7 of The Best Books for Understanding Green Roofs

Article by Moreira Filho – We take a look at 10 of the best books for understanding green roofs, one of the hottest topics in the world of landscape architecture.  Designing a Green Roof System may be a big challenge for many professionals. For some it can work like a difficult level montage in their minds. For these reasons, landscape architects, researchers and writers have developed and written about methods to help professionals in developing projects and executing Green Roof Systems, and have made them available in books. These systems have lots of phases, and the professional must become inspired and understand all the steps required in their construction, unifying design with implementation. We selected some of these books with different sorts of subjects related to Green Roof Systems, containing examples and useful information to help your work. (Click on any of the titles or images for more details about getting the book)

10 Books for Understanding Green Roofs

1. Green Roof Ecosystems – Ecological Studies – 2015th Edition, by Richard K. Sutton

With 447 pages, this book provides each detail of how we can succeed in our designs, explaining step-by-step what you must know. It details and reviews relevant points such as cultural, biotic, and abiotic aspects of how to connect green roofs to their surroundings and neighborhoods. Further, there are lots of schemes we must know about substrates, fixing plants, and an understanding of structure, function, and impacts. The book is illustrative, practical, and useful. The editor is a professor in the Department of Agriculture and Agronomy at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He is focused on ornamental horticulture, landscape ecology, and the design program in Landscape Architecture.

2. Green Roof Plants: A Resource and Planting Guide. Hardcover – Illustrated, September 1, 2006, by Edmund Snodgrass

Full of images and cultural information, we can find in its 220 pages a concise and easy-to-use guide about plants that we can use in green roof projects. It’s useful not only for landscape architects, engineers and environmentalists, but also for general gardeners and people interested in a good quality of life. Most of the species are fairly common all over the world and easy to find, but not all of them, unfortunately. Anyway, it describes more than 200 species with important information about heat tolerance, hardiness, bloom color, seeds, height, moisture needs and foliage characteristics. The author, Edmund Snodgrass, is an experienced professional who speaks and lectures about green roof systems and plants around the world.

3. Small Green Roofs: Low-Tech Options for Greener Living. Paperback – April 27, 2011 . By Nigel Dunnett, Dusty Gedge, Edmund C. Snodgrass and John Little.

It’s probably the first book in English that focuses on small-scale green roofs. For those who think it is impossible to create a green roof in a small space, here is research that totally proves the contrary in 256 pages. The authors bring this concept to the domestic level, since that roof is a very small one. This book stresses the ideas of water conservation, energy savings and flood management, stimulating everyone to have a green garden roof wherever is possible, even in a small area. It doesn’t have so many details about step-by-step construction although it’s possible to find installation instructions within it, but it carries lots of good examples of how to do things and of course, a bunch of inspirational images. The authors have a huge amount of experience and graduate degrees in landscape architecture, design and horticulture, as they are professionals in those areas. 4. Green Roofs: A Guide to their Design and Installation. Paperback – April 1, 2012 by Angela Youngman Energy-efficient buildings are the main subject presented in this book. It takes small- and large-scale available green roof projects, from the conception of the design, passing through installation and maintenance. What does make it different? It introduces problems that can be encountered in each step, advises about vegetation and how to deal with it and offers descriptions about projects all over the world. This is not a do-it-yourself book. It is a study about the process of each phase in a project of a Green Roof System.

5. Green Roof Construction – Essential guide. By Landscape Architects Network and Zinco

This is an essential and complete guide about Green Roof System construction. It covers all the themes we can find in all the books and what we need to know about this futuristic use of a roof, but with a difference aspect: it focuses on the use of technology; roof and vegetation tech. Another interesting aspect is a chapter describing the diversified systems of technology like Floraset®, for example, which guarantees less maintenance and thermic conditions to vegetation once it lets them get in touch with a necessary quantity of water only. Remember all Landscape Architects Network VIP subscribers get to download the Green Roof Construction eBook for FREE. Sign up HERE!

6. Living Architecture: Green Roofs and Walls, by Christine Goodwin and Graeme Hopkins

The Australian landscape architect Graeme Hopkins and the artist and architect Christine Goodwin divided the book into comprehensive chapters that explore green roof and wall system constructions. They study international cases and contexts bringing them to Australian local cases, showing explained illustrations of the landscapes, gardens and projects. It has 300 pages, published by CSIRO Publishing.

7. Green Walls Green Roofs: Designing Sustainable Architecture, by Gina Tsarounas The focus now is how to incorporate a sustainable architecture into a green roof or green wall system. This book has technical comments about the advantages and disadvantages those green systems can provide. It presents projects from Singapore to North America, for the understanding of the readers about how professionals around the world deal with green roofs and walls systems. It was written by Gina Tsarounas in 224 pages and was published by Images Publishing Dist Ac in September, 2014.

Keep on Studying

A good way to become the best professional in landscape architecture is by being in touch with new technologies and making a continual study scheme. Now you have a little support to encourage you in that crazy and cool idea of design and implementation of a green roof falling over a green wall. How are you dealing with your landscape architecture studies? How much do you know about Green Roof Construction? Tell us what books you are consulting while you are working or studying about this subject. Article by Moreira Filho

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