, where families could relax late in the afternoon and watch kids play in the rooftop-playground. The simplest green roof structure using grass over the entire roof would have been the cheapest alternative; however, this would actually require a lot of maintenance over the years to come, which would be a burden for future residents, so this idea was initially scrapped. The following requirements were drawn up for Knauf Insulation to follow: • The green roof needs to be fully vegetated on the day the first residents arrive • The green roof should remain nice, even in the colder winter months when not covered in snow • The green roof should require a minimum of maintenance, meaning low additional costs for the residents • The original design should make the roof thicker than the pathways made of concrete paving stones • The green roof must act as a storm-water management tool. The difficult part here was to provide sufficient storm-water management with a thin structure that would not exceed the height of the pavers. This cannot be done with regular green roof soil, so a structure that employed Urbanscape Growing Media, just 4 cm thick (1.8”) was used. This 4 cm thick structure could still hold the majority of the annual rainfall (more than 70%) that usually pours down on the roofs of Riga. Once built and ready, the entire place looked fantastic, and complied with all of the initial requirements. We all know that Urban Green Infrastructure is truly the industry of the future and in order to support faster growth, we need to respect the needs and wishes of our potential users. Sometimes this means that the need to look outside the box and beyond traditional ways of doing business.
Solar panels on a green roof with flowering sedum plants. ID: 1984038584 The European Solar Rooftops Initiative presents a unique opportunity to maximize the impact for cities and citizens promoting the combination of green infrastructure and solar installations on every rooftop and impervious surface where it is economically and technically feasible. The energy crisis, exacerbated by the tragic invasion of Ukraine, has shown how serious Europe’s energy dependence on Russia’s natural gas and oil is. European Governments and the international community are now working on short- and medium-term solutions to increase energy security. These include, among others, plans to diversify energy supplies, the very bad idea to reopen nuclear plants and return to coal, and the excellent idea to boost renewable energy sources. Investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy should have been our governments first political priority for energy security for decades. With the recent release of REPowerEU, a Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy, the European Commission recommends deploying 420 GW of solar capacity by 2030. As part of this effort, the Commission “will present in June a communication on solar energy with the aim of helping unlock solar energy’s potential as a major renewable energy source in the EU. Based on an analysis of the state of play of solar energy across the EU, the solar strategy will propose a European Solar Rooftops Initiative, which will identify barriers, propose measures to accelerate the roll-out and ensure that the public can fully reap the benefits of rooftop solar energy”. The European Solar Rooftops Initiative presents a unique opportunity to maximize the impact for cities and citizens promoting the combination of green infrastructure and solar installations on every rooftop and impervious surface where it is economically and technically feasible. Biosolar installations, which combine green roof and solar energy technologies together, would change our urban environment. Individual homes, building blocks and local energy communities would satisfy their energy needs with solar energy produced on site or nearby. Green roofs and other forms of vegetation would increase urban biodiversity. From an energy perspective, by reducing stormwater runoff and urban heat island effect, green roofs could also significantly decrease the energy required to treat rainwater and cool our cities while also increasing the production efficiency of rooftop solar installations by anywhere from 5 to 15 per cent. Green roofs also provide the ability to ballast racking systems for solar panels without any roofing penetrations. And because green roofs protect the underlying waterproofing, extending its life expectancy beyond 40 years, there is no need to remove solar panels and reroof in the future. Citizens would support biosolar installations. Property value would increase, home and cities would be more beautiful, more energy performant and healthier place to live in. And health and wellbeing in the difficult times of COVID pandemic are a top priority for individuals and communities. Read the full article Living Architecture Monitor (LAM) is a quarterly publication first published in 1998. It features in-depth interviews with leaders in the green building movement, opinions, research, and green roof and wall project profiles.
At EIMA, the international agricultural machinery exhibition in Bologna (Italy), the World Green Infrastructure Network presented proposals for new standards on green areas in rural, commercial and public building renovations and new construction. The association’s proposals revolve around the definition of new parameters for the renovation of commercial, rural and public buildings and for new residential constructions. These parameters should stimulate, through tax and financial incentives, a more rapid reduction in energy costs in the wake of the objectives set by the European Commission. In particular, according to WGIN, green areas should be integrated in new zero-emission buildings and combined with installations of renewable energy systems: a combination that increases energy efficiency by between 5 and 10%. In addition, as regards the renovation of public, commercial and rural buildings, the introduction of a minimum green area standard should become indispensable to improve environmental mitigation measures. “The time has come for Italy, with the support of other EU countries, to seriously promote a real European Green Deal for climate mitigation in urban areas,” said Riccardo Rigolli, agronomist and board member of WGIN. Read more
Boosting the uptake of green infrastructure through new EU rules on buildings’ energy performance can lead the way for decarbonised, healthier and more biodiverse buildings and cities, 36 organisations representing industry associations, companies, universities, think tanks and NGOs, wrote in an open letter to the European Commission. “The built environment is a core area of the Union’s decarbonisation efforts in the next ten years. We believe that green infrastructure, with the support of the right legislative framework, can play a key role both for climate mitigation and in supporting urban areas to adapt to a changing climate”, write the co-signatories. They underline that with urban population projected to further grow in most European regions, investing in the switch from grey to Blue-Green Infrastructure must be a priority to renature our cities, reduce their carbon footprint and improve the health and wellbeing of their residents. The 36 organisations call on the Commission to introduce in its proposal for the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) mandatory provisions for the integration of green infrastructure in new and renovated buildings. In particular, they recommend to: Systematically integrate green infrastructure in a new Zero Emission Building standard and require combination with solar renewables installations (bio-solar roofs) such as solar thermal and/or photovoltaic energy; Require commercial and public buildings, undertaking renovations, to install green roofs and walls in combination with solar renewables installations (bio-solar roofs) such as solar thermal and/or photovoltaic energy; Require Member States to provide incentives for large residential buildings occupying a land surface of 400m2, and more, and undertaking renovations to install green roofs in combination with solar renewables installations (bio-solar roofs) such as solar thermal and/or photovoltaic energy. European citizens will support these actions, as the recent lockdowns stressed the importance of access to nature and green spaces for people’s mental and physical health and general wellbeing, the letter states. With the right legislative framework, we can make nature and green areas accessible to all by installing vegetation on billions of square meters of roofs and impervious surfaces which would be otherwise unused. Read and download the full letter here Note to the editor: The European Commission is expected to present a proposal for the revision of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in December 2021.
Rotterdam, The Netherlands: section of the Dakakker. ID:1415339051 By interweaving green infrastructure with the built environment, we can tackle some of the effects of human-induced warming locally, writes Luigi Petito, Head of WGIN EU Chapter, in the Autumn edition of Living Architecture Monitor This summer’s extreme weather conditions battered most of Europe. In the North of the continent heavy precipitations devastated large part of Belgium and Germany. This had a dramatic human impact. In the South, wildfires ravaged large areas in Spain, Italy and Greece. Sadly, these events were not limited to Europe: extreme weather was a phenomenon witnessed by communities across the globe, showing that even some of the world’s richest countries remain unprepared for the intensifying consequences of climate change. The Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reminded us that unless significant reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades, the global temperature will increase above 1.5 °C and the consequences for the health of planet Earth and for humanity will be dire. Regrettably, many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible, especially changes to the ocean, ice sheets and the global sea levels. Others can be addressed with effective mitigation and adaptation actions. In cities for example, we can reverse the trends if we renature urban areas. By interweaving green infrastructure with the built environment, we can tackle some of the effects of human-induced warming locally. At the same time, we can limit further urbanization, which, according to the IPCC report, will increase the severity of heatwaves as well as mean and heavy precipitation and resulting runoff intensity. Read the full article here Living Architecture Monitor (LAM) is a quarterly publication first published in 1998. It features in-depth interviews with leaders in the green building movement, opinions, research, and green roof and wall project profiles.
Blue-green infrastructure are key to help adapt urban rainwater management to climate change, reports Tagesspiegel Background (Germany). In Germany and the EU, experts are calling for more commitment to adapting urban rainwater management to climate change. The focus is on new concepts such as a blue-green infrastructure and the networking of storage measures. Luigi Petito, Head of the European Chapter of the World Green Infrastructure Network, was asked by Tagesspiegel about the benefits of green infrastructure for urban water management and the latest policy developments at EU level. “A lot is happening right now, but there is still a lack of mandatory regulations for blue-green infrastructure in cities,” Petito said, pointing in particular at the upcoming revision of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD). “Germany has played a pioneering role in the implementation of blue-green implementation of blue-green pilot projects in cities, but also in the development of technical solutions”, he added. Such examples could serve as a model throughout Europe. Read the full article (German)
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