Green Roof Types
Intensive
Intensive roof tops are named so as they tend to need more maintenance as typically this type of roof top will have larger plants or soil depth. This maintenance will be duties such as irrigation or feeding the plants. Intensive Roof Tops tend to be larger and are found on large buildings.
Intensive green roofs often have other green or resources included in the structure. In some cases they are more like “mini parks” on a roof top where users can walk through pathways and as they are on larger buildings such as office blocks, offer employees a green area to go and relax whilst still in the building.
Extensive
The opposite of Intensive Roof Tops are Extensive Green Roofs. They are designed in a way that the maintenance is kept to minimal and the final product should self sustaining. They usually only use a thin layer of soil but in most cases this does not mean you can completely leave the roof to its own devices, as it is a living structure then plants or grass will grow and will occasionally need to be trimmed or the owner might want to add soil treatments or fertilizers even if this is done on a yearly basis.
As Extensive Roof Tops are more self sustaining they are better suited to be placed on pitched roof tops. Pitched roof tops offer better natural irrigation as water will channel naturaly towards the base of the roof. It is however possible to install an extensive roof top on a flat roof although more attention needs to be paid to drainage.
You will normally find extensive roof tops on housing or smaller buildings or a green roof top area where the designer does expect the public to go. Usually as the soil thickness is much thinnr , smaller plants and shrubs are used to cover the roof.
Brown Roofs
Although flat roofs are more complex for drainage reasons they are ideal as Brown Roofs. Brown Roofs are roof tops that are covered by a locally sourced material. These materials can be very varied (usually non-soil and can be rubble, crushed rock, cement ) as the roof can be in any part of the world. The roofs are seeded and are a great home for insects, small plants and shrubs.
