Interesting Structural Load

I think I like it, excpet that they're using what lloks like a mown lawn. IMO, it'd be better aesthetically to use native grasses and leave it unmown, making it an actual habitat - I don't know whether that is practical, tho' (possibility of burrowing critters, harder to see potential/developing problems in the roof, other problems?)

"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news5.newsguy.com:

I can't recall - and I lost the link(s) =:-(

I likethe idea, tho', of a reinforced roof serving as a "natural space" - first off, IIRC, it hlowers heating/cooling costs, and second, it helps replace, to at least some degree, the ecosystem lost when the area was first turned over to human pursuits. At the very least, it's one more bit of air-purification ;)

((I think I was far too young when I first read about, and saw artist's renditions of, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon...))

Another thing I've long liked is the idea used in arid climates of using the roof as a summertime bedroom.

Similar to your thinking on the grass, I kept thinking - how boring! Why not some interesting patterned plantings. About a quarter century ago, I lived in this rather military neighborhood where everyone cut their grass precisely a certain length so that every lawn looked like a crew cut. I couldn't invest in pants because I was renting the house, and with three children didn't have time for too much, so what we did was allow some of the gerass to grow a bit longer so that we could scupt designs with a weed whacker. Since the house was on a bit of a hill, we did arabesques, stripes, and even left circles of wild violets and dandelions with crew cut defining around them. People used to stop their cars and complement the idea but four neighbors banded together, found a county rule where "taste" was defined by the majority of neighbors and we had to go back to crew cutting. A block away, however, one of my sons got hired by two neighbors seeking the same concept.

I think the wide expanse of lawn on that building has many many possibilities - I was also thinking that maybe different spaces could be used for different ideas like perhaps edging of a walkway with a rock garden and hardy succulents, some raised beds, some texture created by different colors of ground cover, perhaps an area with health plants like herbs and St.John's Wort (which I saw last year doing a good job on a temperate hillside..)

Surely, there are enough natural plant and spice barriers and BT out there to control critters and pests?

In a way, it's raised berm, as if you no longer have to find the right hillside to earth berm your building - you create your landscape from scratch

No one really knows how they were. Contemporary accounts make them sound like terraced gardens with pools of water. From at least Roman times, there have been incredible irrigation systems - perhaps these existed before - most irrigation systems greening Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan got destroyed by Mongols and other peoples who wanted a steppe for their horses.

"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news5.newsguy.com:

I have a vage recollection of the pics. I'm kind of stunned that that's the one that burned. I thought it used a lot fo concrete and steel - how the heck does something liek that burn? Doesn't it take, like, aviation fuel or soemthing to get a fire hot enough to do that?

True, but I was really young when I saw the paintings, so, imaginary tho' they were, they took root in my own preschool imagination, and never left ;)

What always surprises me, when I see videos of Iraq and th eMiddle East, is realizing how absolutely beautiful it must have been before it all started getting blown up.

Are you kidding? Who wouldn't want to ride a lawn tractor up and over that thing? They've probably got a real life Forrest Gump mowing it for free.

that,.................and teletubbies

Consider how sheep and goats might like to maintain it (with the proper railing, of course). It has a railing but scale is difficult to determine from the photos.

Now we're going to need ADA for animals! What is the required railing height for a goat??? :-)

However high you're going to need it to keep your goats and sheep eating your grass to the regulation height for free.