Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Summer 2020 - 22

PROJECT DETAILS
PROJECT: THE REACH - rehearsal space, classroom space, event and pre-function
space, 150-seat multipurpose space, board room, landscape gardens, River Pavilion
café and performance space.
CLIENT: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
ARCHITECT: Steven Holl Architects
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Whiting-Turner
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Edmund D. Hollander Designs
ROOFING: James Myers Roofing
ROOFING AND WATERPROOFING MATERIALS (ALL SLOPED
AND FLAT GREENSPACE AREAS): American Hydrotech
GARDNET SLOPED GARDEN ROOF ASSEMBLY: American Hydrotech
GARDEN ROOF MEDIA: American Hydrotech (with Urbanscape)	
SLOPED GARDEN ROOF PLANT MATERIALS AND INSTALLATION: Sempergreen
IRRIGATION SYSTEM: Sempergreen
SIZE: 113,906 sq ft	
OPENING: October 2019

ing and designing a soil stabilization system that can move in a
fluid-like motion from flat to vertical while rotating like a corkscrew. Sempergreen USA and Hollander Designs created sedum
blankets into 3 different plant palettes. For the most vertical
sections of the roof where it becomes a wall another partnership
of Sempergreen USA and Knauf Urbanscape designed a growing media blend mix that starts with Lite-Top growing media
from American Hydrotech and merges slowly into a Lite-Top/
Urbanscape mineral wool mixture which in turn merges slowly
into the vertical section that has 100 per cent green wall mineral wool from Urbanscape inside the Hydrotech sloped Garden
Roof Assembly. 

EXPERIMENTAL MOCK UP 'THE RAMP'

James Myers Roofing is the roofer that had to put all the pieces
together into a finished project for general contractor WhitingTurner. It was a monumental task. Nothing was straight, just
mapping and calculating surfaces was extremely difficult to do
on two-dimensional drawings that needed to represent threedimensional shapes. To properly prepare, Myers, Hydrotech and
Sempergreen built a JFK mock up called 'The Ramp'. Monthly
visits from the Landscape Architect, the General Contractor and
LIVING ARCHITECTURE MONITOR / SUMMER 2020 / 22

Myers to the sedum slope gave everyone confidence that it could be
done. The Ramp is an actual replication of all the possible angles of
the design and has been growing successfully at the Sempergreen
farm in Culpeper. It allowed the team to work out any bugs and
discover any practical problems before the installation.

SEMPERGREENWALL
IRRIGATION SYSTEM HAS PROVEN ITSELF

To irrigate the vertical parts of the sedum based roof/wall, the
Irrigation Management System for outdoor SemperGreenwalls
was selected. The irrigation has an advanced web-based system
with the ability to confirm water flow, water pressure, water
temperature, and the ability to self-empty prior to frost, and
refill right after temperatures warm up. This ability allow the
irrigation system to effectively run 24/7, 365 days a year. Sixteen
groups of irrigation with attached drip lines and sprinklers supply water year-round to the REACH. Now that the project is
finished and the final piece of green art is into place, the system
has proven itself because all of the plants are healthy and alive.
Rianne Slootweg is the Marketing Manager at Sempergreen and
Dennis Yanez - National Marketing Manager at American Hydrotech, Inc
LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM
http://www.LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM
Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Summer 2020

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