Melbourne Rooftop Gets the Green Treatment

A secret green rooftop garden is now blooming above Melbourne’s CBD, transforming the skyline with vibrant flowers and native grasses at 1 Treasury Place.

The City of Melbourne and the Victorian Government partnered to deliver the Green Our Rooftop project – an elevated oasis providing more green space for bees, birds and urban wildlife in the heart of the city.

The green rooftop features low-maintenance, climate-resilient plants – including succulents, herbs and native grasses. It also helps to cool the building, lower energy costs and reduce stormwater runoff.

The Green Our Rooftop project encourages the uptake of green rooftops across the city, providing business owners, developers and industry with an example of how to design and build a green rooftop retrofit on an existing building. The City of Melbourne also supports property owners to deliver new greening projects on private property with matched-funding grants through the Urban Forest Fund.

University of Melbourne researchers will monitor the gardens’ research plots to better understand the best way to design and build low-cost, high-impact green rooftops.

Green rooftops are an important urban greening tool to help combat the effects of climate change, the urban island heat effect, reduce the risks of flood damage and increase biodiversity.

Urban greening also supports Melbourne’s economy by lowering energy costs for the businesses, organisations and residents.

The Green Our Rooftop project was completed thanks to a joint commitment from the Victorian Government and City of Melbourne, with additional support from Melbourne Water.

“Victoria was once known as the Garden State – now, we’re working to make Melbourne the Garden City,” says Lord Mayor Nick Reece.

“Unused rooftops across Melbourne are a massively underutilised resource that have the potential to create new green space in the central city.”

“With massive greening and cooling potential, we hope the Green Our Rooftop project will lay the groundwork for retrofitting existing buildings and integrating green roofs into new developments – following the success seen in cities like New York, Singapore and Munich.”

“Green rooftops have the potential to provide enormous environmental benefits to our city, while reducing energy costs for businesses,” says Environment portfolio head Councillor Davydd Griffiths.

“We want to see more green rooftops across Melbourne – and our Urban Forest Fund provides financial incentive for those wanting to green their properties.”

For more information, visit City of Melbourne.