Cowell Family Cancer Center

Traverse City, MI

Solutions Provided

Inhabitect-GSI
  • GSI – Green stormwater infrastructure manages almost all of the annual rainwater hitting the rooftop before it runs off towards nearby waterways.
Green Roof icon - Inhabitect
  • Green Roof – An extensive green roof — covering roughly 50% of the total roof areas, across three different rooftops — was installed over a fully-adhered waterproofing membrane. There are also large pedestal paver areas that make this a fully accessible space.
Ecological Landscaping Icon - Inhabitect
  • Ecological Landscape – The use of GSI technologies helps to slow down and cool the runoff leaving these rooftops, improving the quality of the water moving through the landscape.
Inhabitect Consulting
  • Consulting – Inhabitect worked with the architectural and structural engineering pre-construction as well as with the general contractor during the course of the project, ensuring the project’s success.

Project Description

This project was developed on a site that had previously been home to a number of smaller medical offices. Prior to that, Kid’s Creek (that can be seen in some of the images) was paved over and flowed underground for nearly a century. This creek was restored to its former glory by the efforts of our friends at the Watershed Center.

The green rooftops on the Cancer Center act as an important tool in the organization’s mission to get Kid’s Creek off of the impaired waterway list. The extensive green roofs are accessible by patients, hospital staff, and visitors alike.

The healing gardens are the ‘first stop’ of the treatment train included in this section of the Munson Medical Center campus. They are designed to hold a specific percentage of rainfall, which we helped calculate and deliver to the project engineers. By retaining over 60% of the annual rain falling onto the vegetated roof surfaces, this roof accomplishes the goal of slow down and reducing the temperature of the runoff leaving the rooftop.

This project is just one of the GSI measures that the Watershed Center has implemented on this campus in their quest to improve the quality of Kid’s Creek and reduce the volume of water running towards West Grand Traverse Bay.