Welcome and News

February / January 2010

Green infrastructure Australia become member of WGIN. Thanks to Geoff Wilson, organizing the promotion tour: Green roofs and photovoltaics; a lecture serie will held in seven Australian Cities in February 2010; more ...

 

We welcome the Polish Greenroof Association; read more

 

Shanghai: Greenrooftops.cn invites Green infrastructure professionals to participate; more

 

November/December 2009 - News headlines:

1: Great news from Norway:

One of Norway´s oldest companies Nittedal torvindusti AS, "Taktorv" has just joined the association as a corporate member.

Information about their products is number of languages is available on:

http://www.nittedal-torvindustri.no/handel/

Contact: Morten Sandbeklien

2: Korea joins the WGIN:

Prof. Eun Heui LEE from Seoul Women´s University officially joined the WGIN at Cities Alive conference in Toronto. She now represents Korea in the WGIN. She is involved in Environmental and Life Science research and is responsible for "Restoration Ecology". Details about her organization will be available in our next update.

3: New name & Logo

It was decided in Toronto to change the name of the association from

WGRIN to

WGIN and add the slogan "Vegetation makes it possible"

The updated logo is added in the header of this page.

4. World Green roof Congress in Mexico;

- See the contributions deadline on the following homepage: ttp://www.amenamex.org/land_eng.html

5. Mexico speaker schedule - We have 10 slots for international speakers at WGIN Congress next year. A WGIN speaker selection committee has been set up.

6. India applied for WGIN Membership:

Prof. Suresh Billore, Indore University has applied to become the national representative for India. His main interest is food production and storm water retention on green roofs for India. Did you know that in India are 500 year old green roofs still in existence?

7. China will become in 2010 WGIN Member:

Please visit the homepage for Chinese organization details and the upcoming event during the World EXPO in May 2010: www.greenrooftops.cn. WGIN is going to support this event..

8. The polish green roof organization:

Poland is also joining WGIN in 2010

October 16th, 2009

Cities Alive conference begins:

Monday 18th: WGRIN Annual General meeting 9.00 - 11:30. Pinnacle Room, 43 Floor, Sheraton Hotel

-- Monday Afternoon 2 pm: WGRIN Round Table; Workshop led by Geoff Wilson and Manfred Köhler.

 

-- Monday night: Grand opening and get together at City hall

-- Tuesday night out at the SteamWhistle brewery; Award for the Student Design Challenge, see some results:

 

-- Wednesday night “Mexican Fiesta” at the Toronto Botanical Gardens with a video presentation of Green roofs around the world!

 

-- Reed more in the Architecture Monitor 4/2009.

 

Further information: the Green roof movement in Romania has also started.

 

October 3th, 2009

WGRIN has a new Member. The organization KIFA, located in St. Petersburg, Russia is our Russian representative. (more, see press release, and visit their homepage).

 

August 18th, 2009

Summer vacation came to an end in Europe. Just now it is the time to register to the upcomming events in Italy (September 11th in Bologna, and for Cities Alive. WGRIN Member organization enjoy discount rates for participation in both conferences!

 

August 15th, 2009

The National Green Roof Organization of Greece, called Green Roof Greece has become a full member (prasines-stages.gr): Press release:

Make Greece Green with Green Roofs and Green Walls is an independent advocacy and lobby network established to promote and support urban greening in Greece. It also acts as a consumer watchdog network and advisory board on best urban greening methods and practices and codes of professional conduct for the urban greening industry. It currently boasts a membership over 18 000. Amongst the members are stakeholders of every variety from landscape architects, civil engineers, architects, agronomists, nurseries, urban planners, state representatives from ministries, municipalities, polytechnics and universities along with private industry. The great majority of the members are members of the public who are greening enthusiasts and share the group’s vision. The group has become in August the national body member of the World Green Roof Infrastructure Network (WGRIN) so that information can be shared with this global urban greening network and so that Greece can take its place amongst the nations of the world where sustainable urban development is considered the only way forward. Contact person: Andrew Clements.

 

July 20th, 2009

WGRIN welcomes a new corporate member! The Company Carl Stahl home based near Stuttgart - Germany, now in many countries. Carl Stahl is focussed on Living wall infrastructures. Learn more ...

 

May 30th

Only a few days until the Atlanta event of GRHC. The WGRIN Meeting will take place on Wednesday morning, June 2nd. Members are invited.

 

May 29th

IGRA - Congress Nuertingen, Germany, sucessfully came to a close. About 300 participants from 40 countries joined the four days of green roof technology and various events. For photographs please see the picture page. Next IGRA Congress will be held in November 2010 in Singapore!

 

March 15th

We welcome new Members:

- Individual National Member South Africa (Eric Noir),

- Individual National Member Chile (Latin Green; Ignacio Espoz)

- The Green Green Roof Association from New Zealand. Elizabeth Fassmann and the team. (integrated for the first time into GRA).

 

March 14th

Learn more about our new corporate member ProtectsSys.de. Leak detection at its best for green roofs and urban water features. More about corporate members is comming soon on our corporate member - "News".

 

March 13th:

- New Press release: WGRIN has now 11 national Members, read more and download the story from Geoff Wilson.

- Cross linking to the International online Journal "Biotope City", Thanks to Helga Fassbinder.

 

March 1th: WGRIN starts the Think tank: "Green Architecture and the economic crises". Positions for a better World, an open discussion for future global politic. Please note, a session on this will be held at the Cities Alive Congress!

 

March 1th: Dear Visitor:

Hopefully you have bookmarked both „World Class events“: Cities Alive, the WGRIN Event in October in Toronto.

AND:

 

WGRIN – News February, 27th 2009:

WGRIN congratulate the Organizer of the upcoming event in Nuertingen, Germany:

The Second IGRA World Congress 2009 will be held May 25th to May 27th. At present participants from 20 countries are registered. .

Come along to network with major players in the green roof world. Unique projects will be explained by the designer themselves.

Green architecture helps to save energy! Climate change is a fact; the greening of buildings is one answer with the added benefit of creating amenity value in cities.

The idea is simple, but regional solutions open wide ranges of opportunities.

A few spaces are left – take the chance to learn from scientists, town planners and local governments from several Cities what they have to offer.

Further information: Contact: Wolfgang Ansel; ansel@igra-world.com

NEWS from living walls in Chile: Watch the film from Ignacio Espoz, Santiago de Chile about his organization "latingreen".

February 22th Ditzingen, Germany,

7th international Green Roof Conference, organized by FBB

For full minutes and conclusions download here:

http://www.fbb.de/PDF/Tagungsband-7.pdf

End of January - News (release Jan 25th):

-- Promoverde (Italy) is the first New member of WGRIN in 2009, thanks to Riccardo Rigolli to organize this. He publishes a fantastic online Journal, called "Nemeton", see the link under "Journals" on this website.

 

-- We also like to introduce you to numbers of conferences, Ditzingen, Germany. But see also what our Friend Stephan Brenneisen is organizing in Switzerland, there are interessting day trips to green roof sites in April 23, May 8th, and June 4th (more on our page: other conferences)

(New Years release)

2009 is the Year of the “Cities Alive! Congress – Let´s all make it a great conference.

Running up to Cities Alive in Toronto there are a number of national and international events planned for 2009 for example: Conference will be held in Ditzingen, Nuertingen, Essen (all Germany), Bologna (Italy), and Atlanta (USA).

Lot of work is still needed in 2009; for example “The German Certification - system still does not come up to our expectation. More attention needes to be paid to this, whisch means lots of work for researcher, politicians and town planners.

If the rather small but increasing community of Green enthusiasts will work together, the slogan “Going green” could become the mainstream sentiment we expected sooner rather than later. –

 

December 6th. 2008 Lots of News:

- Now digital available: “Living Architecture Monitor” organized by our member organization GRHC. Free download copy – the latest green roof trends in North America! Enjoy it!

- Watch the exiting Green Roof project of our FBB- Member "Greenroofservices.com". A combination of three issues: Golf, World yachting and the latest Green roof technology! Celebrity Solstice a dream ship with a real roof on board - visit the link on the right.

- First National Façade greening seminar, in Remscheid, Thursday 20th November: A Short report:

The technology of façade greening is well known in Germany. There has been FLL Guidelines since 2000. The focus for a long time was only on climbers. Now a new debate has begun to include more sophisticated plant species; green walls. Green walls collect fine particles and dust in urban areas. Green wall technology is improving rapidly.

The next frontiers is indoor walls as a huge opportunity for amenity space creation. Living walls systems can help to purify indoor air in private and public areas. The full documentation (in German), can be downloaded on the FBB webpage.

 

November 16nd: 2008

Welcome to Prof. H. Kozhimizu our representative in Japan!

November 8nd 2008

Comming next: National FBB facade seminar in Remscheid, Germany. Thursday, 21st of November.

Singapore: 120 attendencees had been at the CUGE - Event October 21st - 23nd. Information about the conference and a photograph of all the award winners is in the gallery.

 

New Menber of WGRIN; The organization "pronatur" from Spain will become a new member of WGRIN! Lern more about Pronatur in the chapter "New members".