The newest Diadem green roof in Seattle, WA

Ingraham High School is one of Diadem’s most recent green roof installations in the Pacific Northwest. Our clear system solutions are convincing more and more designers and owners to work with Diadem.

Opened in 1959, Ingraham High School, located in the Haller Lake neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, is named after Edward Sturgis Ingraham, the first superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools. The school was recently honored in a Newsweek magazine article entitled "Top High Schools".

In 2007, Seattle voters approved the Building Excellence III capital bond that funds school building projects, including a new addition for Ingraham High School. A 30-member team, comprised of teachers, staff, students and north Seattle community members, worked collaboratively with Integrus architects and the landscape architect, Cascade Design Collaborative, to determine the needs of the school and community. In order to efficiently accommodate new classrooms, the team chose to design a two-story addition connecting to the west side of the existing building, where there is a naturally occuring slope.

Showing great concern for sustainability of the exsisting enviroment, the final design included a green roof and other green technologies, and in addition preserved 75% of the existing trees on the site. In additon more than 290 new trees were to be planted.

Diadem had the opportunity to provide an alternative for the original 10,000+ sqf green roof design, and, as it turned out, saved Seattle Public Schools substantial contruction costs. The benefit of the Diadem green roof system is that the grown-in-place technology eliminates the need for growing and storing the vegetation in a nursery, as is the case with precultivated vegetation. Diadem’s system of using multiple species of cuttings allows the specific microclimate on the roof to determine which species survive the best and thus provides a fuller, longer lasting green roof over the life of the building. The installation and first two years of maintenance are the responsibility of Enviroscapes Northwest, who has already installed more than 100,000 square feet of green roofs. As they are a Certified Roofmeadow Contractor, the installation is also covered by one of the most comprehensive warranties in the industry.