Roofs & Rambles

The bee hive is installed. The garden green roof is planted. And now there are plans afoot to green up the rest of the 3500m2 of roofspace currently an ugly grey green too. This would be one of the largest retrofits in London and could demonstrate the way forward in helping London adapt to climate change through the retrofitting of green roofs.

I was here on 20th July 2010 to publicise the forth coming 2nd London World Green Roof Congress. A selection of journalists and representatives from both CIRIA, the Museum of London [MOL] and Bauder Ltd were give n a guide tour around the roofs on the Museum. Most of the raised gardens at the Museum that were originally installed are green roofs. Recently the Museum installed a small ring of sedum roofs on the Rotunda at the front of the Museum. This was installed by the one of the Congresses’ Premium sponsors Bauder Ltd. Currently there is a small area that should be installed by Septmeber that will include a small area of various green roofs systems: extensive sedum blanket, extensive sedum substrate, extensive brown/biodiverse roof and a small intensive green roof.

However we were escorted to the main roof areas way out of sight from visitors. In fact the Museum is a labyrinth of roofs. The idea is to green as much of the exposed roofs as possible. A truly ambitious and visionary approach to roofing on a building in the centre of the City of London.

You can hear more about this www.edie.net, who were present to interview me about the Congress, greening London and the MOL project.

I was interested in the bees! I noticed at least two species of bumblebees – White-tailed and Red-tailed feeding on the new herb planting int he court yard. This is home to one of beehives that have been installed as part of the “Bringing bees back to the City” project. I watched an managed to get a few pictures of the Honey Bees feeding on various herb plants. The flowering Verbena was particularly popular.

One of the things about the Museum of London’s beehive is that their is habitat for the bees to feed on. I am a great support of bringing back all bees to London. But hives are only part of the story. We need flower rich habitat for forage and habitat rich in a range of substrates and aspects to ensure that other pollinators, mining bees and bumblebees can also flourish in the heart of the metroplis. And this is part of the MOL’s vision.

Hopefully I will be working directly with the MOL to design green roofs that encompass a vison of green roofs that help London adapt to climate change, provide a range of wildlife, especially pollinators but also reflect the core activity at MOL – to educate about London.

It was exciting to talk later on once the main party had left regarding designing the next swathe of roofs at the MOL. It is hoped that the design will incorporate designs that reflect the history of London, whilst providing good real habitat for both the Honey Bees and the rest of the natural world that we so often overlooking in a dense and human City such as London.