Rooftop As A Green Space

“..rooftop has been a space that, on the rare occasion, has been celebrated, it has largely been forgotten or ignored within the built environment. At its most architectural, it serves to crown the top of the building. At its most functional, it serves to protect us from the elements. It is probably little surprise that rooftop accommodation has tended to be the least desirable.” --James Pomeroy, Room at the Top, Futurarc.

Living area, dining area, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, balcony/terrace— the spaces we immediately think of when we are ask to identify usable spaces in our house. But, how about the rooftop? Could we consider the top of a roof as living space?

Roof ― the top most covering of a building; provides protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temperature and wind. Rooftop is the roof of a house or building including all its necessary construction material. It is as important as every parts of a structure, may it be in a house or a multi-storey building. For span of time, “the roof” is boxed on one simple function: a crown used as covering for protection. In our locality, rooftop as a space was given less attention, for some it is a waste space and for most buildings, a space where mechanical plant can be housed. But rooftop offers more than just a simple storage space, a left over space.

The rooftop as a green space is growing increasingly all over the globe. In Europe, the use of space on rooftops have been widely known since the Middle Ages. Sod roofs were an attribute of some houses in North America. Germany ventured into roof landscaping in the aft of oil crisis during early 70's to conserve energy. While in developed and highly urbanized cities, the used of land was intensified and sooner, scarcity of available land for development will become a major issue. Flat roofs of residential buildings and roof garden in office blocks is one of the possible options for the future.

Adapting such green practices in our neighbourhood is very helpful, especially today that people is starting feel the effect of global warming, complaining to have greener environment and bringing greener landscape to urbanized downtown area will do more since it will not occupy large area of land. Rooftop developments (roof gardens specifically) will break through the monofunctionality of a neighbourhood. Roof gardens benefits include reduced energy demand, attractive urban views and wildlife habitat.

Time passed, designs evolved, scarcity of land become a major issue, rooftop developments might be a possible solution to urban development without disintegrating the environment. Leah Damalerio