Container Green Roof

Via the Guardian: "To heighten the profile of green roofs as a wildlife space, [Dusty] Gedge [from Livingroofs.org] has teamed up with John Little of Grassroofcompany.co.uk and Dan Monck and Duncan Kramer – all green-roof campaigners – to design a new rooftop vegetation system that can be grown on top of disused shipping containers. A carefully developed substrate mix, utilising building waste mixed with sedum plants, is custom planted with native wild flowers and plants, along with nesting and bat boxes. The container space can be used for storage or converted into a bike shelter, outdoor classroom or even a bird hide. Two are already in situ, one in London at Barnes Wetland Centre and one in Liverpool. Because the roof is custom planted it can, as Gedge puts it, "meet almost any local biodiversity action plan requirements for habitats and species"

:: image via The Guardian

Cool concept indeed, but not sure what the invention is with this 'system', as pretty much any green roofing technology could be adapted for shipping containers and these are customized - so not very systematic nor modular? Is it the mobility aspect that is laudable, in being able to insert 'habitat modules' where they may be needed... while retaining usable space below? Or is it that we have too many shipping containers and need to find ever more irrelevant uses for them? Either way, as I've spoken with literally dozens of people interested in doing things and greening shipping containers - it seems a great possibility indeed.