Experimental Learning
On 8/10/2014, we sent 956 mails to different building owners and managers, asking for a venue to conduct our project, the Green Roof-toppers, so that we can experience the difficulties engaged in roof greening.
The e-mail content is as follows:
Establishing a Green Roof
Dear Sir,
We’re writing to ask for your assistance in conducting our green roof project: Green Roof-toppers. We are currently looking for a venue – a flat roof, to carry out our project. We are a group of university students studying Bachelor of Science in Surveying in the University of Hong Kong. We are working on a project to study the difficulties of establishing a green roof in Hong Kong from the perspective of the real estate and construction industry. One part of our project aims at investigating the above topic from establishing a green roof by ourselves. Moreover, we also aim at increasing the public awareness of green roof in the general public in Hong Kong. We hope that more green roofs can be established in Hong Kong.We value your assistant and hope to make the least inconvenience to you. The whole project will be self-financed and operated. You WILL NOT need to pay additional time and cost to maintain the roof for this project. There will also be no harms or alternation done to the structure of the roof. Setting up a green roof is beneficial to the building; please give yourselves a chance to experience it at ZERO COST.
All the details about the green roof can be found in the attached proposal, and we welcome enquiries. We hope to receive your favourable reply as soon as possible and are looking forward to create a greener Hong Kong together.
With warmest regards,
The Green Roof-toppers
Agatha Giauw
+852 69933309
BSc(Surveying) III
The University of Hong Kong
Bryan Pang
+852 5406 0149
BSc(Surveying) III
The University of Hong Kong
親愛的先生/女士,
我們是Green Roof-Toppers, 由來自香港大學房地產及建設系的六位三年級學生為了解於香港房屋上進行屋頂綠化的可行性而組成的一個計劃小隊。我們目前旨在探討進行屋頂綠化的難易度，研究當中過程可能會遇上的問題，從而希望可以整合出一份報告以供日後屋頂綠化工程作參考之用，在香港推廣屋頂綠化。
我們正尋求你們的協助 - 我們衷心希望在儘量不對閣下造成騷擾的情況下，閣下能夠借出一個屋頂平台，讓我們可以嘗試在平台上進行綠化，而不會要閣下付出任何時間及金錢，屋頂結構並不會受到任何改變。
我們Green Roof-Toppers致力研究及推廣屋頂綠化工程，此計劃詳情已包含於附上之計劃書內，希望閣下能夠考慮我們的提議，讓閣下之大廈可以以零支出的情況下體驗屋頂綠化帶來的好處。如有任何查詢，請聯絡我們。
祝
台安
GREEN ROOFTOPPERS
饒筱彤 Agatha Giauw
+852 69933309
香港大學 理學士測量學三年級
彭德仁 Bryan Pang
+852 5406 0149
香港大學 理學士測量學三年級
Among all the emails we sent, we received 15 replies saying they were interested in our project and would like to know more about the details. However, due to the underexpected replies from sponsors, we could not self-finance the project and thus we turn to the instutitions themselves and ask them to pay for the project. Many of the institutions called off the project as they claimed they could not afford to pay for the project expenses, but there is a secondary school in Kowloon Tong, Tak Ngai Secondary School, who is willing to try and take part in our research.
After talking to the school principle, Ms. Winnie Cheung, and visited the roof. We decided to launch our project on their roof, which is located on the 8/F, outside the school library. We then arranged the materials and transports and greened their roof on 11th November, 2014.
A total of 10 square meters modularized extensive tray system green roof was installed on the roof. Wheatgrass was used as the planting as it grows fast and can be juiced and consumed if necessary.
Total expenses for our project: