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How does your garden grow?

May 18, 2011

At Howlett Hall, the answer is “High.”

By Julia Harris

For the past two or three years, Mary Maloney has been seeing things that aren’t there. Namely, she’s been gazing across the barren, post-industrial landscape that is the roof of Howlett Hall and seeing a lush green paradise of blooming flowers, shrubs and even a tree or two.

“If you don’t have a vision, nothing happens,” said Maloney, director of Chadwick Arboretum and Learning Gardens. She folded her arms and squinted across the peeling, tarpapered Howlett roof, from which humming HVAC units jutted like shipwrecks.

The vision Maloney has will radicaly transform that blasted terrain into a rooftop garden where visitors can stroll on curving pathways through a verdant, 10,000-square-foot ecosystem. Divided into three sections, the roof will feature covered meeting space, a garden designed for casual viewing and another intended primarily for horticultural research.

Not only will the rehabbed roof — slated for completion in late fall 2012 — provide a place of respite and research, it also will serve an important ecological role by helping reduce the amount of stormwater runoff that winds up in Ohio rivers and streams and by actively removing carbon from the atmosphere.

“We’ve created too many impervious spaces — parking lots, buildings — where rain, when it hits, can no longer go down into the groundwater. Instead, when the water falls on that roof, it goes instantly into a drain, down into the sewer and directly into the river,” Maloney said.

“If we can mitigate that, and if all buildings at Ohio State can have these green roofs — which absorb rainwater unless it’s one of those 1,000-year storms — we can get a real handle on our storm water management efforts,” she added.

Other benefits of green roofs are the insulating effects they provide for buildings — hotter in the winter, cooler in the summer — and a significant reduction in utilities costs.

“A lot of the university’s HVAC units are located on roofs, so when the temperature is 180 degrees on the roof, the HVAC system has to pull that air in, cool it down and then pump it into the rooms of the building,” said Megan Welsh, student project manager for the Howlett green roof.

“A green roof cools the air by 30 or 40 degrees, so it’s much less taxing for those HVAC systems,” she said.

In light of such clear benefits afforded by green roofs, it seems surprising more buildings don’t already have them. Of course, not all roofs have the weight-bearing capacity to support such a garden, and the installation costs for even a small one can be prohibitive — the city of Dublin shelled out more than $70,000 to turn 2,300 square feet into a green space, while the Howlett project, if fully funded, will come in at $2 million.

And the expertise to install and maintain a rooftop garden is not insignificant: Welsh, who is two quarters away from graduation, studied green roof technology for six months in order to gain certification as a Green Roof Professional — making her one of only five such professionals in the state of Ohio.

“I’ve spent the last year educating faculty, students and staff about what a green roof is,” Welsh said. “There are extensive and intensive green roofs, which just has to do with the depth of growing medium you’re using. An extensive green roof is 4-6 inches of substrate and less expensive, less maintenance, less weight. Intensive is more like 8-18 inches of growing medium and you can plant shrubs, trees, more variety.”

On the Howlett Hall roof, Maloney and her team of horticulturalists and landscape architects plan to experiment with just what kinds of plants will thrive in such an environment. In addition to the more “traditional” green roof inhabitant — sedums, a small succulent plant that flourishes in the harsh, full-sun growing conditions of a roof habitat — they hope to introduce woody shrubs, a shallow-rooted tree and vertical walls adorned with vegetation of various types.

“It’s going to be a dynamic site — we’re not just going to install it and walk away,” Maloney said. “It’s going to be a research site because it’s associated with the Department of Horticulture. We’ll be studying soil types, soilless mixes, different types of plant material.”

Her eyes roved over the expanse of the Howlett roof one more time. “You know, when Dr. Gee talks about the One Framework plan and the de-siloization, this roof is doing that,” she said. “We now have meaningful relationships with people in Facilities Operations and Development, we’re working with the university architects, the Office of Research. Every new thing requires innovation if it’s going to be successful, and we’re always looking for ways to innovate.”

Green: The new black

Green roofs are becoming more popular as the need for new green spaces grows. Here in central Ohio, a number of rooftop gardens are already in place and can be enjoyed by the public — with a little bit of advanced planning.

In Dublin, a small section of the Community Recreation Center has been turned into a roof garden complete with a walkway, a small patio and two rain barrels to collect water. See dublin.oh.us/itsgreener/green-rooftop/index.php.

On the rooftop of the old Lazarus Building, the OSU Urban Arts Space hosts guided monthly tours of its garden, which boasts a panoramic view of the city. To schedule a tour, see uas.osu.edu/tours.

Atop Knowlton Hall, a gravelly garden populated with shrubs and grasses provides a venue for studying or exploring. See knowlton.osu.edu/?content=9.

Ohio State takes lead role to improve state’s auto industry

February 3, 2010

On the heels of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s State of the State speech, in which he suggested that  businesses and industry work with Ohio’s universities to solve economic challenges, the Ohio State University is playing a major role in making recommendations to grow the state’s auto industry.

At a meeting yesterday of Strickland’s Ohio Auto Industry Support Council, Giorgio Rizzoni, director of Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research and professor of mechanical engineering, presented a set of five specific recommendations to protect and advance automotive manufacturing in the state.

The recommendations were developed by a council working group co-chaired by Rizzoni and Eric Burkland, president of the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, and including members Glenn Daehn, director of the Ohio Manufacturing Institute and an Ohio State professor of materials science and engineering; Noah Sudow, associate director of economic advancement for the Ohio Board of Regents; and John Magill, chief strategic officer of the Ohio Department of Development.

The working group recommended that the state:

• Create a Distributed Manufacturing Innovation Network, which would use computer and networking resources as well as people to connect industry challenges with the resources most likely to create solutions;
• Make use of the University System of Ohio’s resources in expertise, equipment, research staff and students as a catalyst for long-term innovation ideas for the auto industry;
• Identify and train manufacturing advocates — manufacturing professionals who are generalists — who can assess company needs, act as full-service agents to link companies with resources and manage projects in university or industry environments;
• Establish agreements between state-supported organizations, such as Edison Technology Centers (which foster the advancement of applied research and development to increase competitiveness of existing companies within Ohio’s key industry sectors) and Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers (statewide programs that provide products, services and assistance to Ohio manufacturers), and colleges and universities to foster the exchange of personnel; and
• Streamline project initiation by providing rapid state funding and approval for projects in which automotive companies agree to cost sharing.

The Ohio Auto Industry Support Council will begin forming a committee that will, within the next three to four months, identify ways and means to implement the recommendations.

“We’re working to reach a historic agreement between the University System of Ohio and consumer products powerhouse Proctor & Gamble that will turn the most innovative ideas developed in our universities into products and economic development,” Strickland said. “To further advance Ohio’s economic growth, I have also called on the Ohio Auto Industry Support Council to use this agreement as a model to advance similar partnerships between the university system and Ohio’s manufacturing sector. I appreciate the council’s quick action to begin working to help more Ohio businesses generate economic development and job creation.”

Through such agreements, Strickland said, companies would get the expertise of the innovative thinkers at universities, universities would benefit from unprecedented opportunities to collaborate with companies on new products or services, and Ohioans would gain the end result of new economic development.

Gas-sipping cars get nicer spots at Tuttle and Lane garages

January 20, 2010

By Adam King

Ohio State’s idea of sustainability is beginning to extend to even the most unlikely of places one could think of as being “green” — a pair of parking garages.

But it’s all in Transportation and Parking’s effort to help earn Silver LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for the new Lane Avenue Parking Garage and the adjacent and soon-to-be opened Student Academic Services Building. Currently the only Silver LEED-certified building on campus is the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center. Continue reading ‘Gas-sipping cars get nicer spots at Tuttle and Lane garages’

Shades of Green

May 21, 2009

 by Julia Harris

Many good ideas never mature past the “Oh! What a good idea!” phase.

But for the students and teachers at Cranbrook Elementary, a small school within walking distance of campus, a good idea hatched by employees in the business operations arm of Ohio State’s Office of Business and Finance has germinated into a fruitful partnership. Continue reading ‘Shades of Green’

CURB’s her enthusiasm

May 21, 2009

FOD staffer heads a Clintonville group dedicated to a greener community

by Julia Harris

For Peggy Barylak, senior human research consultant with Facilities Operations and Development, green has been a favorite color - and way of life - for a lot longer than it’s been a social and political movement.

In fact, hers has been a decades-long crusade that has changed habits and opened eyes about recycling and environmental issues for residents of Clintonville and beyond. Continue reading ‘CURB’s her enthusiasm’