Bellefonte Roof Garden

We applied sustainable thinking to our own office in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania which is in the ground floor of a historic building on the square. The windows that face the adjacent streets are below the grade of the sidewalks and are therefore surrounded by historic stone window wells. When we moved into the space, the bottoms of these wells were covered in gravel and tended to simply collect leaves and stray debris from the sidewalk. We saw an opportunity to apply a time tested green roof technology to the wells. In each of four window wells, we constructed a support structure and installed green roof tray systems with living plants. The trays are filled with a variety of Sedum species that treats storm water runoff and increases the aesthetic appeal of the stone window wells.

While not a typical application, the window gardens are positively impacting the environment, providing an aesthetic improvement in the community, and even educating the local residents on a unique garden application in a nontraditional space.