6th Floor Green Roof

If you haven't been on the 6th floor of Block D lately (or ever!), you should make the climb and have a look.  The rooftop space there is being transformed from an empty expanse of concrete to a multi-purpose green space for use by the whole UWCSEA East community.  

The original rooftop space 

The first real changes were brought about by the Rainforest Restoration Project (Mireille Couture, MiC).  Their goal is to propagate seedlings of endangered trees and shrubs endemic to the region and to find permanent planting sites for them around Singapore.  Through funding made possible by a generous donor, they have already built a shade house that protects the seedlings from direct sunlight while also catching rainwater for irrigation.  Students work here propagating and tending seedlings on Thursdays after school.  

Rainforest Restoration Project shade house

Last year, the High School Urban Gardeners (Andy Ware, AWa) began planning a rooftop garden for this space.  They spent a lot of time researching the design and trialing methods on the UWC-sponsored Dairy Farm rooftop garden located on the roof of the Giant superstore next to Ikea.  They are in the process of assembling and preparing large planter beds for this space with the goal of growing organic herbs and veggies and creating a green patch that can accessed by teachers and students.  They are on the rooftop on Mondays after school. 

HS Urban Gardeners assembling the steel planters

Students installing geotextile 

The first completed planter box

Adjacent to the Rainforest Restoration seedling nursery is a new propagation chamber where other gardening services like the Primary School Urban Gardeners (Kath Lane, KtL), the Middle School Urban Gardeners (Adam Erickson, AEr and Alex Prudhomme, APr), the Campus Improvement Team Herb Gardeners (Lay Keng and Dena Lim), science technicians, the facilities teams and even Global Concerns like the Island Foundation (Marianne Young-MacDonald, MYM and Martin Spreckley, MSy) will propagate seedlings for their various needs.  It makes use of repurposed broken classroom tables and a misting system that keeps germinating seedlings moist even on hot, dry days.  

New propagation chamber

In addition, last year's graduating class gift sponsored a student lounge for the 6th floor rooftop.  This space was installed by the facilities team in mid-September.  And speaking of the facilities team, I should mention the hours of work that Simon, Dena, Sarwani, Shahril, Lay Keng and their crews have put into helping to coordinate these projects.

Student lounge area

The benefits of rooftop gardens are well documented. In addition to the individual goals of each of the organizations mentioned above, we hope that our school community will benefit from this rooftop garden in the following ways:  1) Food security: fresh herbs and veggies!  2) Reduced building cooling costs—plants cool the surface they grow on  3)  An outdoor learning space for classes and the community 4) Increased biodiversity on campus as other species are drawn to the green space 5)  General well-being as our community is able to interact with nature.  The goal is to replicate this model across other rooftops and concrete scapes on campus including the boarding house, the junior school, tent plaza and the 6th floor art terrace.  

So go up and have a look. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment, but that’s what change looks like!  If you'd like more information on this process or want to contribute, you can contact me or any of the staff involved. 

Adam