Press & Media Coverage

There are a lot of incentives for green roofs in the world today which improve the business case for implementation. Many of those incentives rely on making one-time payments based on the size of the green roof. While these incentives are good, there is an incentive that is much longer lasting and creates broader benefits for more people. This is the floor-area-ratio bonus.

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L'absorption d'humidité est un concept familier.  Il est facile de comprendre les mécanismes d'absorption d'humidité dans les isolants en polystyrène.  Malheureusement, certaines allégations de performance d'isolation peuvent être trompeuses lorsqu'elles sont basées sur les résultats d'essais de quelques échantillons de terrain ou d'extrapolations de performances à long terme sur le terrain à partir d'essais en laboratoire à petite échelle d'une durée et d'une exposition limitées.

Climate change and stormwater management

A new color is emerging in the roofing field; after green roofs and white roofs, now here is the blue roof. The dense nature of urban areas, combined with the increased intensity of rain events and lack of at-grade green spaces, heavily taxes our municipal stormwater infrastructure. With increased risks of urban and overflow flooding would be expected outcomes of over-taxed sewers. To counter these costly scenarios, addressing water where it falls – at the rooftop – is increasingly being considered. It is very expensive to increase the capacity of our old and outdated infrastructure. Underground space is also crowded with different utilities in the public right-of-way; the use of this space is limited. Flat roof surfaces provide a vast untapped resource to increase the ability to capture rainfall.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (May 2, 2019) Very near Lake Michigan in Chicago, Northwestern Medical Center faced several challenges in bringing a new campus building to life. Designed by Perkins+Will, the project involves a phased construction where a 14-story base building is presently under construction; a 20-story tower addition is planned for construction in five to 10 years. Since the project is built-out to all property lines there are no at-grade landscape areas, which presented a particular challenge given the city’s Dept. of Stormwater Management permit requirement that the project account the total building mass and footprint.

American Hydrotech, a recognized leader in the vegetative roofing market, today announced the availability of the Fourth Edition of the company’s widely acclaimed Garden Roof® Planning Guide. For the last five years, updated print, online and app version of the complimentary resource have transformed more than 22 years of vegetative roof experience into an educational tool and resource for architects, facility management, building owners, installers and contractors on the latest technology, applications and benefits of vegetative roofs.

Hydrotech is proud to have been awarded ISO 9001:2015 certification, an internationally recognized standard that ensures products and services meet the needs of clients through an effective quality management system.

American Hydrotech, a recognized leader in the development and distribution of premium waterproofing and roofing assemblies, today announced the availability of their Protected Membrane Roof (PMR) Planning Guide, a unique, new resource representing more than 60 years of proven assembly experience across the globe and 35+ years of Hydrotech’s industry knowledge. The guide strives to educate architects, engineers, general contractors and other design professionals on the key benefits of a protected membrane roof versus a conventional roof, the technology currently available and best practices for effective installations.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (October 11, 2017) American Hydrotech – a market leader in the development and distribution of premium waterproofing and roofing products and assemblies, today announced the introduction of the InstaGreen® GT-4 pre-vegetated tray, an expansion of the InstaGreen® product line within the Garden Roof® portfolio of assemblies. 

The GT-4 tray is one option for a stormwater management plan by providing valuable green space as a BMP on roofs to handle the first rains.  It consolidates all growing media, drainage and vegetation in one convenient package for easy transport and installation by roofing professionals and landscape contractors. The tray is composed of 100% fully recycled content and features other key benefits such as:

•             12” x 24” high performance format can hold up to 4” of media for optimum plant growth

Over the last ten years, enormous sums have been invested in the construction of modern university hospital centers and the renovation of existing establishments that have become obsolete. New institutions have a much more environmentally responsible profile by considering environmental impacts, social benefits, and economic sustainability throughout their life cycle. This is the case of the University of Montreal hospital (CHUM), the McGill University health center (CUSM) and the CHU Sainte-Justine, just to name a few.

Wind data is a critical issue to consider when building a new structure. An increase in the number of green roofs on buildings has driven a need for new wind design standards to be written for vegetative roofing assemblies. Richard Hayden discusses what is being done to update the protocol that is in place to incorporate built-up (loose laid) vegetated roofing assemblies. 

Exceptional green roof price at the 2016 Durabilys event. This contest was designed to recognize and promote outstanding projects in 3 categories (residential, commercial/industrial and institutional).

Congratulations to Les Toits Vertige for installing 3 of the winning green roof projects.

The prize winner in the institutional category, the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium, includes the first GardNet growing media confinement system installation in Quebec.