Collaboration Targets Urban Resiliency in San Francisco

Officials from the city of San Francisco Planning Department and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) joined industry association Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) to announce their partnership in support of the 11th Annual CitiesAlive Green Roof and Wall Conference taking place in San Francisco on Oct. 23 to 26 2013.

With hundreds of billions of dollars being spent dealing with extreme weather, CitiesAlive will provide an opportunity to advance the understanding of how living architecture can improve the resilience of our communities.  'Securing urban resiliency with living architecture: Food — Water — Energy,' is the theme of the CitiesAlive Conference, which features over 100 expert technical presentation and multi-disciplinary discussions about resilience and the design profession. Sessions will cover the Transbay Transit Center development featuring architects, landscape architects and engineers involved the project and an interactive panel and workshop on developing and supporting the role of the design profession in community resiliency planning, led by organic architect Eric Corey Freed.

“At CitiesAlive we’ll explore the many links between the roofs and walls of our cities and the role they play in creating urban resilience. The combination of rooftop solar panels with a green roof on the General Services Administration’s 50 United Nations Plaza federal building is an excellent example of how these two technologies can be combined for greater energy output and support community resilience,” said Steven Peck, founder and president of GRHC.

“San Francisco continues to evolve as a prime example of an increasingly sustainable city, with green roofs and walls as essential contributory elements,” said John Rahaim, director of San Francisco Planning Department. “CitiesAlive will serve to highlight San Francisco’s past and future innovative green efforts, and provide the city an opportunity to learn best practices as we further refine and advance our sustainability policies and practices.”

“As part of the SFPUC’s efforts to upgrade our aging our sewer infrastructure for the future, we are implementing several green infrastructure projects to sustainably manage storm water,” said Juliet Ellis, Assistant General Manager for External Affairs at the SFPUC. “We are also particularly excited about the other benefits green infrastructure provides like beautifying neighborhoods, improving streets for bicyclists and pedestrians, and creating public open spaces.”

Delegates from across North America will come to San Francisco to do business in the west coast’s growing green roofs and wall marketplace, growth spurred by California's green building code and regional initiatives including the progressive storm water ordinance in San Francisco, which is driving the design and implementation of green walls and rooftops across the region.

Source: CitiesAlive