Glen Bruels (homeowner): There were several reasons we chose to go with a green roof: 1) to absorb some of the stormwater runoff; 2) to filter the rooftop runoff that would go into our rainwater cistern; and 3) to reduce the visual impact of the house. We wanted our house to have low visibility. We hate it when houses look like they were ‘dropped out of the sky’ – we saw lots of those when we lived in Colorado.

Glen Bruels (homeowner): We recognized that there were local challenges with water – the neighborhood uses a reverse-osmosis desalination system that needs lots of maintenance, including divers being sent down to fix things. We didn’t want to risk being out of water. We also wanted to be proactive about managing runoff and protecting the local habitat.