Thinking of having a green roof on your future home?

Green roofs can be great inclusions in your home design and improve the thermal performance of your home, and your lifestyle in your home as well.

This is Part 1 of my conversation with Emilio Fuscaldo, Nest Architects about green roofs.

Hello! This is Episode 264, and in it, I’m talking with architect, Emilio Fuscaldo of Nest Architects, about Green Roofs.

Over the years, I’ve had lots of members of the UA Community ask me about green roofs, and so, when I went hunting for someone I could bring to the podcast to discuss this topic, one specific architect’s name kept coming up: Emilio Fuscaldo.

Emilio is a Melbourne based architect with his own practice that’s been running now for around 17 years. And in 2011, he designed a new 80m2 home for his partner and himself that included a fantastic green roof.

Being his own home, Emilio was able to establish a great understanding of the building and maintaining the green roof, and also collect a lot of information on what it was like to live with the benefits of a green roof and its impact on the thermal performance and lifestyle in the home.

Traditionally green roofs are something we’ve seen in commercial projects or in overseas work, and anytime I’ve tried one, it’s involved concrete, and lots of structure and high end detailing.

Emilio’s example is a different approach, and if you’re keen to include a green roof on your home, I know this will be a fantastic conversation for you to hear, as Emilio breaks down all the details for us in how he designed and constructed this for his home.

Now, let’s dive in!

Before we jump into this conversation about green roofs, let me tell you about Emilio and Nest Architects.

Nest Architects was founded in 2006 by Emilio Fuscaldo. The award winning practice reflects his personal beliefs in collaboration, environmental sustainability and inclusive design.

Emilio is a registered Architect and as well as being the Director of Nest, he teaches regularly at The University of Melbourne.

Prior to completing an Architectural degree, Emilio completed an Arts Degree with Honours in Philosophy, including a thesis concerning Environmental Ethics, and you’ll hear in the episode about how this led him to his studies and a career in architecture.

Emilio has significant experience leading projects across diverse sectors, including single residential, hospitality, retail and education. He enjoys working collaboratively to design environments with warmth and meaning.

In this episode, you’ll hear Emilio talk about his green roof being an Extensive green roof, which is a shallow profile green roof, which supports a particular type of planting.

You can also have Intensive and Semi-Intensive green roofs, which will have a deeper profile, support a more significant type of planting such as food gardens, or heavily planted areas and these are often what people think about when picturing green roofs.

Green roofs: Photographs of Emilio Fuscaldo’s project

The plywood roof deck structure [Source: Emilio Fuscaldo]

The substrates being applied over the plywood [Source: Emilio Fuscaldo]

The soil being installed onto the roof

The roof ready for planting and irrigation

The finished roof

Photographs of the finished home [Source: Nest Architects]

Tune into this conversation and also Part 2 in the next episode, as Emilio shares how he went about creating and building a green roof in his own home, and his learnings about green roofs, sustainable design and thermal performance in this and other project examples as well.

In this episode, I ask Emilio questions such as:

• Tell us a bit about yourself, why you became an architect and about creating your own business Nest Architects
• You created your own home with your partner in 2011 – about 80m2 on 180m2 block. What life was like for you at the time, and what your goals were with the home?
• The home has a green roof … which I’d love to talk about in more detail.
  • Why did you choose to create a roof like this?
  • What steps did you take to design this way?
  • What benefits does the green roof have?
  • The structure, irrigation, plant species, detailing, maintenance.
  • Did you have any issues with council? Or during the build?

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

RESOURCES:

Nest Architects >>> https://www.nestarchitects.com.au/

• Articles on Emilio’s home
  The Design Files >>> https://thedesignfiles.net/2016/12/emilio-fuscaldo-of-nest-architects/
• Dwell >>> https://www.dwell.com/article/green-roof-inspiration-ideas-99f0e5bc/6255436488122724352
• ABC Article >>> https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/bydesign/energy-efficient-green-roof-nominated-for-architecture-awards/5451970

Article on Green Roofs featured in Sanctuary Magazine >>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U-XI0ZpSPzoAW2VYdlNhdpIsrxV0sT04/view?usp=share_link

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/

Learn more about how to get started with your home design with the Happy Home Design mini-course >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/happy-home-design

Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan