The Atrium Project Wins Multiple Awards
The Atrium Project at 800 Yates Street in Downtown Victoria collected several awards in 2011. The CRD honoured the project with an EcoStar award in the category of “Integrated Stormwater Management”. The award description states:
800 Yates - The Atrium Building
“…The boulevard plantings manage pollution, slow and reduce runoff, create a green buffer between pedestrians and streets, reduce heat island effects, calm traffic and provide a rain water management educational opportunity.
Jawl Investment Corporation, going above and beyond most stormwater bylaw requirements, has created a multi-facetted environment that enhances landscape and aesthetic value while also improving environmental conditions.” (click here to view project award video)
The Atrium building also collected two Commercial Building awards from the Victoria Real Estate Board. The first was top prize for Commercial Buildings – the overall “Excellence Award”, which was followed up by the Judge’s Choice Award. (view VREB Awards here)
Murdoch de Greeff Inc. is proud to have worked with Jawl Investement Corporation and D’Ambrosio Architecture and Urbanism on this award winning project!
Portland Rain Water Photo Tour
For several years, we have closely monitored the great work being done in the City of Portland on landscape-based rain water management – installation of rain gardens and other source control BMPs for managing volume and pollution loads in road runoff and building runoff. A recent trip to Portland to photograph new installations around the city provided much food for thought.
Couch Street Rain Garden - Portland
Ongoing efforts on the part of the city to continue installation of street level rain gardens in the public realm are truely admirable. Most neighbourhoods in the city now showcase some form of rain water management on city streets or as part of development projects. We have come to appreciate the simplicity of designs, the thoughtful plant selections and all in all, the effective model that Portland has established for other cities through their work. After having made several trips down over the last few years, we have never been disappointed with the variety of installations to observe, and of course other attractions in the city!
Director's Park Rain Planter - Portland
The Director’s Park rain planters in the heart of downtown were especially thought provoking – simple above-ground rain planters were used in this park to slow and clean rain water flowing from the roof of a large open-air shelter. The above ground rain planters are relatively simple to construct and provide for a wide range of creative or interpretive additions that can be used to artistically reveal the flow of rainwater from roofs into the ground. This expression can enrich the urban experience, not to mention help cleanse and slow down urban runoff.
Plenty to ponder, and some great rainwater management design to boot!
11th Annual UBC Summer Field Studio (Aka: Oyster River)
I once heard reference to a senior civil engineer’s rule of thumb on the time it takes for a student to evolve into a practicing professional. The rule of thumb, in a nutshell, was that it takes two years after graduation to determine whether a student has the potential to succeed, and ten years of practicing to stop being dangerous. It’s a saying that I thought was a bit laughable and haven’t paid much attention to – that is, until recently, after realizing that lessons I had learned years ago are now only starting to sink in.
Will Lecturing in the Field
I have been fortunate through the early part of my career as a Landscape Architect to have retained a link to the University of British Columbia (UBC) Landscape Architecture program, specifically through Professor Will Marsh. I started working with Will as a teaching assistant eight years ago, and was subsequently (annually) invited to work with him as a co-instructor for the Oyster River Field Studio (a summer field studio run through the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture). I just finished my ninth year of participating in the course, rehashing old ideas and trying to present concepts in new and creative ways to over 200 students that have now endured the studio. Suddenly, this year, it seems as if everything about the course content has become particularly fresh and relevant to my practice. Maybe it’s that ten year rule of thumb – maybe it actually takes that long for ideas to germinate, take root and emerge as something relevant; or maybe it’s just me. Regardless, following is a brief synopsis of what I have ‘re-discovered’ after a week of exploration and dialogue with UBC architecture, landscape architecture and planning students, and after re-absorbing lectures from Will Marsh who remains what I think of as one of the great North American minds in Landscape Architecture.
Balance vs. Stability:
Typically, our response to change in landscape is to impose stability. When building around powerful landscape systems like rivers, shorelines and hill slopes, a heavy hand is often used to lock landscape in place and make a site and its context more predictable. Do we begin to lose a sense of the spirit of a place, and erode our ability to develop sustainable responses when we fight landscape in this way? Should we not seek to work in a more balanced manner, and seek to understand the dynamics of landscape systems and natural processes such that when we develop site designs and community plans, that they are adapted to site? Would we not then achieve more sustainable, less costly and more pleasing designs and community plans? These were questions posed to me almost a decade ago through the field studio, and they have become particularly relevant and challenging to me today. As a designer, it’s the difference between locking up a site for fear of risk, versus developing an understanding of site to facilitate a more balanced design response through management of risk.
Part of Nature vs.
Protect Nature:
Studio Design Presentation
Are we a relevant and legitimate part of landscape, or are we somehow apart from and incapable of living harmoniously with nature? If we are incapable – as it often seems – of living in harmony with nature, should we not aim to lock ourselves out of pieces of treasured landscape for the sake of landscape preservation? My undergraduate degree was in Geography and Environmental Studies, where I became entrenched with a sense of reverence and respect for nature, that had already been instilled at a young age through my father. I have had many of what I would describe as ‘spiritual’ experiences in the outdoors starting from a young age, and have developed a deep connection to landscape, particularly landscapes along the Pacific west coast. As a Landscape Architect, the question posed above – dwelling vs. exclusion – has become one of the most gut-wrenching problems that I have had to wrestle with, and until recently, have had the luxury of simply setting aside. I have come to realize that it is essential that we view ourselves as relevant dwellers in landscape, because only then will we begin to truly explore how we legitimize the act of dwelling in landscape. There are simply too many of us on the globe to lock up landscape for the sake of preservation – this summer’s conversations with students have further deepened my resolve that we need to change perspective on our participation in landscape from “users of some bits and preservers of other bits“, to “legitimate dwellers of the whole“.
Site, site, site…
Did I mention site is important? Sites differ from place to place in form and function, and these differences are important and relevant – we ought to be more concerned with site when we build. Why? Well, over the years of teaching the field studio, we have tried to help students see that landscape form and function is inherently predictable and really, not so scary at all to investigate. We have tried to drill home three basic arguments (applies to both rural and urban settings):
- Site exploration can lead to all sorts opportunity for design inspiration;
- Paying attention to site and designing in a ‘site-adaptive” manner should really be thought of as the most basic of prerequisites for sustainable design; and
- Paying attention to site almost invariably facilitates, if not forces, incorporation of multiple values into design efforts.
But invariably, the conversations about site-adaptive design and site-adaptive planning come round to “why bother, really?” What’s the problem with ignoring site? We are developing all sorts of building technology and have all the construction technique and machine power necessary to re-shape sites in ways that suit our elegant designs, so why should we design site-adaptive?
Well, if the arguments for design inspiration and sustainability above aren’t enough, here are the primary reasons Will Marsh uses to argue why paying attention to site makes sense:
Site-adaptive design can:
- Decrease construction costs;
- Decrease maintenance costs;
- Decrease risk and liability exposure;
- Increase user satisfaction and public perception; and
- Increase real estate sales value.
Again and again over the several years that I have been involved with the field studio, students want to know why site really matters. It is the latter list of 5 largely economic drivers that catches the most attention, and true to my experience in my own practice, it is these five points that also attract the most attention from clients and colleagues in other disciplines. It is not always that the five points are broadly applicable, and sometimes they are only realized in subtle ways, but not always. For example, decreased maintenance costs can be difficult to use as an argument in support of a site-adaptive approach for a real estate developer, but more relevant and important with someone involved in municipal design where long term maintenance is a concern. Likewise, identification of site features or functional attributes might affect construction costs only marginally and could even restrict development, or in contrast, a site feature can become a powerful organizing element and a tremendous resource that saves money outright. Regardless of where and how the benefits are realized, it is the combination of the list of five and three which I return to and which continuously motivate me to pay attention to site in my projects.
If that civil engineer was correct, maybe it is finally after ten years when we begin to realize that continually re-visiting basic planning and design principles – like paying attention to site form and function – helps us become less dangerous designers and leads to richer and more sustainable outcomes!
Rain Gardens Spark Imagination
Recently, I had the opportunity to connect with children from a local elementary school. The teacher of my daughter’s grade 1 class invited her students to ask their parents if they would come in to school to talk about what they do all day – about what they do for work. I was asked by my daughter to participate. As I began imagining how this talk would unfold, it initially did not seem all that threatening, until I started to imagine a room full of bored, uninterested children throwing things around the classroom and generally wreaking havoc – with me as the target.
Thank You Note
After some more rational thought, and sensing an opportunity to influence some young minds, I set about drawing up plans for a small, portable rain garden. The rain garden was intended to be a tool that I would bring with me to engage the children in some interactive learning. Through some trial and error, the experimental device ended up consisting of a small ( approx. 10 gallon) glass aquarium, divided in half lengthwise with plexiglass fastened in place with a silicon seal. 1/2 of the aquarium surface was capped with more plexiglass and painted black to emulate a road surface. The other half was planted with typical rain garden plants (mostly Juncus spp.). Both sides were fitted with drains – the ‘road’ side with a catch basin that led to a piped outlet, and the rain garden side with a perforated underdrain. The plants in the rain garden side were allowed to grow on for a month, so roots were clearly visible in the growing medium along the glass. Worm compost was mixed with sand for the growing medium, and in the end this proved most interesting as worm tunnels could be seen all through the soil matrix up against the glass.
Rain Garden/Road Demonstration Model
Then came the fun part – the actual unveiling of the rain garden/road contraption with a class full of 6-year-olds. First, 6 children were asked to come forward as volunteers and all of them were given spray bottles and told to ‘make it rain’! Two containers were placed at each of the drain outlets to catch any ‘runoff’ from the apparatus as a result of the ‘rain’. Then, while it was raining, a number of additional children were asked to volunteer as ‘polluters’ (everyone was engaged and excited by this point – the challenge here was controlling enthusiasm). The polluters were given sand, rubber bits, cocoa powder (imitation chemical pollutants – in a container labeled ‘poison’), vegetable oil and a BBQ basting brush. Polluters were given instructions to release equal amounts of their pollutants on both sides of the contraption. The BBQ brush was described as a street cleaner, and it was simply used to brush the pollutants into the catch basin on the road side.
What happened next was just plain fun. Water came pouring out of the pipe leading from the catch basin on the road side of the apparatus almost immediately – as expected. It carried with it all of the ‘pollution’ from the polluters. Nothing emerged from the rain garden side. After some time of simulating rain (and complaints of tired spray bottle trigger fingers), more drastic measures were required to complete the demonstration. A whole bottle of ‘rain’ was dumped on the rain garden. Still nothing emerged from the drain. Two more bottles, about a gallon of water in total, was dumped on the rain garden. Finally, a slow trickle of clear water emerged from the pipe draining the rain garden side of the apparatus. Success!
Engaging the Kids
The teaching moments and learning opportunities from this demonstration were quite varied, and enjoyable. Questions from the children were probing, complex and insightful – this remember from 6-year-olds. Connections were made to the importance of washing cars on the grass instead of the driveway, to the susceptibility of the natural habitat of the small salmon that they had hatched from eggs in the classroom only days before, and to the connection between road runoff and water quality at local beaches. The same presentation was given to a grade 3 class (8-year-olds) on the same day with similar results.
Although I had seen rain garden demonstrations in the past at workshops and conferences, the importance of the real-time, side-by-side comparison that this demonstration apparatus afforded was certainly helpful – not to mention fun – in communicating with children. I suspect it would also begin to stimulate questions and address the concerns of a more ‘mature’ and skeptical audience – food for thought!
Posted by: Paul de Greeff.
Saanichton Community Farm
Since the beginning of 2009, a group of families have been spending weekends working the fields, growing some food and enjoying each other’s company. The idea is simple really. Find a piece of aerable land, sign-up some families that subscribe to the value of organic food, and to the idea of farming as a form of recreation, and then work them hard!
Cultivating for Winter Squash
The Saanichton Community Farm concept is the brain child of Stephen Eng and his wife Jackie, property owners in the Saanichton area. the Engs have graciously opened their property and home to kids and to a bunch of un-trained farm workers (the parents). Work days are spent pulling weeds, attempting to run straight lines with the tractor, transplanting greenhouse starters, and seeding in crops (the kids particularly like the seeding part!). There are so many benefits to the idea – new friendships, a sense of community, innumerable learning opportunities, recreation (although depending on your perspective and how much your back hurts after a day of weeding, this point is debatable), fresh food, general health and wellness and of course, fresh air. Hopefully, it serves as a model for other community groups to re-connect with landscape, food and community! For more information, you can always drop us a line on our contact form.
Craigflower Road Upgrade
Craigflower Road Improvements Project
MDI is presently designing a large bioretention garden to manage pollution loads from a 600 meter section of Craigflower Road. This will be the first municipal rain garden constructed in the Township of Esquimalt. MDI is designing this multifunctional facility to treat runoff pollution, create a public amenity space, enhance foreshore and wildlife habitat biodiversity and enhance views to the Gorge Waterway for adjacent property owners. MDI is also responsible for developing planter ‘islands’ within Craigflower Road to calm traffic and beautify the streetscape.
Victoria International Airport
Victoria International Airport Parking Lot Expansion
In 2005, MDI developed the landscape plans for the Victoria International Airport Phase 1 parking lot expansion. As part of the ‘Garden City’ theme, the parking lot design included integrated rain water management features. Bioretention swales were incorporated into the areas between wheel stops, and large rain gardens were developed into spaces typically used for more conventional landscaping. The goal was to maintain parking stall numbers and to create a parking facility that was inviting to users, aesthetically pleasing and treated pollutants picked up by rainwater runoff.
The landscape and drainage design are meant to mimic the natural flow paths of the site. Since the airport drains into Ten-Ten Creek and Reay Creek – both fish bearing systems – it is critical that surface drainage patterns be respected and that pollution loads and volumes be managed. As part of the design, a large storm drain was day lighted creating a significant amount of riparian habitat that is presently used by local wildlife populations. The creation of the swales has resulted in new microhabitats being colonized by site adaptive plant material and native wildlife species, such as killdeer, red-winged blackbirds, cattails, sedges, rushes, and wetland woody plant species.
Oak Bay Home Hardware
Oak Bay Home Hardware
Murdoch de Greeff Inc. designed the rainwater management system for this small commercial building. The design approach was to integrate rain water management features into the site that would manage building and parking lot runoff in a cost effective manner. A linear rain garden was developed to manage roof top runoff, while permeable pavement was used to manage parking lot runoff. To control costs, the permeable paving was limited to the drive isle and manages runoff and pollution from the surrounding parking stalls which drain towards the permeable paving.
Trent Street Rain Gardens Complete
The Trent Street Rain Gardens are now complete. The City of Victoria initiated this project to showcase green infrastructure in the city. The rain gardens are located just north of Fort Street (on Trent St. of course!) just behind the hospital.
Check on them for us (when it’s raining) and be sure to tell the city you’re as excited as we are!
