Around 30 people took part in the workshop, including a lot of students from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales and four Livinggreen and gardening volunteers from Morden Hall Park.
Dusty Gedge and John Little started the workshop in the park's historic Snuff Mill, sharing their huge amount of experience from the many green roofs they've built.
Dusty Gedge gives an introduction to green roofs (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
Everyone then headed out into the sunshine, next to the site of the new bike shed, to make their own section of green roof. People enjoyed seeing the structure of the new shed, with its roof specially designed to take the weight of a good green roof.
Getting ready to build roofs - next to the bike shed with its air source heat pump (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
Having 30 people with drills and lots of bits of wood could have been complete chaos, but somehow John and Dusty managed to keep things under control.
30 people start drilling (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
Morden Hall Park Garden Volunteers, Justin and Annie, get some advice from John (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
Livinggreen Volunteer, Curt, looks like he's having fun (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
John holds up a finished roof section so people know what they're aiming for (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)
We finished off inside again, learning more about construction and planting, then I gave people a tour of the newly renovated stable yard - showing how our new green roof will fit into the other examples of sustainable renovation being demonstrated. People seemed impressed with both the stable yard and the hydroelectric turbine developments.
Participants then proudly took their green roof section home - bike travel and going to the pub didn't prove to be serious obstacles, some even using their roof to make new friends....
Now we just need to finish building our shed before John Little kindly comes back to help us with the green roof.
If you missed this course and would like to do a similar one, RESET hold them frequently - the next one is on 23 June - see http://www.reset-development.org/. For more information on green roofs generally, see http://www.livingroofs.org/. And if you'd like John's company to build you a roof, see http://www.grassroofcompany.co.uk/!
I feel this blog is very well organized and is quite interesting. I really want to join this kind of events.Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteFlat Roofs North East
This is absolutely great! Activities like this can make numerous homeowners aware of the benefits of having a green roof, and how they can help the environment by simply building one in their property. I hope you continue this project, so that more people will get involved and construct their own green roof at home.
ReplyDeleteBronwyn Hass