Beginning to Stormwater Management
Students worked in teams to develop a stormwater master plan for the Sisters of Social Services site, where they used and integrated their knowledge and experience doing environmental analysis and design assignments for Plant Studies II: Shrubs, LD5, and Irrigation Design classes.
INSTRUCTOR: Tom Rau
JUDGES:
Nate Cormier
Stacie Preven
SCRIBES:
Elisa Reclusado
Kira Arnold
Nurture & Nourish
Tom Hurst & James Kang
SCASLA - Excellence Award
The judges were impressed with the design's integration into the existing topography and loved the look out deck and planting plan.
This conceptual plan reimagines a 20+ acre retreat campus around its water. Low-impact earthworks — media lunas, zuni bowls, berm-and-basin systems — slow and spread incidental rainfall across three connected zones: a reflective prayer area reshaped by a rill and collection pond, a constructed wetland that filters lake seepage through mycelium-inoculated logs and heavy-metal-extracting natives before it reaches the storm drain, and an oak woodland restoration that reestablishes a self-sustaining native understory without irrigation. A pedestrian trail stitches the areas together with the site's existing Biophilic Tree House, translating the Sisters' ecological values into a system volunteers and community workshops can build by hand.
From Seed to Oak: The Oak Life Cycle & Stormwater
Laura Williams & Brian Bautista
This project takes place on the Sisters' of Social Service Retreat Center, which experiences flooding during the rainy season. Much of the site drains to an artificial lake whose liner has cracked, resulting in seepage and anaerobic conditions in a nearby wetland. The requirements of the project were to deploy a series of community buildable stormwater management features focusing on low cost, constructable solutions that can double as site infrastructure, like walkable berms, stack stone terraces for seating, etc. The goals were to infiltrate sheet flow while reducing erosion in concentrated flows from a culvert. Students were allowed a pump to move water into the lake from the prayer area.
Second Chances: Redeeming & Restoring Landscape
Ricardo Galvez, Ryan O’Leary Jones, Jonathan Rossetti
Stormwater management conceptual design for the Sisters of Social Service, addressing a retreat landscape where existing drainage patterns contributed to erosion, saturated soils, and flooding in key gathering areas. The project examined three connected parts of the property: a meditation and devotional area, an existing wetland ecosystem, and an oak woodland slope, and asked how stormwater could be managed more effectively while improving the experience of the landscape.