EAT UPan introduction to the author
With a passion for productive infrastructure, Lauren Mandel works as a Project Manager and Rooftop Agriculture Specialist at the Philadelphia based green roof firm Roofmeadow (formerly Roofscapes). At Roofmeadow, Lauren designs green roofs, oversees green roof construction, and is integral to every rooftop agriculture inquiry and project that the firm encounters.
Lauren began exploring the viability of urban rooftop agriculture while in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a Master of Landscape Architecture. With six years of professional landscape architectural and green roof design experience, Lauren is in the process of refining her thoughts on rooftop agriculture in book form. If published, “Eat Up” will be the first book ever written to exclusively focus on rooftop agriculture.
In her spare time, Lauren lectures on green roofs and rooftop agriculture, and is currently assisting with the design of a potential 160,000sf rooftop farm in North Philadelphia. She also loves backpacking and extreme dog walking.
I have been designing and building green roofs for over a decade. What I, and other practitioners, have learned is that the heart and soul of a green roof is the media. Media must be carefully selected to meet the demands of the particular application. The challenges associated with rooftop agriculture include: accomodating frequent turning and cultivation of media, refreshing and incorporating media as it is inevitably lost during normal harvesting activities, maintaining appropriate nutrient levels and balance, as well as not impossting unacceptable structural loads. Farming sustainably in any environment is diffult. Doing so on a roof adds to the difficulty. I would be interested in your conclusions about what characteristics an ideal rooftop agricultural media would have.