Annotated Summary

Wilkinson S & Dixon T. (2016)

Green roof retrofit: Building urban resilience.
doi: 10.1002/9781119055587

This article focuses on the implementation of a green roof. One of the measures to counter the adverse effect of urban heat island will be having a green roof. There are several benefits that come from green roof other than minimizing the environmental impact. It helps to improve the air quality, slowing down the stormwater runoff, providing space to produce local food, “attracts biodiversity”, and reduces the energy use for the surrounding buildings. Besides that, it helps to improve social communication, increases public knowledge and enables them to acquire appropriate skills through training and education.

There are various factors concerning the engineering field when comes to installing the green roof. This includes the design consideration that is best suited with the current structural integrity, the availability of space, structural load-bearing capacity, power and water supply, drainage system, accessibility to the green roof for maintenance, orientation of the building affects the amount of exposure to the sunlight, overshadowing from surrounding buildings, types of materials to use, and checking for damages before installation.

Selection of plants also plays a big role in the green roof. Cost, maintenance, survivability and aesthetic are some of the aspects in choosing the correct plants to grow. The variety of plant grown is relative to the number of biodiversity. Cool roof is an alternative method whereby an adhesive is being applied to the base material or paint to reflect the sunlight heatwave and radiation back to the atmosphere. However, the major drawback of this method is glaring.

The objective of this article is to raise awareness of the advantages and benefits by implementing green roof retrofit as well as helping the reader to gain knowledge about the technology.

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