Plants vs. Roofs

Taken from city.fukuoka.lg.jp

Beautiful, isn't it? This seems to be a building Japanese called the "ACROS Fukuoka".

I came across this building while doing some research for a blog post about an idea that won't get out of my head: Why don't we plant plants on our house's roofs? It looks amazing (simply google for "green roofs" if the ACROS Fukuoka didn't convince you) and as you might remember from Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the like: plants eat those bad little gases, spit good things out instead.

Taken from hurstwic.org

Talking about An Incovenient Truth, this was the movie that inspired me to plant something on roofs. Great film by the way. A little bit exaggerated, but you definitely get the message. But that's another story...

So, again, my question is why don't we plant plants on our house's roofs? In Iceland for example it's a tradition to build so called "sod roofs".

Further reading

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod_roof
• http://www.lid-stormwater.net/greenroofs_home.htm
• http://oursurprisingworld.com/acros-fukuoka-the-serene-green-roof-of-japan/
• http://de.mustknowhow.com/index.php/dachdecken/energieeffiziente-dachmaterialien

Further looking

• http://www.syncronos.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/nanyang_technological_university_school_of_art_design_and_media_singapore_low.jpg
• http://www.google.com/search?q=green+roof&hl=de&safe=off&qscrl=1&biw=1366&bih=682&tbas=0&tbs=ic:specific,isc:green,itp:photo&tbm=isch&prmd=ivnsb&tbas=0&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=F6v4TdnyJZGHswbxkbCACQ&ved=0CAsQpwUoAA