Green Roofs and Urban Campus Greening: Learning About Sustainability Through Doing

Abstract

This paper reports on an on-going RMIT University project that aims to link campus greening initiatives with learning and teaching outcomes with a particular emphasis on sustainability—what it means and how it can provide a useful framework for evaluation. The focus is on education for and through sustainability rather than education about sustainability. Stage 1 of the project involved designing, developing and evaluating green roofs to consider what is best practice sustainable design. It began with a series of comparative precedent and practice based case studies and background research on various typologies, growth mediums and plant materials. From these initial studies, pilot green roof modules were developed. The modules tested suitable vegetation and alternative growth mediums. The project was then taken into a living laboratory context, where third-year students built, maintained, and monitored the performance of the green-roof modules. Stage two of the project aims to build on these outcomes through further student-led environmental monitoring including the development and testing of techniques to evaluate biodiversity and productive landscape benefits as well as microclimatic condition. The final stage of the project will focus on the development and testing of a Post Occupancy Evaluation Framework for the roof garden pilot project to inform future design development and curriculum innovation.