Adapting the
city from
the roofs !
born at MIT 📍 based in Paris
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

APPROACH

While carefully preserving the integrity of existing roofs, Roofscapes’ system ensures that each building fully contributes to urban resilience by reducing direct solar exposure and overheating, cooling the air through evapotranspiration, retaining rainwater, and supporting local biodiversity anchors. The shared green spaces we create on roofs address the growing demand for direct access to the outdoors in dense cities. While the replicability of our approach ensures a smooth scalability, our system’s versatility enables adaptation to any roof geometry and architectural context.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

APPROACH

While carefully preserving the integrity of existing roofs, Roofscapes’ system ensures that each building fully contributes to urban resilience by reducing direct solar exposure and overheating, cooling the air through evapotranspiration, retaining rainwater, and supporting local biodiversity anchors. The shared green spaces we create on roofs address the growing demand for direct access to the outdoors in dense cities. While the replicability of our approach ensures a smooth scalability, our system’s versatility enables adaptation to any roof geometry and architectural context.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

Press

Logo du journal Le Monde qui a publié un article à propos du travail de Roofscapes en faveur de l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique. Logo du journal The New York Times qui a publié un article à propos du travail de Roofscapes en faveur de l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique. Logo du journal Le Figaro qui a publié un article à propos du travail de Roofscapes en faveur de l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique. Logo du journal MIT News qui a publié un article à propos du travail de Roofscapes en faveur de l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique. Logo du journal Le Parisien qui a publié un article à propos du travail de Roofscapes en faveur de l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

CONTEXT

As climates are shifting, cities face thermal conditions that are increasingly different from the ones for which they were built. For instance, from a maximum recorded temperature of 36.5°C during the 1976 “heatwave of the century” to 42.6°C in 2021, Paris’ built fabric is showing how little equipped it is for the new climatic regime. As urban livability at large is called into question, it is urgent to develop nature-based solutions that increase climate resilience through non-invasive renovation projects, at scale. As stated recently by the French National Public Health Agency, “public health measures are no longer sufficient: the city's fabric must literally be adapted.“
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

CONTEXT

As climates are shifting, cities face thermal conditions that are increasingly different from the ones for which they were built. For instance, from a maximum recorded temperature of 36.5°C during the 1976 “heatwave of the century” to 42.6°C in 2021, Paris’ built fabric is showing how little equipped it is for the new climatic regime. As urban livability at large is called into question, it is urgent to develop nature-based solutions that increase climate resilience through non-invasive renovation projects, at scale. As stated recently by the French National Public Health Agency, “public health measures are no longer sufficient: the city's fabric must literally be adapted.“
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

THE ROLE 
OF ROOFS

In many European city centers, while it’s hard to find spaces at the street level for urban renaturation, roofs cover up to 38% of a city’s footprint. In Paris, as 4 out of 5 buildings have a pitched roof, most of which in zinc - a material thatparticipates in the city’s thermal vulnerability by heating up to 80°C in the summer - we have to find ways to transform what is currently part of the problem into a part of the answer.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

commitments

Power to non-humans

Renaturing cities doesn't simply imply greening the backdrop in front of which human-centric urban activities are played out. Renaturing cities implies, above all, a different mindset towards non-humans: giving them back some of the power and space we've seized for ourselves, recognizing their way of life and learning to live together with each other.

Low-tech city

Climate disruption is forcing the built environment to protect its inhabitants from increasingly extreme temperatures, at a time when we have less and less energy to artificially correct such thermal discomforts. For a city to adapt and be resilient to climate change, it is urgent to make use of solutions that are passive, replicable, and low-tech.

The right to adapt

As cities now face climates that differ radically from those for which they were built, Roofscapes defends the right to adapt to climate change through passive and decarbonized strategies in order to ensure that everyone has access to livable temperatures despite a warming world.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

commitments

Power to non-humans

Renaturing cities doesn't simply imply greening the backdrop in front of which human-centric urban activities are played out. Renaturing cities implies, above all, a different mindset towards non-humans: giving them back some of the power and space we've seized for ourselves, recognizing their way of life and learning to live together with each other.

Low-tech city

Climate disruption is forcing the built environment to protect its inhabitants from increasingly extreme temperatures, at a time when we have less and less energy to artificially correct such thermal discomforts. For a city to adapt and be resilient to climate change, it is urgent to make use of solutions that are passive, replicable, and low-tech.

The right to adapt

As cities now face climates that differ radically from those for which they were built, Roofscapes defends the right to adapt to climate change through passive and decarbonized strategies in order to ensure that everyone has access to livable temperatures despite a warming world.
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

Construction

Roofscapes has developed a construction strategy that can be adapted to each roof configuration by replicating certain principles throughout the city. The modularity of the system of prefabricated wooden platforms allows it to adjust to the different dimensions and spans of the roofs. The loads of these modules are transmitted vertically to the thick masonry load-bearing walls that characterize pre-war European centers; these walls are largely oversized, providing the structural capacity to support new roof surfaces.
Illustration of the roof of a Parisian apartment building with load-bearing walls highlighted for installation of a green roof by Roofscapes.
Step 01: Finding load-bearing walls
Illustration of the roof of a Parisian apartment building with anchors for a green roof installed by Roofscapes above the load-bearing walls.
Step 02: Placing punctual vertical supports
Illustration of the roof of a Parisian apartment building with support beams and anchors for a green roof installed by Roofscapes over a historic zinc roof.
Step 03: Adding horizontal beams
Illustration of the roof of a Parisian apartment building with an accessible green roof fully installed by Roofscapes.
Step 04: Interlocking flooring systems
Logo de la start-up Roofscapes qui travail pour l'adaptation des toits au dérèglement climatique.

Supports

Logo de la Ville de Paris qui soutient Roofscapes.
Ville de
Paris
Logo du MIT qui soutient Roofscapes.
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
Logo de la Région Ile-de-France qui soutient Roofscapes.
Conseil Régional
d'Île-de-France
Logo de la Commission Européenne qui soutient Roofscapes.
Commission
Européenne
Logo de la faculté d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme du MIT qui soutient Roofscapes.
MIT School of Architecture
and Planning
Logo du Ministère de la Transition Ecologique et Solidaire qui soutient Roofscapes.
Ministère de la Transition
Écologique et Solidaire
Logo du Laboratoire Ville Durable de la Ville de Paris qui soutient Roofscapes.
Laboratoire Ville durable
de Paris&Co
Laboratoire
d'accélération
Logo de l'Académie du Climat qui soutient Roofscapes.
Académie du Climat
de Paris
Logo de l'ADIVET qui soutient Roofscapes.
Association des
Toitures Végétales
Logo de la Biennale d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme de Séoul qui soutient Roofscapes.
Seoul Biennale of Architecture
and Urbanism 2021
Logo de l'accélérateur de start-up MIT Design X qui soutient Roofscapes.
MIT Design X
Accelerator