"We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature's ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms.
Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life."
This quote is from Fritjof Capra, the Founder of the Centre for Ecoliteracy.
The Center for Ecoliteracy is a leader in the green schooling movement. The Center is best known for its pioneering work with school gardens, school lunches, and integrating ecological principles and sustainability into school curricula.
The Center for Ecoliteracy offers books; teaching guides; professional development seminars; a sustainability leadership academy; keynote presentations; and consulting services.
The Center's website offers hundreds of downloadable resource materials, including practical guides, essays by leading writers and experts, and inspiring stories of school communities and organizations across the country that are engaged in this vital work.
School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University "This 5 story facility sweeps a wooded corner of the campus with an organic, vegetated form that blends landscape and structure, nature and high-tech and symbolizes the creativity it houses...The curving green roofs distinguish the building from among the other structures on campus but the line between landscape and building is blurred. The roofs serve as informal gathering spaces challenging linear ideas and stirring perception. The roofs create open space, insulate the building, cool the surrounding air and harvest rainwater for landscaping irrigation. Planted grasses mix with native greenery to colonize the building and bond it to the setting," (Inhabitat, 2008).
Green roofs have environmental, economic, social and aesthetic advantages.
To find out more green roofs view this short video introduction from greenroofs.com
