Top-down approach

Thursday, March 3, 2011 - 12:00 in Earth & Climate

This is one of a series of occasional stories on the measures that Schools at Harvard are taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The shelves in Associate Professor Christian Werthmann’s office hold bags of plant seed and glass jars filled with bits of porous slate and shale. These raw materials are part of an experiment on the terraced roof of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). Werthmann, director of the Master in Landscape Architecture degree programs at GSD, was in the process of writing a book on green roofs (“Green Roof: A Case Study,” Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) when he first considered the possibility of landscaping the roof of Gund Hall. “The temperature on a green roof is much lower in the summer than on a black tar roof. If you build a green roof, you can reduce cooling loads on the floors below,” said Werthmann. “One of the biggest benefits is...

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