Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and summer, the ornamental and native plant palette was chosen to feature
various adapted seasonal plants that lower during this time period.
Coordination during construction was taken seriously, due to the high number
of workers on site, and the limited space for staging due to the urban context.
This reduced the eficiency with which materials could be brought on site and
installed. Special care was taken to ensure that the existing streetscape was pro-
tected. This included the removal and reinstallation of 930 m 2 of concrete pavers
(dennis7dees.com 2012).
The design team featured a typical consortium of design consultants, includ-
ing an architect, landscape architect, structural engineer and various roof install-
ers. The number of players involved in the installation of the living roofs
ultimately proved problematic for project maintenance after construction. For this 
reason, this case study is particularly useful in illustrating the potential disconnect
between design intent and design application, where the project's success is
compromised by the realities of project execution, limitations imposed by various
city regulations, and the nature of building facilities management after construc-
tion is complete. The nature of new construction featuring both complex pro-
grams and advanced, environmentally-friendly building systems often means that
there is frequent turnover in building facilities management staff. Mirabella's
building facilities management team suffers from a lack of a living roof mainte-
nance manual, not necessarily because it does not exist, but because it most
likely has been lost during the frequent turnover. The Mirabella reportedly saw
three different facility directors in the irst six months of its occupancy (Hart
2014). These circumstances serve as a cautionary tale that maintenance of fea-
tures like living roofs, while great point-winners for accreditation like LEED Plati-
num, tends to get pushed to the wayside when maintenance concerns for other
building systems are onerous, as is the case with a retirement community.
Process failings aside, the design of the Mirabella has produced a well-loved
retirement community for its residents, and features some laudable, integrated
LID design features.
2 RAINWATER CoLLECTIoN
The living roof on the twenty-ifth loor is comprised of 120 m 2 of extensive
planting established via the installation of over 14,000 plugs. The drainage layers
are comprised of multiple materials, ranging from lightweight ill in some areas
to 10” drain rock in others (dennis7dees.com 2012). The living roofs on the
seventh and eighth loors have extensive shallow growing media proiles and
drought-tolerant plants to maximize stormwater treatment performance. The
extensive living roofs are supplied with drip irrigation.
Stormwater overlows into a rain garden and bio swales on the north side of
the building via an internal drainage system and then empties into a highly visible
tiered scupper. The scupper captures overlow from multiple roofs. The roof deck
on the ifth loor is a hard-scaped patio which sits on top of a drain ield.
The roof deck also holds multiple planters with tall plants. Overlow from these
 
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