Green Roofs and You:
2014 Inspire Speaker Series, January Installment: A Lesson on Green Roofs with Colleen Butler, PhD.
When: Weds January 29th, 6:30 PM
Where: City Park Botanical Gardens Education Center
Cost: $15 Public, $10 USGBC Louisiana Members
1.5 Self Reported CEUs available for this presentation
Attendees do not need to have any prior knowledge of green roofs or green infrastructure.
Green roofs have rapidly become a popular design feature ingreen building. Famous green roofs are found atop Chicago City Hall,the ASLA headquarters in Washington D.C., and the CaliforniaAcademy of Sciences in San Francisco. Currently, there are only a fewgreen roofs in New Orleans. This talk will provide an overview of greenroofs and will start a dialogue about the potential role of green roofs inNew Orleans stormwater management.
The talk will begin with the basics of green roofs, includingdefinitions of extensive and intensive green roofs, benefits of greenroofs for both the building owner and the larger community, averagecosts of installation and maintenance, and design considerations. Wewill then go further in depth, discussing the process of designing,installing and maintaining a green roof. The speaker will discussrelevant policy initiatives at the local, state, and federal level. Finally,the speaker and the attendees will brainstorm ways in which greenroofs could play a role in New Orleans stormwater management.
Learning Objectives
• Attendees will gain a working knowledge of green roofs,including benefits, constraints, and general design.
• Attendees will learn about the potential for green roofs to play a role in stormwater management in New Orleans.
• Attendees will be able to calculate the maximum waterholding capacity of a green roof based on substratecomposition and depth.
• Attendees will be able to write and execute a maintenance planfor a green roof.
Colleen Butler is an ecologist and green roof expert. She received herPhD in Biology in 2011 from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Her dissertation focused on the ecology of green roof plantcommunities. While at Tufts, Dr. Butler was a founding member of theTufts Green Roof Collaborative. As part of the Tufts Green RoofCollaborative, she helped to design, install, and maintain the first greenroof on the Tufts campus. She has presented about her research atnational and international scientific and green roof conferences.