A green roof will be installed on the new Innovation Accelerator building located at Innovation Campus in Wauwatosa on October 16, 2013. The installation will be accessible to news media and will showcase the exclusive systems developed by LiveRoof® to ensure a flourishing and sustainable vegetated roof, as well as the plants chosen to landscape the rooftop.
The 25,000 square-foot facility will be planted with the following: giant chive, a plant with bright rose-red flowers and 10 inch stems; mountain garlic, a plant attractive to bees, butterflies and birds,; baby tears stonecrop, a sedum plant with tiny almost round leaves that are an attractive yellow green color; as well as other sedums or drought-tolerant plants that thrive on a roof or an arid ground-level landscape.
According to Dave Gilbert, President of the UWM Research Foundation and Executive Director of Innovation Campus, “We’re excited the innovation accelerator will not only include groundbreaking research and findings through technology within the building; it will use the technology that LiveRoof has created in order to harness the benefits natural vegetation has to offer. Sustainable development is a hallmark of the Innovation Campus.”
Jon Olson of LiveRoof says, “The aesthetic advantages of LiveRoof are significant. In every season, LiveRoof looks like a beautiful meadow. Beyond making this an even more attractive building, green roofs also improve indoor comfort and lower heat stress associated with heat waves by reducing heat transfer through the building roof. They also enhance storm water management and filter pollutants from rainfall.”
The innovation Accelerator will be the fifth LiveRoof system installation for the Univeristy of Wisconsin. Other green roofs include Sage Hall on the Oshkosh campus, and the School of Education, School of Medicine, and Digestive Health Center buildings on the Madison Campus.
Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA) are the designers of this building, which is partially funded by the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Innovation Accelerator will house research labs for engineering professors who collaborate with researchers in Wisconsin’s largest medical cluster. The state-of-the-art building includes laboratory facilities for use by a wide variety of researchers and entrepreneurs who want to leverage the technology present in nearby institutions, such as the Milwaukee Count Medical Complex, Children’s Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin. Research working on collaborative projects with other academic institutions or private companies will have access to designated laboratories.
This green roof is just one of the features of building which will help it achieve LEED® Silver certification. Developed by the US Green Building Council, LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Certified LEED buildings cost less to operate and are a physical demonstration of the values of the organizations that own and occupy them.
