Private Sleepout

Location:

Makarau, North Auckland, New Zealand

Client:

Renée Davies, Unitec 

Landscape Architect & Living Roof Design:

Renée Davies

Roof Contractor:

Self-build 

Living Roof Type:

extensive, plywood roof

Development Type:

Residential sleep-out

Living Roof Brief:

The main purpose for this living roof was to create an attractive roof to a sleepout (guest bedroom) building, as it is directly visible from the second storey of the house. Also, it was needed to improve the insulation of the building. Biodiversity was also a component, as it is directly adjacent to an area of native bush/forest, so we wanted to provide a vegetative link both visually and biologically. One of the key drivers in creating the living roof was to trial a particular living roof product and to have a project which highlighted how easy it is in a New Zealand context to create a living roof in a residential setting.

Living Roof Design:

Substrate consisted of 20% expanded clay balls, 20% pumice fine grade, 20% pumice large grade, 40% sterile compost

Construction technique in order from bottom to top:

  • plywood roof (2 layers of 9mm plywood glued together),
  • painted surface of waterproofing paint,
  • timber edge (6x2”),
  • layer of polythene pond liner over plywood and laid up sides of timber edging,
  • Maccaferri flexible plastic drainage layer (versidrain 25P) which has small water retention cells,
  • Layer of geotextile fabric
  • 50-70mm layer of substrate
  • Plants (selection of native and exotic highly drought tolerant varieties and `low growing with a mix of textures and colours– I wanted a tapestry matt-type effect carpeting the roof)

Living Roof Plants:

Sedums:

Sedum ‘gold mound’, Sedum sprium ‘tricolor’, Sedum dasyphyllum and various other sedum species that I’m currently trying out.

New Zealand native plants:

Raoulia australis, Raoulia hookerii, Raoulia parkii, Plantago masoniae, Selliera radicans

Others: Portulaca sp.,Mesembryanthemum ‘pink ice’ (doing fantastically), Thymus sp. (all the thymes died in the 2010 summer drought – driest summer since 1969 during which time I didn’t water my living roof at all)

Size: 

10m2

Comments:

A local trio of magpies use the green roof as a singing stage every morning!

This living roof has exceeded my expectations.

Lessons learned – "I don’t refer to them as green roofs any more as a lot of the plants I have used are not ‘green’ and so people’s expectations when I say green roof are for a bright green. I have found that referring to it as a living roof better describes the outcomes and sets people up for a positive response to the variety of colours and textures and seasonal variety found on the roof."

Completion:

August 2010

Photographs: