Levelling the sustainability landscape for pitched roofs

The majority of urban rooftop solutions aimed at improving the sustainability of buildings – notably so-called “green roofs” – are directed at and depend on flat roofs as their starting point.

But as Eytan Levi, co-founder of the company Roofscapes observed, in some cases four out of five buildings in a city have pitched roofs.

Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts caught up with Levi at the ULI’s recent C-Change conference where Roofscapes was recognised in the Proptech Innovation Challenge (PIC) Awards.

“The premise of our work is the adaptation of heritage buildings, and in particular, the pitched roofs of heritage buildings to climate change,” he explained.

Founded at MIT but now headquartered in Paris, Roofscapes was based on the recognition that for pitched-roof buildings there was “really not much going on” in terms of reducing their environmental impact and raising accessibility and social uses.

“We’ve noticed, after working on roofscapes for three years, there’s really a need to involve everyone from the built environment sector, both on the public and private sides to come together and by discussing and negotiating to ensure that change is happening,” he explained.

Levi added that being recognised by a community such as the ULI, which champions the dialogue between its members, provides an opportunity to talk to more people in sectors known to Roofscapes, like architects, and also an opportunity to reach out to new categories of professionals.