Environmental penthouse style for wharf nature - as grassy roofs offer the high life.

RPS has constructed the green roof-terrace gardens for luxury riverside apartments at London's Tower Hamlets' New Providence Wharf development. The mixed-use development was designed by Skidmore Owings Merrill for Ballymore, and is close to Canary Wharf, boasting its own shops, café, hotel, gym, spa and offices alongside 1050 residential units ranging from studio suites to millionaires' top-floor apartments.

The project began with the intention of having planted roofs, but English Nature suggested that living, green roofs could provide habitats for endangered wildlife. The roofs were designed by Urban Land Studio. The inspiration for the green roofs was to replace some of the habitat that had been lost in the development, and features nesting boxes for the endangered Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) which prefer a lofty home.

The green roofs have helped to tick many of the boxes for the BREEAM rating of the development. The crescent-shaped block is stepped from the 12 storey level at one end, to the 19th storey at the other. Storeys 12-18 feature green roofs, and the lift motor overruns also have their roofs planted with sedums and wild flowers. The S-shaped block (which includes social as well as private housing) is planted with sedums set in mats to secure them. On the development's hotel (which joins the 'Ontario Tower'), a 1.5m outer strip on the roof has been planted with sedum and wild flowers, surrounding a central pond, also planted with wild flowers.

The green roofs include private gardens for the penthouses featured in the development as well as forming natural habitat for the local wildlife, and are anticipated to provide substantial green accommodation for insects and birds above the lofty high-rises!

RPS St Ives (Ecology) will be hosting a seminar on green roofs this autumn, the aim of which will be to demystify green roofs and show how these can be incorporated within developments without great expense or hassle, benefiting people and wildlife, and ticking BREEAM boxes into the bargain!  Further details to follow shortly (all queries to be addressed to Fiona Martin, Senior Consultant Ecologist, email: martinf@rpsgroup.com , tel: 01480 466 335).

RPS Group plc will be hosting a seminar on green roofs this autumn, the aim of which will be to demystify green roofs and show how these can be incorporated within developments without great expense or hassle, benefiting people and wildlife, and ticking BREEAM boxes into the bargain!  Further details to follow shortly (all queries to be addressed to Fiona Martin, Senior Consultant Ecologist, email: martinf@rpsgroup.com, tel: 01480 466 335).

For more information please contact: RPS Cambridge (Willowmere) - Planning & Development T: 01480 466335