Since its inception, Canopy Forum has held more than 50 events and hosted hundreds of speakers from the green infrastructure profession, academia, industry, community and government sector.
Melbourne’s Canopy Green Roof Forum showcases the best of Australian city greening and urban green infrastructure projects, strategies and initiatives. Traditionally, the forum has focused on green roofs and walls, but increasingly, other aspects of urban green infrastructure are being explored.
The Canopy Forum brings a diversity of people and expertise together to share knowledge and ideas on urban green infrastructure and city greening. We welcome all members of Melbourne’s community and the broader green infrastructure community, including:
- Melbourne’s developers, building landlords, owners corporations and tenants who want to improve the quality and quantity of greening in their buildings and developments.
- Community members with a passion for greening their rooftops, balconies, facades and gardens.
- The green infrastructure sector including consultants, suppliers, including horticulturalists, landscape architects, architects, sustainability professionals, designers, urban planners, and engineers.
- Academics, students and researchers focusing on urban green infrastructure.
- Government agencies, departments and administration working in the realm of sustainability, greening and cooling policy.
- Private investment and philanthropists with an interest in urban green infrastructure.
You can watch the first virtual Canopy Green Roof Forum External link on YouTube.
Past Canopy Green Roof Forums
narrm ngarrgu Library and Family Services
Held at the recently opened narrm ngarrgu Library this event showcased the spectacular community garden rooftop terrace. Guest speakers from Bush Landscape Architects and the City of Melbourne project team discussed the unique needs of the Library Services client, the thoughtful design response, and how the project was brought to life by the delivery team.
Biodiversity Green Infrastructure at The Bruce, Kensington
Set within Kensington’s historic industrial precinct, the eight-storey commercial development at 18-20 Bruce St is the first 'as built' project to exceed the benchmark of 0.55 using the City of Melbourne Green Factor Tool. This event included guest speakers from the project team, Evergreen Infrastructure and Medley Property Group. The Green Infrastructure Research Group from the University of Melbourne presented on the Guidelines for Biodiversity Green Roofs.
Community Laneway Greening at Guildford Lane, Central City
This event featured three community laneway greening champions who shared their knowledge and insights into transforming their grey laneway into a green oasis. The three laneways featured were Guildford Lane, Coromandel Place and Davison's Place.
Super Blooming your rooftop gardens and balconies with Jac Semmler
The City of Melbourne Canopy Forum hosted expert horticulturalist and author Jac Semmler to run a series of workshops on increasing the use of flowers to create green roofs and balcony gardens in small urban environments. This event focused on encouraging City of Melbourne residents and community members to increase greening in their homes and businesses.
Greening Our Future: the next generation of green roof researchers
This Canopy Forum showcased six local, emerging green infrastructure researchers that received funding support from the Green our Rooftop research program. The researchers presented a diverse range of research topics offering new insights and thought provoking ideas that will shape the future of green infrastructure in Australia. The research themes focused on human health benefits, biodiversity, ecology and plant functional traits related to green rooftops in Melbourne. This event was officially opened by Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece.
Watch the recording on YouTube External link
Welcome back Melbourne: The UniSuper Building green rooftop retrofit creating a new oasis in the city
This Canopy Forum highlighted the UniSuper green rooftop oasis which makes exceptional use of previously underutilised rooftop space, and incorporates prominent vistas to Melbourne’s heritage buildings to expand benefits beyond the rooftop boundaries. The project was designed by Hassell Studio in collaboration with UniSuper, and constructed by Schiavello and VertiScape.
Parliament of Victoria Green Roof Tour
Parliament of Victoria's green roof is one of the biggest rooftop gardens in Melbourne. It was designed to accommodate 300 Australian meadow plant species with the purpose of encouraging more biodiversity in to our urban spaces. The green roof situated behind the Parliament of Victoria was designed by Peter Elliott Architecture and Urban Design and Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) and was completed in 2018. Situated within the eastern gardens of Parliament's grounds, the green roof is an aesthetically, socially and environmentally considered landscape that seamlessly integrates into the historic parliament gardens, winning multiple AIA awards and an AILA Excellence Award in the Cultural Heritage category.
Launch of City of Melbourne’s Green Factor tool
Melbourne’s Green Factor External link is an award-winning green infrastructure assessment tool designed by the City of Melbourne. Our Green Factor is the first online tool of its kind in Australia. It was developed to help our development community to design new buildings that are environmentally friendly and include green infrastructure. It forms part of our work to respond to the climate and biodiversity emergency.
This Canopy Forum event officially launched Melbourne’s Green Factor tool to the community. To learn more about Green Factor visit Green Factor Tool.
Skypark at One Melbourne Quarter, Docklands
This event offered a unique onsite tour of one of Melbourne's newest green roofs at the time, Sky Park at One Melbourne Quarter, Docklands. One Melbourne Quarter is the first building completed in the Melbourne Quarter precinct by Lendlease developers. As a private/public green public space with open access during daytimes, the green rooftop continues to deliver high value and amenity to building occupants and the broader community.
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Our community laneway greening champions at our event in Guildford Lane with Deputy Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell
