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There are many local efforts to spare and restore so-called “green space” in the 4th largest city in the country. Houston Public Radio’s Capella Tucker reports on one such effort by a group of University of Houston Architecture students who have been working on an piece of land near their campus.
An acres of land next to the UH’s College of Architecture used to be nothing but dried grass. Slowly architecture students are converting it into an outdoor plaza of sorts. Trees are planted and gravel was brought in to help with drainage. One student, Laura Garcia, points to a small hill before the spring rains it was a pile of dirt now it’s covered with wild flowers.
The idea of the berm is to be self-sustaining. But the students aren’t done yet. Among other smaller projects, they’ve turned their attention to developing a “green roof” for a building being renovated next to the architure building. Another student, Andre Dejean, says there are two types of green roofs. Their’s is called an extensive green roof.
Houston has green roof’s elsewhere, all of them on flat roofs. The students here are testing one on a slopped roof. A mock-up will be on the ground while the students test which native plants will work best. Then it’ll be moved to the roof of the building. Dejean says there are many benefits.
The students teacher, landscape architect Charles Tapley, says the students are learning to keep in mind the surroundings of structures they’ll build in the future.