Roof There It Is

The Brook, a supportive housing building in the Bronx, occupies what had, for years, been a vacant lot. The green roof, pictured here, is one of a number of LEED-driven elements.

Villa Bio is situated a little over an hour outside of Barcelona in Llers, a green, hilly, sun-bathed sprawl near Figueres (hometown of everyone’s favorite mustachioed surrealist, Salvador Dali). The hydroponic rooftop garden grows out of volcanic stones. The home is conceived as a giant C-shaped spiral.

Before plopping panels on your roof, consider other ways to conserve electricity, like switching to CFL or LED lightbulbs and replacing inefficient electrical appliances like old refrigerators. “Conservation is the leanest means to reducing electrical use and fossil-fuel consumption,” Moore says. “PV panels require a lot of energy to produce, ship, install, and dispose of.”

Eliza takes in the view from her perch atop the house’s green roof, which Daniel believes to be the first of its kind in the neighborhood. The family received a subsidy administered by DC Greenworks and funded by the DC Department of the Environment.

The Kingston house remains unobtrusive and well camouflaged on its hillside site despite the architects’ use of modernist geometry. The outer cladding is simply plywood stained with dark Madison oil.

Architect Konieczny lifted the existing ground and wrapped it around the roof and exterior rooftop staircase, essentially making all floors “ground” level.

With its easy access, the flat roof is never hard to maintain.