Until the late 19th century, throughout Scandinavia it was more than usual to see houses with roof made of birch bark and sod. Turf roofs were an inestimable help for people to make their house draught-proof and to provide efficient insulation in a cold climate. Nowadays, for different reasons but with some purposes in common with the past, roof gardens are becoming more and more popular all over the world and even in Finland.
Having a garden on the roof of a building has so many advantages that it’s even difficult to name them all. It’s clearly a huge improvement for the aesthetics of the building, but it also has positive effects on the environment.
With a growing percentage of our cities going to road, buildings, pavements and car parks, a garden on the roof can be a great aid. It insulates buildings, it provides more soil that can help absorb water in case of particularly heavy downpours and its plants absorb carbon dioxide emissions and release oxygen.
Finland is becoming aware of the possibilities of roof gardens. Many projects and experiments are now underway, particularly in the capital region.
At Kumpulan Kampus, the Science campus of the University of Helsinki, two different projects have started in the last few months. The first one aims at having a working greenhouse that harvests exhaust heat from multiple rack-mounted servers on top of the Exactum building.
“We started to put our servers outside in February 2010”, says Mikko Pervilä of the Department of Computer Science, “so that we wouldn’t need air conditioning anymore to cool them down. Then we started to think at how we could use the heat produced by the servers and the idea of the greenhouse came up”.
The greenhouse was built in December 2011 and the first seeds planted at the beginning of March 2012 under the supervision of Lassi Remes of the Department of Agricultural Science. At the moment, chili peppers and tomatoes, together with rosemary, lavender, coriander and basil, are growing on the top of the building. “We would like the local UniCafé to use the products we are growing in the greenhouse, but we could also give some of the harvest to visitors or other enthusiasts”.
All around the greenhouse is an area of over 150 m2 where a green roof have been designed. This is part of a research project known as The Fifth Dimension that aims at investigating the role of green roofs in urban spaces. “We have a list of plant species that we want to support and we are seeding them on the roof”, says Malgorzata Gabrych of the Faculty of Environmental Science. “We research roof gardens as habitat provision and eventually we would like to have a list of plant species that are the best candidates to grow on the green roofs in Finland”
On top of the old Kaapeli factory in Ruolahti another green roof has recently bloomed. The association Slow Food Helsinki has been given an area of about 40 m2 to grow their own garden. “The primus motor of the idea is sculptor Angela Oker-Blom” says Bitte Westerlund of Slow Food Helsinki. “She had had a studio in the Kaapeli factory for about 20 years and had been looking out on an empty roof for a long time. She told the other members about her idea during the Slow Food Helsinki Christmas party and we all thought it was great. The director of the culture house Kaapeli, Stuba Nikula, gave us the possibility to have the garden on top of the 8th floor, so there it is now.”
Many members of the association volunteered in mid-May for planting chives, rosemary, mint, potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, salads, dill, french tarragon, onions and more. Now the plants and flowers are growing and blooming. “It’s a marvellous garden with a great view, but also with very hard conditions since it’s a very windy place. Having a garden in such a rooftop is a learning experience. We cannot grow basil there, for instance, but many other herbs are doing well.”
Both the Kumpulan Kampus and the Slow Food Helsinki projects stress also the importance of roof gardens in reducing food miles of fruit and vegetables. Picking your own food in the right season and knowing exactly where it comes from is rewarding, to say the least. This is something that Helsinki citizens may experience soon with the Lasipalatsi Garden, a very ambitious project that would bring urban gardening in one of the most known and popular area of the capital.
“The aim is to create an urban, open space that the citizens can use”, says Sini Parikka of Kattoparatiisi Ry. “The plan consists of three areas: urban gardening on the roof, green rooftop area and a fruit tree garden area on the ground level. There could be approximately 150 boxes for gardening. These will be free to be rented and used as wanted, with the only request to maintain each share correctly.”
Even if this project is still in its early stages, it has already draw the attention of different media and it is definitely something worth checking on in the coming months. “We don’t have now a precise time schedule for the launch of the project. The Lasipalatsi building is marked as a valuable piece of architecture in Helsinki and it is highly important for us to firstly respect the cityscape, the city users and the city culture.”