The Victorian Desalination Project green roof is the largest in the southern hemisphere. It covers a number of buildings of the process plant, ranging in pitch from 3.5 to 20 degrees. The undulating slopes of the roof are designed to limit visibility of the industrial buildings from the surrounding public areas and link to the nearby coastal landscape.
plants
Dave MacKenzie, horticulturist and product developer, created a 1400 square foot living work of art using plants as the paint and the LiveWall system as his canvas.
The temperature of some of our cities, such as Melbourne, can be up to four degrees warmer than surrounding areas, but adequate green infrastructure may help reduce those temperatures.
A team of University of Melbourne and Monash University researchers is trying to establish how green infrastructure can interact with urban design to reduce temperatures in cities.
This is a very knew area of scientific inquiry and we are just scratching the surface. However, enough successful work has been done that compels us to start incorporating these tactics and strategies in our built environment as partners in progress. Our green standards are abysmally too low for any serious self-congratulations. By using grey water as green roof and living wall irrigation now, we can start evaluating the phytoremediation effects as we go. After mechanical filtration and phytoremediation, along with control of the contaminants we introduce into our environment, I see no reason why we can’t start using green water for a wide array of uses from laundry to washing food to washing ourselves, to irrigating food crops, to irrigating green roofs and living walls in areas short on potable water.