In the Spring of 2005 a 4100 ft 2 green roof, designed by a group of faculty, staff, and students from Carnegie Mellon Green Practices, was installed on the south roof of Hamerschlag Hall. A primary motivation for the project was to provide a campus test site for evaluation of the engineering performance of green roofs for reduction in storm water runoff rate and volume, and for improvement of building insulation and energy efficiency. For storm water runoff monitoring, two identical, hydraulically isolated areas were established which each direct runoff to a single point where flow rate is monitored. A similar size, hydraulically-isolated area on a nearby conventional flat roof is used as a control. In addition, a weather station and soil moisture sensors have been installed. All monitoring systems are real-time and the data are collected continuously with a central data logger. The green roof installation was supported in part by grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Energy Harvest Program, and from 3 Rivers Wet Weather, Inc. Additional information about the Hamerschlag Hall green roof is available at http://www.cmu.edu/greenpractices.
Carnegie Mellon University with participating faculty from four colleges and eight departments
