Urban Rooftop Gardens – Green Spaces in Cities

Imagine yourself stepping onto your own piece of paradise high above the hustle and bustle of city life. Green spaces such as parks and urban farms have become more common in today’s overpopulated cities, providing much-needed breathing room.

Re-emergence of elevated gardens coincides with increased environmental consciousness and brings urban skylines alive with colors of sustainability and tranquility. Discover some of their benefits such as thermal regulation, noise absorption and noise suppression.

Reduces Urban Heat Island Effect

Research by climate scientists at New York’s NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies suggests that rooftop gardens that reflect sunlight or “green roofs” packed with plants and greenery may help alleviate some of the extreme city heat caused by what’s known as Urban Heat Island (UHI).

Rooftop gardens with plants and soil provide insulation, keeping buildings cooler in summer while decreasing air conditioning usage and helping to cool the city overall. By absorbing and emitting heat throughout the day, they also help absorb and redistribute it more evenly across concrete structures thereby helping keep urban temperatures down.

Urban rooftop farms also provide community engagement and environmental education opportunities. Plant Chicago provides a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program through which participants receive a weekly supply of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers grown on their roof.

Insulates Buildings

Green rooftop gardens help promote biodiversity by creating habitat for insects and birds in cities as well as serving as essential stopovers for migrating species.

Rooftop gardens with acoustically absorbent soil and vegetation help reduce noise pollution, as their plantings absorb noise from cars, buses and trains. One office building situated under San Francisco International Airport that planted with indigenous grasses and wildflowers saw noise reduced by 40 decibels.

Bright rooftop gardens also help insulate buildings from the sun’s rays, helping reduce summer energy consumption by decreasing air conditioning needs. Plants and greenery reflect solar rays back out instead of absorbing them like concrete, asphalt, and glass do.

Retains Rainwater

Rooftop gardens capture rainfall, helping reduce flooding and pollution in urban areas while acting as natural water filters to cleanse city water sources.

Rooftop gardens help mitigate the Urban Heat Island effect by cooling buildings and decreasing energy use for air conditioning, while serving as habitats for birds and local wildlife, helping foster biodiversity in cities.

As urban areas increasingly compete for limited land and resources, rooftop gardens represent an inspiring trend that marries serenity with sustainability principles. Offering respite from city life while reminding us to appreciate nature’s beauty, their growing popularity demonstrates increasing interest in leading sustainable lifestyles; building users are encouraged to participate in their planning and design to foster stronger engagement with these spaces.

Reduces Noise Pollution

Rooftop gardens provide an eco-friendly way to connect with nature in urban areas with limited green spaces, while simultaneously helping reduce air pollution levels, which in turn improves human health and biodiversity.

Insulated walls act as an extra layer of insulation, keeping buildings cool in summertime and cutting energy consumption by decreasing air conditioning needs. They can also contribute to reduced peak electricity demand which relieves power grid stress while helping decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Rooftop gardens provide a peaceful respite from city life and create a sense of community for building users. Schmidt Associates employees appreciate our lush environment and abundance of harvest from our rooftop garden, featuring tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs.

Boosts Biodiversity

Urban rooftop gardens are not only aesthetically pleasing, but they’re also biodiversity hubs. Most typically featuring shallow roofs without soil that allow succulents and grasses to flourish or deeper roofs that allow shrubs and bushes to flourish, urban rooftop gardens offer the opportunity for abundant plant growth.

These sites feature open mosaic habitats that offer numerous microhabitats for birds, insects and invertebrates to shelter and forage in. Their lack of nutrients makes the ground an excellent ‘pioneer’ environment to encourage early successional vegetation establishment.

Rooftop gardens not only benefit the environment, but can be used as an economic empowerment strategy in urban centers. Organizations like Schaduf in Cairo and Green Savers in Dhaka empower migrant families living in informal settlements to grow gourmet leafy greens and herbs for sale at high-end supermarkets – thus earning extra income for themselves and contributing towards family financial security.