This proposal is particularly innovative in making water management the overarching educational component. Through the use of varying media (maps, brochures, and digital info) the park opens up to users, bringing them closer to the processes behind water harvesting, treatment and reuse.  In that light the engineered portions of the landscape offer more structured event spaces while the wilder portions offer more dynamic encounters.

The framework of the engineered portions of the landscape work to address the surrounding context of the city streets and therefore introduce the city to the park and the park to the urban fabric of Des Moines. These transitions create fresh opportunities for constituents to further understand the role of water in the city-region nexus.

This international design competition was organized by Des Moines Water Works and Iowa State’s Dept. of Landscape Architecture and it is notable with respect to urban hydro-logics because of its scope: “the creation of a conceptual plan to form dynamic relationships between the river, the watershed, and the Greater Des Moines community.”  To learn more about the Water Works Parkitecture competition and the winning proposal by Sasaki, RDG and AES – please visit HERE.

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Base Sources: Water Works Parkitecture; Architizer.com; Form Magazine

Image Credits: All Images by Sasaki, RDG and AES. Via Bustler; Form Magazine

Water sensitive urban developments are designed to minimize anthropogenic disturbances to ecological and hydrological processes.  Because all these issues require interdisciplinary discussion and expertise, the conference will… “bring together over 350 delegates, including: water and environmental engineers, flood- and Eco-hydrologists, environmental scientists, climatologists, economists, social scientists, policy makers, regulators, strategic/council planners, catchment managers, designers, architects, land developers and product/infrastructure developers.”

The WSUD Conference serves as a milestone that propels forward the conceptualization and implementation of water sensitive urban-scapes –  a task that cannot be achieved through conventional water management solutions alone.  This conference is anchored on the belief that an integrated approach is necessary in order to innovate and meet these challenges. The ultimate outcome of the issues and solution sets to be discussed in the WSUD Conference are a step forward in the quest to integrate the diverse design cultures involved in high performance urban hydro-logics.

Text Excerpt Credits: WSUD Conference 2012

Image Banner Credits:  Logo WSUD Conference 2012

We are in a moment in time when we can begin to weigh the value of large infrastructure projects as they relate to risk management vs. the sustainable and ecological alternatives as they relate to our future urban landscapes. When large conveyance infrastructure projects are implemented that means that we are still operating under an old paradigm, where less natural processes are put to work for our benefit. Retrofitting our cities to be water sensitive requires more hard work and more interdisciplinary creativity, making it less desirable in the short term.

Take for example the case of the massive water discharge tunnel near Tokyo, a vast complex built to combat floods. Featured in a recent video report by CNN titled “Fighting floods with an engineering feat”, Andrew Stevens explains that a series of 5 massive underground storage tanks, each 30m in diameter, move water from one place to another via a 6km long tunnel. According to Stevens, the drainage system’s purpose is to avoid the flooding of the rivers above, accommodating water and then slowly releasing it into the Eddo River in a mega infrastructural “feat” to eliminate flood risk. Curiously in the report Takashi Komiyama (Chief of the Outer Flood way Management Office) explains that: “This region is near Tokyo and has been developing at a very fast rate. Before the region had many more rice paddies that acted as drains for the rain water, but those have been replaced by roads and houses and there is a higher risk of floods.”

His statement makes it clear that even though the design answer is well known, the preferred solution remains a conventional one-liner. Finally the report ends with the statement: “A complex solution to an age old problem”. But in reality this is really the conventional solution to the age old problem. What this project is NOT is a “sustainable solution”. Restoring the natural pre-development settings would have required the re-introduction of natural features to accommodate water. That in turn would have benefited the fauna and flora of the region, improved the urban amenities for residents, and reduced heat island effect and pollution. The indirect benefits of such a large investment would have yielded more returns, not just with respect to flood alleviation, but with respect to ecosystem services, coastal management, groundwater resources, etc. In conclusion, although this report is well intentioned it is inappropriately archived in the eco-solutions section of CNN. Instead of a mega “drain” CNN should have showcased an ecological design solution. At urban hydrologics we believe that proper approaches to this widespread challenge should begin with watershed based planning: retrofitting existing urban hard-scape to meet the run-off coefficient of the pre-development rice paddies that, according to the engineer, acted as the — original, optimal and natural — drains.

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Text excerpt credits: CNN.com | Fighting floods with an engineering feat | Report by Andrew Stevens | Jan, 09 2012
Image credits: CNN.com | Fighting floods with an engineering feat | Report by Andrew Stevens | Jan, 09 2012

To view the Video Report please click HERE 

According to the UACDC, “…stormwater management is the single greatest infrastructural expense and the soft engineering of shared streets facilitates a 40% savings in construction costs compared to conventionally engineered streets.” In order to restore the site’s pre-development hydrologic regime, Porchcapes employs a comprehensive network of bioswales, infiltration trenches, rainwater gardens, and filter stripes, tree box filters, and wet meadows to cleanse water via biological processes. In this sense this proposal works against the conventional “end of pipe” solutions that fail to address runoff management by means of a high performance landscape.

The UACDC sustains that: “… the first hour of urban stormwater runoff has a pollution index much higher than that of raw sewage. Thus, neighborhood sectors are developed as subwatersheds, combining hydrologic performance with open space design.” “The site is essentially designed to function like a sponge, recharging and evapotranspiring treated runoff after its initial absorption during a storm event. Since individual property value is contextually created through collective environmental and social forces, neighborhood infrastructure is the key to sustained home-ownership.”

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Project Credits:

Porchscapes, Fayetteville, Ark

Client: Habitat for Humanity of Washington County; University of Arkansas School of Architecture; Ecological Engineering Consultant: University of Arkansas Ecological Engineering Group; Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering students; Civil Engineering Consultant: McClelland Consulting; City of Fayetteville

Project Design Sponsors: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Region VI Arkansas Natural Resource Commission; University of Arkansas Women’s Giving Circle

Text Credits = Project Credits; uacdc.uark.edu (UACDC) | via architectmagazine

Image Banner Credits = Project Credits; uacdc.uark.edu (UACDC) | via architectmagazine

For further reference please see the PDF by UACDC.

Text excerpt credits:  Erik Lomeland_ ResilientCity.Org

Image credits: Erik Lomeland_ ResilientCity.Org

Another invited guest to the program was Robyn Colosimo, the assistant for water policy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. She describes:”and so we’ve got to find that balance between where development should be occurring, and that occurs and is managed at the local level, and yet how we protect that development and protect the rivers so both the economy and the environment can thrive.”

Also in the program was Andrew Fahlund, the senior vice president for conservation, American Rivers. He asserted that: “…the river is often the greatest asset in a community. So we’ve got to find that balance. We’ve got to strike a balance where we can keep people out of harm’s way, provide disincentives for people building in the wrong places, and also make sure we’re protecting our natural defenses, things like wetlands and floodplains, which act like sponges and can absorb some of these kinds of events…”

To listen to the program please click HERE or visit the NPR Talk of the Nation website where you can also download the audio.

Text transcript credits: NPR: “Managing Rivers When Record Rains Fall” Oct, 6 2011.  NPR Talk of the Nation

General Credits: National Public Radio, 2011

According to AGER Group, the “Domestic Laundry” project (featured above), uses a variety of bioremediation and site cultivation methods like the “Flushing Basin” or cleansing wetland, “Curtain” or vertical filter, “Mattress” or microbial matrix medium, and “Pillow” or soil cleansing berm” among other techniques.  Their goal was also to involve and connect people to place in “the processes of site remediation”, which makes this proposal very strong with respect to how place making and site regeneration should come together.

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In a similar way, the winning entry ”Gowanus Flowlands” proposal by Tyler Caine, Luke Carnahan, Ryan Doyle, and Brandon Specketer, suggests the need to “live with remediation”. They argue that “a truly sustainable urban ecosystem depends on creating a vibrant and walkable community that is both ecologically and economically self-supportive. The success of the neighborhood relies on this pair of systems being spatially and functionally complimentary to each other.” With their strategy to “peel up the layers of fertile substrate”, the team sought to integrate a wetland ecosystem that could also organize the circulation patterns of pedestrians and thus successfully connect the water “treatment train” levels with the walkable community.

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Text Quote Credits: Agergroup , Via Bustler | “Gowanus Flowlands” Team, Via Gowanuslowline.org
Image Credits: Agergroup , Via Bustler | “Gowanus Flowlands” Team, Via Gowanuslowline.org

Brief excerpt from the article: “When Rain Is a Pain: Urban flooding raises questions about Chinese cities’ drainage systems” by Yin Pumin:  “As the cities have grown, infrastructure like underground drainage networks have not kept up,” said Li Yuhong, former chief engineer of the Urban Management Office for Rivers and Lakes under the Beijing Water Authority. All in all, more than 250 county-level cities found themselves suffering from an excess of water last year.

On this note Yu Kongjian stated that: “Rainwater harvesting could ease the pressure on the Yangtze water diversion project, and avoid many environmental problems that such large-scale projects possibly cause”.  He suggests expanding the extent of permeable ground coverage within the city, which would involve expanding the city’s green belts.  By collecting rainwater, the local government could create an alternative source of water to meet the demands of cities at a much lower cost than other projects.

Image Credits: Adapted from AFP / Getty Images

Text Excerpt Credits:  When Rain Is a Pain, by Yin Pumin | Beijing Review.com

According to the job posting, the right candidate must see water sensitive urban design as an interdisciplinary activity requiring careful attention to detail at many stages of project delivery in order to achieve effective on-ground outcomes.  Additional responsibilities include:

– Supporting the adoption of water sensitive urban design through developing, updating and maintaining a suite of best-practice guidelines on water sensitive urban design, and actively supporting their adoption by government and industry.

– Maintaining an online discussion forum and case study register.
Building on knowledge and understanding of urban water issues by undertaking and/or coordinating investigations and research as required.

– Providing value to the program’s investors by managing the delivery of high quality projects (including managing consultants and other service providers such as peer review teams, editors, graphic designers etc).

– Developing and maintaining effective relationships with a range of stakeholders—from local government, state government agencies, research organisations, and private practice—in order to understand their specific capacity building needs and to remain abreast of best-practice and emerging ‘next-practice’ in water management and urban design.

– Communicating program activities in clear and succinct written reports for executive briefings and investing organisations, and representing the program in a range of meetings, forums and events.

– Supporting colleagues with the day to day operation of the Healthy Waterways office, including administrative tasks, consistent with being part of a collaborative team environment.

– For a full position description and details of how to apply please click HERE

– Please note that applications will close 5pm on Tuesday 2nd August.

Water by Design was the winner of the 2011 Australian Water Association Program Innovation Award and its a program of Healthy Waterways. For more information on Healthy Waterways and its programs visit www.healthywaterways.org

Text Credits:  Water by Design & healthy waterways

Image Banner Credits:  Water by Design & healthy waterways

The authors of the article (Katinka Wagsaether and Gina Ziervogel) state that “Bridging the Communication Gap” implies that climate science must be made available and comprehensible to WRMs, and that climate scientists and WRMs must collaborate to ensure that relevant information is produced and communicated.

“The need for collaboration and information sharing between the knowledge producers—the scientists—and the practitioners who manage human and ecological systems and who are the end users of the knowledge, is just as urgent as it was 100 years ago. The arrival of daunting climate change projections has over the last few decades increased the urgency and importance of improving the communication between scientists and practitioners.”
Text Excerpt Credits: Authors: Katinka Wagsaether and Gina Ziervogel, Environment Magazine, May-June 2011 | Article title: Bridging the Communication Gap: An Exploration of the Climate Science – Water Management Interface

Image Credits: ae.i.ou research & design