Rooftop amenity spaces can be designed for a wide range of projects and uses. Installing a green roof is an especially attractive option as it can diversify the designed elements of an amenity space, and provide many benefits such as increased building energy savings, pollinator habitat, and improved air quality. Eberly and Associates is currently leading the design of a large-scale green roof in West Midtown at the Star Metals Office Building. Green roofs will be featured on nine out of 14 levels for an approximate total of 34,000 s.ft. The green roofs on each terrace will enhance the user experience of the amenity space and provide year-round blooms, which is great for pollinators and users alike. Beneath the trays on several levels there will be a Roof Blue system by LiveRoof that can capture and store up to approximately 56,890 gallons of precipitation.
Each terrace will cantilever from the building. This site condition required careful consideration while selecting an appropriate plant palette due to the varying environmental conditions. The plant palette had to be versatile enough to handle different sun, shade, and wind conditions on each side of the building under the cantilevered terraces. On each level, the green roof will be comprised of trays by LiveRoof of varying depths of soil including 2”, 4”, and 6” trays. The 2” trays will feature a wide variety of smaller plants including succulents, flowering perennials, and groundcovers such as ‘Autumn Sunrise’ white stonecrop (Sedum album ‘Autumn Sunrise’), maiden pink (Dianthus kahori), and ‘Chocolate Chip’ bugleweed (Ajuga reptans ‘Chocolate Chip’). The intermediate-sized 4” trays include a mix of flowering perennials, ornamental grasses and groundcovers including ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta x faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’), blue fescue (Festuca glauca), and ‘Blue Moon’ woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon’). The 6” size tray will host flowering perennials and ornamental grasses including ‘Salsa Red’ coneflower (Echinacea x hybrida ‘Salsa Red’) and pink muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris).
The Star Metals Office Building green roof will help compliment Atlanta’s moniker, the city in the forest. We are proud to have contributed to the greening of Atlanta, and plan on continuing this legacy. Our expertise with green roofs can help elevate any project and as landscape architects, we understand how to ensure a positive user experience with these landscape features. We are proud of our work and are more than happy to set up a tour of the green roofs that we have designed upon request.