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A house with a seaweed roof in Denmark. © H.Mikkelsen/R.Byg/Solent News
Innovative Green Roofing Materials
Green construction materials are increasing in popularity, and the engineers creating these construction materials are getting more and more creative. None are more inventive than those creating new green roofing materials. We have complied a list of the most interesting green roofing materials that have recently been used.
Garbage
No one can argue that recycling is one of the best ways to protect the environment. However, a business owner in Pakistan took this concept to a whole new level by creating a new roofing material from what he found in local garbage dumps. The CEO of Gulbahao Trust, Nargis Latif, said of his inventive roofing materials: “We are not only providing effective waste management but also solutions to societal problems. We use all the waste materials in our products, even the ones that are usually not touched by waste collectors.” The end result was a light-weight prefabricated roofing material used to preempt disasters, such as flooding.
Seaweed
Engineers is Denmark recently created a thatched roof for a cottage in the forest by using eight tons of seaweed from a nearby lake for the roofing material. The seaweed was washed, packed, dried, and made into bales to cover the roof. Soren Nielsen, the architect who designed the unique house, said of his work: “The objective was to demonstrate how a natural resource like seaweed can be integrated in contemporary construction.The idea was to re-introduce overlooked or disregarded organic materials to a modern industrialized technology at a time where low-carbon solutions are much called for.”
Peel-and-Stick Solar Modules
Fraunhofer USA is currently working on a homeowner friendly “peel-and-stick” PV module to be applied to the roof. The goal is to have a cost-friendly, easy-to-install photovoltaic system that the average homeowner would be able to install themselves available within five years. Geoffrey Kinsey, Director of Photovoltaic Technologies at Fraunhofer USA’s Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) has the following vision for this unique roofing material: “The key is, you have to make them [the panels] connect safely, and you have to make them plug-and-play to drop the installation cost. With that, the last inhibitors are gone, the barriers have dropped away.”
It’s safe to say that advances in green roofing technologies won’t end here. We’re excited to see what will come next.
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