Project
Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm
Location
Boston, MA
Award Winner
Recover Green Roofs
Project Team
Client: Boston Medical Center
Designer & Installer/General Contractor: Recover Green Roofs
Farm Manager: Higher Ground Farm
“The goal with our rooftop farm is to provide fresh, local produce to as many of our patients, employees, and community members as possible...This initiative supports our mission to address social determinants of health by improving access to healthy fruits and vegetables, and is a perfect example of BMC’s dedication to sustainability and green efforts.”
Hospital Farming Takes Root in Boston
The rooftop farm, built in 2016, on top of the Boston Medical Center covers a previous black waterproofing on BMC's power plant building three stories up. The green synthetic turf layer between planting beds reflects more light than does black waterproofing, emitting less heat throughout the day and night, and reducing its contribution to urban heat island effect. The synthetic turf makes up only a portion of the roof, with living plants covering the rest of the roof’s 2,658 square foot area. The farm has also reduced the hospital's energy consumption by increasing its local food consumption and decreasing its "food miles" from food deliveries for the Food Pantry, cafeterias, and inpatient meals.
This rooftop farm supports 25 different crops and 2 bee hives. The diversity of crops supports local pollinators, which, along with the hives, pollinate nearly 75% of the food on the farm. The farm has flowers in continual blossom throughout the season creating habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators.
The rooftop farm grows food for use in the hospital's cafeterias, patient plates, food pantry, teaching kitchen and in-hospital affordable farmers market. The Farm location was chosen because of its visibility from the Shapiro Building; a glass backed building housing many of the hospitals main clinics caring for hundreds of patients each day. These patients have excellent visual access to the farm, directly across the street from where they are receiving care.
The irrigation system is a remote-monitored smart drip irrigation system that can be controlled by a smart phone. The system saves water by monitoring weather conditions and shutting off irrigation when rain is in the forecast. Drip emitters deliver water sub-surface directly to the roots to minimize water usage and evaporation.
The local community has many opportunities to engage with the farm through weekly tours and volunteer opportunities as well as free educational events for patients and employees. Additionally summer camps are offered in partnership with the teaching kitchen offering 2 weeks of free summer camp for patient and employee kids and 4 weeks of summer camp programming with Boston Public Schools and Boston Public Health Commission.
The farm is integrated with the Nourishing Our Community program which includes the rooftop farm, Teaching Kitchen, and Preventative Food Pantry. The Teaching Kitchen holds classes for patients and staff, topics include: 'Cooking for cancer survivors', 'cooking on a budget', 'cooking with diabetes', ' cooking 101,' to name a few. The Preventative Food Pantry supports individuals with special nutritional needs that are referred to the Pantry by BMC primary care providers. The Pantry is often used by patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart disease and other chronic conditions. Both the Food Pantry and the Kitchen receive fresh produce from the rooftop farm.
Judges praised this project for its multiple program uses and outreach opportunities within the community, innovative problem solving, and aesthetics.
