Toby Barrazzuol says he’s not a garden expert, but he and the team at Eclipse Awards and It’s Saul Good Gift Co have created a beautiful rooftop space for everyone in their office and manufacturing facility to enjoy. They grow food like strawberries, tomatoes, figs and a variety of herbs; flowers like irises, mallow, wisteria, clematis and lilies; edible weeds like chickweed and sorrel; and drought-tolerant species like sedums. That’s a lot of biodiversity for what was recently an asphalt roof!

What’s more, they DIY’d the heck out of it! Most of the garden is made from reclaimed materials scavenged from the community or found on Craigslist. Pathways are pallets and recycled decking, planter boxes are washtubs, and pots are secondhand.

When Eclipse and It’s Saul Good moved in to their current building it required a few renovations to meet their needs. They used the renovation process as an opportunity to incorporate plants and gardening into their office culture. In anticipation of the rooftop garden they added several large crossbeams (made from a sustainable pressed wood product) to ensure that the roof could support the weight of 25 people plus the garden soil. They also added two large skylights that bring enough natural light in to sustain many office plants, including this beautiful mass planting of African Violets. Looking up through the skylights you get a sneak peek at the rooftop garden.

The garden has been a couple of years in the making, and Toby says managing the garden continues to be a learning process. Crows and seagulls show up regularly to snack on young plants and eat tasty berries, and they have free reign since there are long periods where no one is on the roof to scare them off. They have an irrigation system, but some of the plants have nonetheless whithered a bit in the scorching sun of the last few weeks. Also, there’s no formal process for employees to manage the garden, so it’s a bit harder to plan regular tasks like weeding and garden clean up. A recent success is the worm composter they’ve added to their office, which is rapidly turning food scraps into rich soil for use in the garden.

Interestingly, Toby reports that there has been some debate among their office over the purpose of the garden. Should it be wild and green, letting whatever wants to grow take root? Or should it be a place to cultivate food in a more purposeful way? For the time being they have come up with a great compromise, planting a central bed with 100 strawberry plants and letting a few edible weeds spring up in between.

This garden is a great case study for anyone interested in starting a green roof project and making their home or business that much more sustainable. We hope you can learn from Toby’s experience and develop one in your workplace. Congrats to the whole team at Eclipse and It’s Saul Good for working together to make this great project happen!

And for you design nerds out there, enjoy a few more of Lani’s beautiful pictures…

Photography by Lani Johnson

This post was originally published on the Greening the Inner-City Blog.

Over the recent years many thinkers and planners have foreseen the likely transformations of our urban and suburban communities as costs related to resources, building materials and other logistics force us to think on our feet and adjust. I recall one author even wrote a book titled “The End of Suburbia”. Actually it was a documentary now that I come to think of it. As potential challenges such as peak oil, loss of arable land, energy and water scarcity and other logistical (and social) hurdles continue to present themselves on our horizon, authors like James Howard Kunstler, Jeremy Rifkin,  and numerous scholars agree that we may need to rethink our systems and our approaches and reassess much of our infrastructure and planning as we look ahead. Vancouver has been recognized as one of the more progressive and community focused cities in North America but even we may see some major physical transformations should these challenges come to a headwaters in the next 50 years. Though I do write with the focus of BOB in mind, I’m also a geographer, so I’m inspired to look at these issues very much from the perspective of a geographer.

In the case of Vancouver our physical geography and some astute urban planning has already helped to create a clean density that we’re celebrated and noted for now, and if we continue to go dense out of necessity or desire we will likely need to maximize urban spaces. Enter the deconstruction industry and the restoration economy.

A great little video on Treehugger.com about a social enterprise in Bristol UK was sent to me from Brian here at Building Opportunities with Business (who got it from Toby Barazzuol at Eclipse Awards). The Bristol Recycling Project collects donations of unused lumber, and either finds a way to put it back into the market or reconstitutes them into products like shelving and furniture. This is a service that has developed in relationship with the deconstruction industry and the restoration economy. The restoration economy is an idea put forth by author Storm Cunningham in a 2002 book entitled (you guessed it) The Restoration Economy. Along with William McDonough’s book Cradle to Cradle, it was considered a landmark environmental book at the beginning of this decade. In short, or rather to summarize but a brief aspect of it, think of it like this. Instead of blowing up a building into a million fragments and trucking them off to the landfill, we can slowly deconstruct it and utilize as much of the materials as possible in other developments. It’s like my father-in-law (an incredibly accomplished engineer who has worked on numerous high profile projects around the world) always says, “The most sustainable building is the one already built”. Well, the logic of the restorative economy says the next best thing may be recycling all those materials as best as possible into a new format. Plus it creates jobs and stimulates the economy.

Reclaimed wood has been utilized by social enterprises and businesses in BC and specifically in the inner-city Tradeworks Training Society uses reclaimed wood for many of their products. But much of this reclaimed wood is from Pine Beetle infested lumber considered below market standard due to its blueish tint. Conversely, much of the wood used by the Bristol Wood Recycling Project comes from buildings that have been recently deconstructed or found lumber, and as other cities around the world begin to rethink their urban design many structures may need to come down in order for more efficient designs to go up. Buildings will also need improvements, retrofits and other maintenance, like our beautiful heritage buildings here in Vancouver. There’s little doubt that a large market potential for the restorative industry exists in Vancouver. As recent improvements along the Hastings Corridor (a result of the Great Beginnings and Hastings Renaissance Program) attest, we Vancouverites value the historical architecture of the inner-city. Many of these old buildings need a little love and elbow grease as time does take its toll, but they shine up real good.

But where is Vancouver’s inner-city in regards to a similar project like the one in Bristol? Well, it has been discussed, and there are still people in the community who believe a similar deconstruction social enterprise might be successful here. We do have a proud history as an enterprising lumber town after all.

Is it a matter of timing though?

As construction of high density buildings becomes more expensive, eating into the bottom line of those projects, and as space becomes less available in our city perhaps reclaimed materials from deconstruction will present an affordable and accessible option for developers? And that in turn may likely create more demand for deconstruction and restorative work, more space to develop, and perhaps contribute to more affordable housing prices? Someone would probably have to write a thesis as opposed to a blog post to really answer some of those questions. But this is a place for ideas and conversation after all.

It’s some food for thought as we look to the future of this city and our inner-city’s urban design. By looking at the Bristol Wood Recycling Project and other similar enterprises we can perhaps better imagine the choices that may present themselves to us down the road.

-Wes-

It was just announced that Steve Cole of Sacred Heart Tattoo will be doubling his prize giveaway at Kaleidoscope from $160 to $320 dollars worth of tattoo time!! And with that I’ll launch into a quick reminder that Kaleidoscope, a celebration of art, culture and entrepreneurial spirit in the DTES is happening this Saturday at the Rickshaw Theatre, 257 E 4th Ave from 7:00 pm to 10:00 Pm. Other prizes include a georgeous gift basket from Saul Good Gift Co. an Award for the Coolest Person in Vancouver 2010 form Eclipse Awards International and a $250 gift card from Fluevog (Vancouver’s favorite shoemaker)

A reminder that tix are $10 and are available at Red Cat, Scratch and Zulu records or you can pay by donation at the door.

WHY DID WES AND HIS FRIENDS FRASER AND LEX DO THIS? Well…let me be disarmingly personal for a moment if I may. In the 3 months that I’ve been with Building Opportunities with Business I have been so impressed by the work that goes on here, by the office culture, the leadership that the management team shows and the work ethic that the staff have. The projects and people that I’ve been introduced to have inspired me and given me hope. The Canadian Mental Health Association and many other organizations at work in Vancouver’s inner-city help people who are most at risk of losing their livelihoods and ending up in a self destructive cycle. Mental health, is  a serious issue and one that has impacted the DTES (particularly in light of one particular mental health facility closing down some 20 years ago).

Why a celebration of entrepreneurial spirit in the DTES? Because as important as it is for our government leaders to address these social issues and help to improve our communities it is also up to us. Entrepreneurs who take a chance on inner-city neighbourhoods, who put their creativity, their elbow grease and their cash into a venture in the inner-city deserve to be recognized; they too can have a powerful positive impact on the community through their actions, and through their success. They show leadership and take initiative, they create opportunities for residents and other businesses here in the DTES. Those are the kinds of people who strengthen community capacity. So by having these companies donate a prize it’s a way to promote them and recognize them, by having the proceeds go to non-profits and charitable organizations we recognize the work that goes on from that end too. We celebrate them both and celebrate art, music and life along with them!

So naturally a combination of the two made sense, and that is what Kaleidoscope is all about. That, and having fun listening to great bands and enjoying a drink with friends in a cool venue. If this sounds like something you might enjoy then come on down this Saturday 7pm to the newly reopened Rickshaw Theatre at 257 E. Hastings. We would love to see you there.

Wes