Battered by weather and baked by sun, a landing spot for birds and branches, we ask a lot of what lies above. But perhaps we can ask just a bit more of our cottage roofs—to not only keep us dry and protected but also to lighten our overall carbon load as well. 

Ian MacDonald is an architect who spent 20 years in his old cottage on Go Home Bay, Ont., before he tore down the cabin and built a new one. In those two decades, he says, he learned what he appreciated about the location and the space, but more importantly, he saw what he wanted to change. One change he sought was to make the cottage more sustainable. He originally planned to install solar panels, then switched gears to a green roof, which would better control just how hot the cottage became in the summer without relying on AC. 

A green roof is essentially a growing roof, alive with organic material. It starts with a rubber membrane, followed by a layer of soil, then the growing material. “Living, green roofs can be very simple and very low maintenance,” says Karen Liu, a green roof specialist with Next Level Stormwater Management in Vancouver. They run the gamut, Liu says, from something people actually go on to enjoy nature, to roofs focussed on adding biodiversity that attract birds and bees. There are even roofs that blend into their surroundings.

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