Tagged: green building

The city of Rochester just completed work on its first ever "green roof."

The roof of City Hall's Building B is now home to 8,700 square feet of succulent plants.

"It's basically for storm water management," says Anne Spaulding, the city's sustainability manager, during a rooftop tour. "All of the rainwater - instead of running into the storm system - is consumed by the plants on the roof."

Spaulding says the thick carpet of sedum can reduce storm water runoff by up to 90 percent, depending on the amount of rainfall.

The goal is to reduce the amount of pollutants that flow into the region's streams, rivers and lakes.

This story should sound familiar by now: an 1860s home in Buffalo, now vacant for a decade or so, draws the attention of a wrecking ball. The house goes, and the neighborhood is left with an empty lot.

But a 25-foot wide lot would essentially be useless, says Laura Kelly, of the Old First Ward Association, a collection of neighborhood boosters. That's because modern building codes call for more space for new residential construction.

The solution: rehab the house instead of tearing it down.  And now that effort is getting a million dollar boost.

The deconstruction movement promotes the practice of deconstructing properties, rather then demolishing them. That way, the materials can be reused rather than ending up in landfills.

The problem is the people interested in reclaiming old building materials have a hard time finding people who have them.