Rooftop Wastelands

A pioneer of urban agriculture research and implementation

Urban agriculture addresses social and environmental goals: it mitigates food insecurity, urban heat island effect, and traps carbon dioxide from polluted city air. The MCHG was a pioneer of urban agriculture research and implementation; as early as 1974, they tested greenhouse designs. They then launched Rooftop Wastelands in collaboration with the University Settlement Community Centre in the Saint-Louis district of Montreal, transforming the building’s roof into a demonstration garden. 

The Rooftop Wastelands project tackles cities’ inefficient land use by reimagining the unused acres of urban rooftops as verdant and productive gardens. The MCHG believed that urban agriculture could develop to provide ideal conditions for plant growth and improved living conditions for city inhabitants in a mutually beneficial ecological system. During the project, the MCHG experimented with transforming discarded window frames into greenhouses, DIY geodesic domes, and solar cold frames (an efficient alternative to large greenhouses better adapted for rooftops) on a 93 m2 rooftop garden. They also adapted recycled wooden crates into gardening containers, with areas for composting. 

The project culminated in the Rooftop Wastelands publication