Articles
Upheaval and Innovation: The Legacy of Toronto’s Green Roof By-Law and the Threatened Green Standards
Learn how Toronto’s award-winning Green Roof By-Law and the Toronto Green Standard shaped resilient, climate-positive cities, improved air quality, supported pollinators, and provided energy savings, and why their loss could impact Toronto’s future livability
The Biophilic Amazon Spheres Project in Seattle
Explore the innovative interior greening and biophilic design of the Amazon Spheres in Seattle. This article highlights cutting-edge green walls, plant conservatory design, sustainable horticulture practices, and living architecture that redefines the modern workplace.
Substrate Innovations for Growing Green Roof Plants
Green roof substrates are the foundation of successful living roofs, yet they are often misunderstood. This article explores how evolving guidelines, industry-led innovations, and ongoing research are reshaping green roof growing media, revealing why substrate choice is critical to plant performance, long-term durability, and the future expansion of green roofs in diverse urban climates.
New Trends in the Green Roof Industry: Four Innovations for the Future
Learn why engineered green roof soil is essential for long-term performance and plant health on rooftops. This article explores lightweight, durable green roof growing media, flexible soil systems for diverse applications, deeper soil solutions for amenity-focused roofs, and science-backed product development that meets industry standards and evolving design goals.
Award Winning Vertical Greenery in Graz, Austria
Discover how UNIQA’s award-winning green façade in Graz transforms a 1980s office building into a vibrant vertical ecosystem. This case study explores the project’s modular living wall design, innovative planting and irrigation systems, environmental benefits, and its role as a scalable model for urban green infrastructure retrofits across Europe.
Inside the Innovations Transforming Green Roof and Green Wall Design
What are the most transformative innovations shaping green roofs and green walls today? Leading industry experts share insights on performance-based design, smart irrigation, advanced leak detection, substrate innovation, wind uplift standards, and tech-enabled green walls.
Monitoring Green Roof Membranes
Discover how leak detection systems protect green roofs and the waterproof membranes beneath them. This article explores common construction-related membrane risks, explains passive and automated leak detection technologies, and demonstrates through a real-world case study how early detection reduces repair costs, minimizes disruption, and safeguards the long-term performance of green roof systems.
Sky-High Sustainability: The Long-Term Success of Toronto’s Green Roofs
Toronto’s green roofs improve in plant health over time, with roof size, building height, and vegetation type driving long-term success. Insights from NDVI remote sensing guide sustainable, resilient urban green infrastructure planning.
Exploring Fruiting Crops in Rooftop Agrivoltaics in a Changing World
This article explores the potential of growing fruiting crops beneath solar panels on green roofs, examining opportunities, challenges, and the role this innovative system could play in resilient urban food and energy systems.
Preliminary Assessment of Saffron Production in Different Growing Systems in Kentucky, USA
This research explores saffron’s potential as a high-value, sustainable crop for Kentucky by comparing multiple growing systems and biofungicide treatments. By examining how different environments influence yield and plant health, the study offers new insights into optimizing saffron production and expanding its viability in regional agriculture.
What Blackwood’s Skyfarm at POST HTX is Teaching us About Urban Agriculture
This article explores the farm’s regenerative vision, hands-on education programs, real-world research, and the lessons it offers architects, and planners who wish to reimagine how food systems can be integrated into the built environment.
Understanding the Global Decline in Nature Connectedness
This article explores how disconnection is passed from one generation to the next, why wealthier nations often feel furthest from nature, and what we can learn from cultures where human-nature relationships remain strong.
GRHC 2025 in Review: Milestones, Training, and CitiesAlive 2026 in New York
Explore Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ 2025 achievements and plans for 2026, including professional training milestones, Grey to Green conferences across North America, new industry resources, and a preview of CitiesAlive 2026 in Brooklyn, New York.
Green Roofs, Your Health and The Challenge of Managing Plastics
An overview of the health and environmental impacts of rapidly increasing plastic production and the current legislative, technical and individual efforts to address it.
How the Health Sector Can Benefit from Embracing the Power of Nature
Explore how hospitals can embrace biophilic design and nature-based solutions to improve patient recovery, staff well-being, and community health.
UC Berkeley’s Enormous Green Walls at the New Helen Diller Anchor House
The Helen Diller Anchor House living walls and rooftop farm exemplify biophilic design and provide students with restorative experiences whereby they can flourish at Berkeley University.
Podcast | Exploring the Healing Power of Nature with Clare Cooper Marcus
This episode features the powerful impact the natural world can have on our physical and mental wellbeing, and how design can affect and influence how we live, work, play, and grow.
Are Green Walls and Potted Plants Good for Improving Indoor Air Quality? Yes, and No!
A review of the misinformation and science on green walls and air quality.
Planting Rooftop “Tree Places”
When nature is absent from the environments we live, work, and play, we suffer. However, intensive green roofs like rooftop gardens can bring the healing benefits of nature into urban environments. This article explores how to make “tree places’ on rooftop gardens.
Nature as Medicine: A Living Wall at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
How designers at MD Anderson in Texas use biophilic design and incorporate green infrastructure for better patient outcomes, including patients in the ICU.