GREEN ROOF CONTRIBUTES TO 70% OPEN SPACE
29 Jun 2016
A solar-powered recreational centre in the Playa Vista region of Los Angeles features a 725sqm green roof that highlights the development’s ethos of sustainable design and construction.
The Playa Vista development located in Los Angeles, California, is a sustainably conscious community with parks, retail outlets and offices space that currently caters to over 7000 residents and 3400 homes. With 27 community parks and open spaces in every direction, the Playa Vista community’s original concept of devoting 70% of the original design to open space is well on its way to being achieved.
Community gardens and many intimate pocket parks abound, with the Playa Vista recreational centre contributing additional green space in the form of a 725sqm planted roof.
The recreational centre was designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios and is LEED Platinum-certified. Planted walls and expansive glass surfaces form the building’s aesthetic, with internal courtyards facilitating natural ventilation. Passive cooling systems utilise coastal breezes to ventilate around 75 percent of the building. A large corridor that forms the building’s spine divides public and private spaces in the centre and serves as a central corridor between residential and community spaces in the development.
Playa Vista was the first community in the United States to be awarded the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® prior to construction because of its trendsetting Sustainable Design Guidelines. The recreation centre itself contains a number of environmentally friendly and energy-efficient features that lie at the core of the building’s construction.
The planted roof that crowns the centre is inhabited with palm trees and, in accordance with California’s increasing drought conditions, drought-tolerant plants that work together to maintain consistent indoor temperatures. The planted areas lie alongside a series of solar panels and a recyclable light-coloured PVC membrane that increases the energy efficiency of the building.
