Sources: Lee Skabelund, 785-532-2431, lskab@k-state.edu; Diane Potts,
785-532-1090, potts@k-state.edu; and Tom Rawson, 785-532-6226, tmr@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Andy Badeker, 785-532-6415, abadeker@k-state.edu
Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
UP ON THE ROOF: K-STATE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS PLAN FOR GREENER PROSPECTS
MANHATTAN -- At a time of year when most homeowners are clearing their roofs and gutters of leaves, twigs and even seedlings, landscape architecture students at Kansas State University have drawn up plans to plant entire landscapes up there.
There are challenges to creating "green roofs" in communities without them, but the potential is great, according to Lee Skabelund, assistant professor of landscape architecture. A layer of light-weight planting medium and vegetation can reduce heating and cooling costs while slowing the runoff of rainwater that would otherwise burden storm-sewer networks.
A city topped with greenery instead of conventional bitumen can improve air quality while reducing the overheating that built-up areas suffer in the summer. Skabelund also cited the benefits of longer roof life, resistance to fire and the blockage of telecommunication radiation.
Twelve fourth-year landscape architecture students in K-State's College of Architecture, Planning and Design recently came up with proposals to put green roofs on several campus buildings, including the wide-open spaces of the Derby Dining Complex and the sawtooth structure that shelters the east wing of Seaton Hall.
"These are really explorations of what might be," Skabelund said at the presentations by his fall specialization studio. Because students had only three weeks to research and assemble their proposals while still fulfilling other academic obligations, the students hadn't fine-tuned costs, specific plantings or structural limits of existing roofs.
For the flat roof of Seaton Hall's west wing, Clay Deschler and Michael Meihaus, both from St. Louis, envisioned a park-like space of grassy hillocks intersected by metal walkways pierced to admit rainwater. An existing stairwell would be adapted to provide access and a top-floor learning lab.
Another scheme would turn the gritty, flood-prone blind alley behind Seaton Hall into a light-accented extension of a multilevel reworking of the college's Weigel Library. Anthony Fox, St. Charles, Mo., and Chris Morton, Englewood, Colo., presented their suggestions, including a bright red cantilevered addition to the top floor, in a slick multimedia package.
Some architecture firms have made a specialty of green-roofing, including BNIM Architects in Kansas City, Mo. Installations like that atop Chicago's City Hall, the GAP complex near San Francisco's airport and the headquarters of the American Society of Landscape Architects in Washington, D.C., have raised the technique's profile.
"I think it's something we need to seriously look into on campus, because of its potential to save energy and reduce runoff," said Tom Rawson, K-State vice president for administration and finance.
But facilities managers can be wary, and not just because of higher initial costs. The multiple layers of root-proof membranes and earth-retaining matrices are foreign territory, and maintenance demands are another unknown.
Tim Duggan, a K-State landscape architecture alum who works for BNIM, urged students after their presentations to emphasize not the overall costs, but rather the difference in cost over a conventional roof, and how that might be offset by potential savings and social benefits. He was one of several professionals and faculty who reviewed the designs.
To complement the work of landscape architecture faculty and students this past year at the K-State International Student Center’s rain garden, Skabelund and Duggan would like to see a green roof demonstration completed during spring 2008.
Stacy Hutchinson, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering, and other K-State faculty support such a project, Skabelund said. Hutchinson already is monitoring temperatures and water use for green-roof-like plantings in the Seaton Hall alley.
Other K-State landscape architecture students, all in their fourth-year of studies unless otherwise noted, who presented and their project buildings included:
Robin Banks, Manhattan, east wing of Seaton Hall; Lindsey Scheuneman, Olathe, K-State Student Union; Dan Robben, fifth-year senior, Salina, Chalmers Hall and Salina; Katie Sobczynski, Stilwell, Derby Dining Complex; and Kris Coen, Chalmers Hall and Ackert Hall, and Kellen Stewart, the Vee House in Kansas City, Mo., both of Wichita.
From out of state: Cole Giesler, Ste. Genevieve, Mo., Derby Dining Complex; and Amy Shaffer, Lincoln, Neb., east wing of Seaton Hall.