They’re strange bragging rights – but then again, it is a roof talking. And not just any roof – the U of A’s Hillside Auditorium green roof, which is exactly what it sounds like: a roof covered in about five inches of soil, atop which native plants have been growing since March 2013. The roof, affectionately dubbed “Rufus” by its student supervisors, has been tweeting measurement updates since early February 2019 via a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, thanks to senior Zack Wofford. Wofford was inspired by a tweeting tree he encountered while studying abroad in Ghent, Belgium.

David Sweere grew up in a classic American suburb in Maumelle, Arkansas, in a single-family home on a corner lot. He recalls a lot of lawn mowing and the fact that “you could see the Kroger grocery store from my house, but you couldn’t walk to it.” Fast forward through eight years of far-flung military service and six years of architecture school, and Sweere is ready to roll up his sleeves and redesign suburban sprawl.