Milwaukee-based Hanging Gardens is a beautifying force in Brew City and the greater Midwest too. The company’s growing portfolio of green roofs constitutes a grand gallery of projects that look lovely and function exceedingly well.

Example A is in Nearby Madison’s Children’s Museum. This play area absolutely looks like it’s set at grade—it includes granite pathways, trees, shrubs, perennials, sod, waterfalls, even a chicken coop and beehive. And it emphasizes the use of photovoltaic panels and rainwater harvesting.

The slanted roof adorning the exterior of the Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center is an engineering marvel and a civic landmark. The shape of the roof renders it visible from up to a mile away. This is compelling topography for humans and apes alike.

St. Louis’ Food Roof Farm showcases the cultivational potential of green roofs, as it produces hundreds of pound of food each year. Ongoing work with winterizing beds aspires towards year-round food production—in frosty St. Louis!

Hanging Gardens’ latest innovation is Blue Roof Smart Stormwater Disposal. This automated system uses algorithms to synchronize weather forecasts and real-time data in order to store water on the roof and release it only when city disposal systems can handle the inflow: “retaining water at the most critical periods, preventing localized flooding, polluting of natural bodies of water, and overcapacity to water treatment facilities.”

Find out more at Hanging Gardens.