ADVANCED GREEN ROOFS
BY ORLANDO ARCHITECT KYLE JENSEN
Why You Should Consider a Periphyton Roof:
Kyle Jensen Architect has extensive experience and is a subject matter expert in algal culture and harvest for surface water nutrient management. Mr. Jensen has developed a suite of technologies that incorporate aquatic and terrestrial fiber producing a hybrid “Green “ pulp which can be molded into a wide array of products for building and agriculture using advanced molded pulp technology.
Periphyton grows faster than any other plant community on earth. This means they remove nutrient pollution and produce pristine quality outflows better than other aquatic plants.
Periphyton Filters are aquatic culture systems, which provide shallow stable culture surface for algal cells to attach and grow, and a harvesting device or system for a harvest of mature periphyton. Periphyton grows logarithmically in the first week or 2 and then slows. Harvesting keeps the periphyton culture growing at maximum rate and physical effects the removal of sequestered pollutants from the water system.
Green Roofs are planted Roofs that store water and use it to culture plants. This amenity is an asset to the building occupants and acts to insulate the building envelope. We are trained and experienced in Intensive and Extensive Green Roof Design and we are happy to bring this technology to your project as a design specialty. We strive to contain and use all water falling on the Roof.
The reason is that water coming off of a Green Roof can be more polluted than wastewater with reactive nutrients like Nitrogen and Phosphorus. Often times this Storm Water is conveyed without treatment to sensitive lakes and waterways. The Green Roof community does not like to talk about this aspect of Green Roofs.
Mr. Jensen has personally innovated the Green Roof to actually be a significant filtration, insulation and revenue-generating system for a large low slope A/C building envelope. The technology is called a Periphyton Roof and uses surface water and natural communities of harvested Periphyton or attached algae to greatly improve water quality. The technology has a US Patent and Mr. Jensen is a subject matter expert in this method.
A 3 Acre Periphyton Roof has the equivalent wetland filtration as 300 acres of high-value wetland. Nutrient trading credits from a large low slope roof can pay half the building's 10-year mortgage and then be a revenue source. It’s a sort of “Tenant” that lives in Shallow water on the roof and that roof stops almost all of the UV heat energy from entering the building allowing massive savings in energy bills and Carbon footprint. There are several innovative and sustainable uses for the Algal Harvest.
What Is A Periphyton Roof?
A Periphyton Roof (patent pending) is an adaptation of a Periphyton Filter integrated into a sunlit exposed building surface. Water is taken from and returns to a surface water body of significant size. The culture system is thermally linked to the building interior, which studies show dramatically reduces Solar Heat Gain and consequent energy needs for interior cooling and in some cases heating. It’s like a water-cooled building envelope.
The Main Benefit – Energy Savings:
Water flowing over the roof intercepts radiant heat from the sun, greatly reducing heat irradiated on the building roof by a minimum of 67%. This will lower building electrical usage at the peak hours of demand, which intern reduces carbon emissions and the need for additional power generation for peak loads. The cost of pumping water on roof is less than 10% of the cooling load cost value calculation. Not just any water will work. Ideally the roof is tied to a natural water system like a lake, river, wetland or other large surface water.