Green roofs – Green cities

Who we are

Niina Ala-Fossi is a freelancer photographer. She is the creator of the most complete green roof photography collection in Finland.

Ferenc Vilisics PhD is a post-doctoral urban ecologist and zoologist at University of Helsinki. Leader of the green roof zoology research in Helsinki, co-supervisor of a PhD student. 

We live together, raising our 3 years old child. And we're both out of funding from September 2012. 

What we want

We aim to continue our research on urban green roofs in Finland and elsewhere in Europe and America.

We aim to reveal what green roofs mean in contemporary urban landscape and how people perceive vegetated roofs?

The goal is a book filled with photographs, stories and information on green roofs. We started green roof research in 2011 and know how this job's done. We are currently out of funding, but try to raise some money to finish the job we have started.

How we want it

The project comprises professional digital photography and home made camera obscuras (pinhole- or box cameras). These two techniques represent tow radically different aspects of photography. Quick vs slow. Expensive vs. cheap. Digital vs. analogue. Factory made vs. home made. You name it. 

To test our pinhole cameras we placed them to green roofs in Finland and Minneapolis, USA. We also plan to distribute our cameras to several countries (by mailing them to owners) to get the widest possible variety of green roof images.

We will collect stories from green roof owners and citizens to hear how they see their own cities and hear stories about green roofs.

The main job is done. We have a list of green roofs and have access to them. We have established an international network with green roof owners, builders, scientists, artists and art educators. Having spent two years by researching and photographing green roofs, we have the tools to collect material to the book.

Funding

We need money for graphic design, to make prints and pay all the costs a book needs.