At the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, on the grounds of the National Building Research Institute, SmartFlow operates one of its most instructive installations: a blue-green roof research and demonstration site where stormwater retention and vegetation irrigation run as one closed loop. It is the clearest live demonstration of what we mean when we say a blue-green roof does two jobs with the same water.
Four plots over a shallow reservoir
The site is organized as four vegetated plots, each built over a shallow water reservoir. Rain that falls on the plots is not discharged — it collects in the reservoir beneath the vegetation. SmartFlow regulates each plot's outlet and continuously manages the water level: holding water during and after rainfall, and releasing it in a controlled way only when the level needs to come down. The result is a living surface above and a managed retention volume below, on the same footprint.
Irrigation by water level, not by clock
The part that makes this site special is the irrigation loop. SmartFlow is connected to the site's existing irrigation computer — it does not replace it. Irrigation runs automatically according to the water level in the reservoir: when stored rainwater is available, the vegetation is watered from it. On-site meteorological data completes the loop, informing the control decisions alongside the live water-level readings. The plants are effectively watered by the previous storm — automatically, with no manual scheduling of stored-water use.
Why this site matters
Most blue-green roof discussions treat retention and irrigation as separate systems that happen to share a roof. The Technion site shows them as one controlled system: the same shallow reservoir that buffers stormwater becomes the irrigation source, the same level sensor that protects the roof decides when the vegetation drinks, and the same controller talks to both the drainage outlet and the irrigation computer. For campuses, municipalities, and developers considering rooftop vegetation, this is the template: flood control first, and a living roof watered by rain you would otherwise have discharged.