Rooftop Garden on Fenderen

Central Building in Solheimsviken

We are well underway with establishing a new rooftop in a business cluster located in a former shipbuilding area.

For our client, GC Rieber Eiendom, it is essential to develop their office buildings as sustainably as possible. Rieber places strong emphasis on optimizing available surfaces so that every area is put to use. Naturally, this means the roof becomes a green garden. Rieber requested a cubist expression and a clean, linear design. In this rooftop garden, we have built according to this vision, developing planting beds with abundant vegetation.

Our holistic concept incorporates sustainability perspectives related to climate, nature, food, and people. These principles, together with Rieber’s stylistic preferences, have guided our design. In doing so, we create new ecosystems on rooftops using natural and locally adapted vegetation. The soil in our rooftop gardens contains biochar, which enhances microbial life. The addition of biochar to the soil also has a documented and certified effect on carbon sequestration.

Rainwater is integrated into a circular ecosystem on the roof. A significant portion of the rainwater runoff is utilized on the rooftop. The water is stored within a specially designed build-up system, and is absorbed by the soil and plants. Some evaporates, some is retained in the vegetation—in the leaves, fruits, and berries—while excess water is drained off the roof. Our system design retains and delays excess rainwater, helping to prevent flood peaks and reduce the load on the municipal drainage network.

The rooftop garden on Fenderen is built with natural and diverse, site-adapted vegetation, insect hotels, composting, and robust solutions for supporting life and drainage. It is yet another example of how our solutions meet the high standards we set for ourselves in bringing nature into the modern urban environment.

Nature in the modern urban environment.