Don’t race to the eye doctor if you start seeing grass seedlings – or even tomatoes – springing up from the roof of Aderhold Hall in the next couple of years.

Graduate students taking nature and sustainability spent their first month of classes this fall developing designs for a functional and aesthetically pleasing green roof for Aderhold.

“I try to set projects up as if (my class were) a real design firm,” said assistant professor R. Alfred Vick, who teaches the landscape architecture course in the School of Environmental Design. “I’m not saying (the designs) will be funded and built tomorrow, but the students worked with a real site, a real client and real complexity.”

He said the green roof assignment is a service learning project, meaning it aims to get students out into the community to benefit learning. The project also forms a vision for what the college of education building could become.

Project objectives included determining the needs of the client, the College of Education, and developing a functional, resource-appropriate, attractive and educational green roof design.

“The entire project has been exceptional,” said Heath Tucker, a graduate student from Athens and one of the student designers. “Projects like this one are the most rewarding because they have a chance to become a reality.”

The basic layering of a green roof begins with the roof surface, then a water-proof membrane, structural layer, water storage barrier and between two to 12 inches of soil and seedlings on top. Some of the designs also included vegetable gardens, which need more tending than most other green roof plants.

Benefits of green roofs include retaining storm-water, insulating the building, reducing energy use and extending the life of the roof.

Vick said typical roofs last about 15 years, but green roofs last closer to 40 or 50.

“And those are just the environmental benefits,” he said.

A green roof also would offer aesthetic advantages.

“Aderhold isn’t the prettiest building on campus,” said Cheri Hoy, an associate dean of the College of Education.

Aside from the ecological benefits, a green roof could provide a nice place for discussion groups, relaxation or even a pleasant lunch, Hoy said.

But the big question still remains unanswered.

Hoy said whether the College of Education uses one of the students’ designs as a basis for its own green roof depends mainly on finding funding.

“There’s a lot of excitement, but we’re taking it one step at a time,” she said. “Last spring I didn’t think we’d be this far now. We’ll see.”

Vick hung up the 10 designs in Aderhold last Wednesday so people at the College of Education could look them over and comment on positive and negative aspects before a tentative meeting with the designers.

The meeting, which has not been scheduled, will allow the students to explain their own designs and will allow the college to give feedback.

“I hope that they will construct a green roof, even if it is not based on one of the designs that we submitted,” Tucker said. “It is important to show people how beautiful an environmentally responsible landscape can be.”