Stormwater Management, Energy Efficiency, & the AEA Green Roof

• native plants,
• test plots,
• green roof,
• stormwater,
• energy

The project we took on in the Bronx at the Association for Energy Affordability (AEA) affords an ideal case study on how stormwater management and energy efficiency can be addressed by the confluence of science, design, and policy.

Concerned with the holistic performance of a building in an urban context, the project utilizes an array of performative and productive strategies. Our studio designed and installed the extensive green roof and vertical greening structures – a living wall and green screens. AEA, themselves at the forefront of the green industry, integrated productive components into their building such as solar panel arrays, solar thermal hot water, and solar tubes that pull natural daylight into the interior spaces.

The project’s emphasis on metrics and performance testing is distinctive. Monitoring stations have been set up to collect data about stormwater runoff and green roof retention levels. For instance, the extensive green roof uses a patchwork planting plan which acts as test plots for different native plant communities. The climatic preferences of these native plants in the wild correspond to their placement on the AEA rooftop with its analogous microclimates. This planting strategy will be analyzed post-installation for its stormwater retention capabilities.

Besides confronting frequent ambiguity about what sustainability means in terms of numbers, the collection of data is necessary to influence policy – the key to affecting wide-scale adoption of green infrastructure design. Currently, the motor to implement lags behind the available technology and skills of scientists, engineers, architects and landscape architects. We see particular relevance and promise in this project for producing verifiable, quantitative results that speak to the impact of integrated, high-performance design.

AEA Headquarters

This project in the Bronx employs a diverse array of performative design strategies to maximize on-site stormwater capture and energy efficiency.

Pratt Institute Graduate Program in Environmental Systems Management: Productive + Performative Landscapes

• green roof,
• urban farms,
• teaching,
• urban orchards,
• productive,
• performative

With all of the available roof space and vacant lots in New York City estimated to equal thirteen Central Parks in area, the potential to transform our cities from grey to green is immense. Our studio is invested in exploring diverse and emergent landscape typologies which not only serve as aesthetic backgrounds to the cityscape, but also function as integral components of a radical green urban infrastructure.

As a lens for understanding how different typologies function, we find particular utility in classification by its performative and/or productive contribution. Performative typologies can be characterized by their capacity to retain (e.g. storage of rainwater for gradual and subsequent release) or to remediate (e.g. decontamination of soil). Productive typologies have the ability to yield consumptive goods (e.g. food) or generate energy (e.g. solar or wind).

This is the principal organizing framework for a course being taught by FGS principal/founder David Seiter this coming spring at Pratt. Through a patchwork of productive and performative landscape typologies – such as the ecological green roof, the street tree orchard, and the urban micro farm – new paradigms are being created for urban public space that are not limited to the prototypical landscapes of the park or garden.

The course draws upon the studio’s own research interests in these areas:

Performative-retain : green roofs, brown roofs, green cloaks, street bioswales, vertical living walls/structures

Performative-remediate : phytoremediation fields, spontaneous urban plants, compost

Productive-yield : urban orchards, rooftop farms, aquaponics, hydroponics

Productive-generate : algae farms, solar canopies, wind farm arrays

This repertoire of design strategies can lend further definition to the concept of sustainability, illuminating specific tools for addressing our myriad of urban challenges.