Canadian Supermarket Growing Vegetables on Roof

By Lloyd Kahn on August 1, 2020

Photo: Allen McInnis, Montreal Gazette

montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/an-iga-in-montreal-is-growing-its-own-vegetables-on-the-roof

From Rick Gordon

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
Tags: , ,

3 Responses to Canadian Supermarket Growing Vegetables on Roof

  1. wonderful idea, if the roof is structurally sound to support.

    looked at some photos of this set up, and might be an older flat top building.

    these older flat top buildings (in Canada) have been collapsing in on a regular basis over past five to ten yrs.

    Reply

  2. Some old flat top buildings were designed and built before a/c was available. They were like ponds, they held rain water that accumulated, which cooled the building. So they were made to carry a heavy load. The old Sears building in Honolulu on Beretania St, which later became the Honolulu Police Dept HQ, is one such building.
    Nowadays a/c is considered normal, and the cost of electricity for a/c is not even considered. So that building no longer holds water.

    Reply

  3. Maui Surfer — interesting info. Thank you.

    maybe that is the case. I have seen news articles/photos of a number of buildings in North America which
    planted gardens on roof, and wondered if it was only a matter of time before the collapsed…
    maybe they are all quite safe.

    as well, I am thinking, if a building is “old enough”, there is a chance it may be safe. Some of the older buildings were
    built with a great deal of safety margin, so to speak.

    Reply

Leave a Reply