Ballajá Barracks Building has undergone several renovations and restorations through its 200+ year history. Originally it housed barracks for the Spanish army; later, after the Spanish-American War, a military hospital. After several interventions through out the 20th century, the building is now house for several cultural institutions, such as Museo de las Americas, and the State Historic Preservation Office, who acts as the owner.

The Ballajá Barracks green roof, was conceived as an extension to the city’s public space. Circulation allows visitors to watch some of the historic city’s landmarks from a rare perspective, above.

2010-11 Project

As part of an energy retrofit, which included the installation of solar panels, new luminaries and mechanical equipment, SHIPO commissioned the design and installation of a green roof.
Four vegetative components make up planting of this intensive roof: architectural planting, ecological mat, vegetated wall, and aquatic vegetation.  Ornamentals and edibles serve as space defining elements. The ecological mat, a meadow-like, drought-tolerant, planted area that occupies the most of the roof surface, provides shade for the roof structure, therefore decreasing building heat gain. Lastly, the vegetated wall and aquatic plants, serve as biological filtration for the pond, which has fish and serves as a water reservoir for irrigation.

2018 Project

After the passing of Hurricane María, ECo was contracted again to design the green roof over the historic Ballajá Barracks. Years of neglect and damege from the hurricane had rendered the original project unrecognizable and unfunctional.

Ballajá is a formidable piece of green infrastructure. This green roof provides ecological benefits to the surrounding environment, prevents the heat island effect, reduces runoff. For this contract ECo also did drone mapping of the roof in order to document existing plant species and roof topography.