Case studies - Living Roofs in Integrated Urban Water Systems - page 148

The roof reduces the internal building temperature. Exact igures will also become
available when the city audit has been completed.
5.2.1.4 Key Living Roof Design Features
1 PROCESS
Design goals resulted from an intensive year-long process of interaction between
designers, owners and employees. Success of the project and meeting budgetary
targets were in great part due to this early coordination (City of Portland 2010).
Because the Port's whole reason for being is the operation and maintenance of
infrastructure and facilities, the Port's Headquarters project was uniquely posi-
tioned to beneit from an integrated and well-planned process (Timmerman
2014).
In keeping with the methodology of a successfully integrated design process,
all divisions of the Port were included in the planning consultation process,
including ofice, operations, maintenance and wildlife staff. The landscape design
of the tenth loor extensive living roof was heavily inluenced by consideration of
wildlife health and safety, given that its location on the north side of the Head-
quarters building is adjacent to the active Portland International airport. This con-
sideration did not affect plant diversity, but inluenced the planting design (plant
variety and shape), so as not attract birds and endanger them by placing them
near the light paths of planes. Through much testing and experimentation, the
Port's Wildlife Management has developed a sustainable plan to passively
manage the presence of wildlife on the Port lands, including on the Headquarter
building. The Wildlife Management Team found that planting low-growth sedum
varieties on the tenth loor “eco-roof” (Portland's preferred term for “living
roof”) were not attractive to birds. The landscaped patio on the eighth loor has
also been planted with dense container shrubs and grasses, which prevent birds
from perching (Timmerman 2014).
The Port of Portland Headquarters project serves as an example of how gov-
ernment incentives may in some way support policy-driven design. To reward the
project team's efforts to maximize the stormwater mitigation potential of
the project, the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services awarded the
project a US$50,530 Eco-roof Incentive grant (City of Portland 2010). The grant
comprised just over 25 percent of the US$193,341 cost of the tenth loor living
roof. Admittedly, the Port's funding ability was staggering (with a total project
budget of US$241 million), and incentives such as these for a project of this mag-
nitude cannot be counted as an example of commonly enacted local government
policy. The gesture was perhaps symbolic, if nothing else; in awarding this grant,
the City of Portland demonstrated its commitment to its sustainability policy by
rewarding design that offsets services from municipal infrastructure. The grant
program has since been discontinued as it was only ever funded for a limited
time period, but there are high hopes that the spirit of the grant will be rein-
stated for developers of future projects (City of Portland 2014; Timmerman
2014).