Lace Elementary School in Darien will welcome its students back Tuesday, Sept. 2, with a completed $3.45 million construction addition and a $40,000 playground.

Construction on the school began in September to create more room to accommodate the reorganization of four Darien schools, converting three of them into grade level centers. During the construction process, a retention pond was dug where the playground has been, leaving the students without a play area last year.

Though the students went a year without a playground, the result, said Principal Marty Casey, was a positive one. The playground was rebuilt away from 75th Street and to an area that would foster a safer environment toward the southwest area of the building.

“Once you take a playground apart, you can’t just transport it,” said Casey, who was a catalyst in raising money to support the purchase of the new playground.

Needing an architectural design for the new playground, Casey turned to Discovery, a group comprised of gifted students at Lace, who began researching and ultimately designing the layout and structure of the playground.

The playground, constructed by Plainfield based Green-Up Landscape, now sits where a baseball field used to.

With the addition under construction, classrooms, offices and areas designed for elective courses played a game of musical rooms, moving and switching throughout the school until settling in their permanent locations for the upcoming year.

The original portion of the school hosts the third-, fourth- and fifth-grade wings, each with eight classrooms, while the new addition hosts elective course-based rooms, including art and band, along with the new gymnasium.

While the interior makeover, constructed by Wight and Co. of Darien, is visible within the school, what is on its roof is both revolutionary and resourceful, said Casey. Resting on top of the library’s roof and an area covering the gym, both located on the south portion of the building, is a grass-covered roof. The eco-friendly addition makes Lace the first school in DuPage County to implement such a design.

The roof, slanting toward 75th Street, is covered in green grass, planted in four to six inches of dirt.

“It’s such a new concept but it’s the wave of the future,” said Joey Bonanotte, band director and administrative assistant at Lace.

“By allowing people passing on 75th Street to see the green roof, we’re promoting practical and symbolic purposes that we can make a difference,” said Casey.

Like other landscape, the $90,000 roof, which was purchased with a grant from DuPage County, requires monitoring and maintenance to check for weeds and diseases.

The green roof will serve as a supplement to learning, said Bob Johnson, a fifth-grade teacher at Lace, and its presence has already been incorporated into the curriculum.

“Our students are growing up in a society where they need to be economically friendly,” he said. “The way our kids learn is going to change."