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| Green roof on the Tabaret Building |
Our office has been working at improving sustainability on campus since 2006 and I am happy to say that we have had a lot of success. But one of the areas that we are still hoping to improve after all these years in our green space.
What is considered by many sustainability-minded institutions to be the crown jewel of their campus (lush green spaces) is a bit of a sticking point here at uOttawa. You see, a lot of older institutions were created through land grants or large land donations. This gave institutions the ability to finance the expansion of their programs by leasing and selling land.
Not unliked these institutions, the University of Ottawa was founded based on a land donation by the Besserer family. But unlike some other land grants, it was a small parcel of land which means that since then the institutions has had to slowly try to buy up surrounding land. Sometimes this works... sometimes it doesn't.
After years of purchasing land and trying to build up a portfolio, the University finds itself with a good chunk of land and a big problem... thanks to climate change.
Sandy Hill
Whenever I am giving a tour of the campus, I like to ask people the question "what neighbourhood is the university located in?" Most every times someone yells out the answer in a second of two. Then I ask "and why is it called that?" This usually takes a bit longer to answer. People will shuffle their feet and think that maybe the answer is too easy. But eventually someone say it is because it is a hill made of sand.
That is of course the right answer, but the link to climate change often eludes many people on campus. Our campus is 73% impermeable surface and that means when it rains it can cause a lot of flooding... especially as we sit at the top of a sandy hill. So as the climate changes, we need to find ways to adapt and deal with all the changes to the climate to prevent damage to the campus and the surrounding community.
Now there are a few different ways to deal with climate adaptation and mitigation, but the one we are starting with are green roofs. I have a now infamous story about how we got green roofs on campus but I will save that for the campus tours (join our net tour if you want to hear the full uncensored story); needless to say they are a great tool to both prevent more climate change and help us deal with what is to come.
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| Cenovus court yard circa 2008 |
Bring on the roofs
This past summer (2024), the construction teams at uOttawa installed 3 more green roofs at uOttawa. The first was an addition to the Tabaret building, and represents a really important milestone for the university. Seeing as the Tabaret building is over 100 years old, placing a green roof on this building basically means we can add green roofs onto any building.
The next two roofs went on top of the University Centre and the University Centre Annex. Together, these represent the second largest green roof on campus (behind the roof on Colonel By). But the UCU roofs are also intensive green roofs, different from the the extensive green roof on Colonel By. This means that they are extremely uncomplicated roofs with very small and simple plants on them. Since these roofs aren't very visible to the campus community, it didn't make sense to make them overly ornamental.
In contrast, last year a pollinator roof was installed on the Montpetit roof and another portion of the Tabaret roof. Since both of these spaces are highly visible, they were given special attention, with the Tabaret roof actually being an accessible roof. Regardless, all these roofs play an important role in regulating climate impacts on campus.
As of now, there is 5,148 square metres of green roos at uOttawa (or 20 tennis courts if that makes more sense).
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| Green roof map of uOttawa |
Now what?
Well the story doesn't end with green roofs, because the roof of buildings aren't the only hardscapes on campus... I mean if you look around there is cement and asphalt everywhere. SO how do we deal with this... easy, one step at a time. Right now we are working on plans to slowly dismantle some of the dead spaces on campus and transform them into green and functional space. Small programs like the edible landscapes and the community gardens are already in motion, but more is coming.
All this is part of a larger initiative that uOttawa signed onto called Nature Positive (a pledge to protect and enhance nature). Over the coming months we will releasing a grander version of the plan, but for now we can say that there is a chance that this could transform the campus into something very different from what it is today.
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| Concept for the Grand Allee |
If you want to learn more about Nature Positive at uOttawa, or if you want to join the many small greening initiatives that we already have in place, reach out to us and help us build the campus we all deserve.
~jonathan rausseo - campus sustainability manager