Green Roof

In one of my previous posts, I gave props to cities that are adding natural and artistic elements to their grey palettes. I didn't include the High Line in New York, which is only partially complete but already amazing. I am also not going to write about that today. But, some cities, as upon Chicago's City Hall, have encouraged the use of plants as roofing materials. Why? Many reasons -- insulation, cooling cities in the summer (plants photosynthesizing UV rays instead of the rays baking rooftops and adding to the urban heat island effect), rainwater utilization and flood prevention, keeping pollinators happy, keeping people happy, to name a few. It's all the rage these days in the sustainability world.

404 Washington Green Roof, San Francisco, 2010.

This is a green roof on a structure that was probably constructed in the late 1800s. Although people like me (ok, maybe just I alone) jest and say "Here at the the Presidio, we've been into the sustainability thing longer than anyone!", such is not really the case (Although we do have our own green building guidelines that precede the creation of LEED).The weeds on this roof are either just that: weeds on the roof of an abandoned building; or they were grown there to make the structure slightly less visible to bombers. I guess that is also a form of sustainability.

Another time I will talk about distractions, and how they dictate my days at times. I just went to do a tiny bit of research on when this structure would have been constructed. I noticed a misspelling on the NPS website; this led me to m-w.com to verify the error; m-w.com had a vocab quiz to take. The perfect match of my love for vocab and competition... it took me two tries, but I got 3660 points the second time. yesss...a worthy distraction.