Charleston property owners can be more engaged in managing flood, drainage resources
We recently spoke with David Quick at the Post & Courier about rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, and water management for Charleston area homeowners. Read the article here.
Photo credit: Post & Courier
Tupelo Bend’s Grand Opening
This week we stopped by the grand opening of Tupelo Bend, a low-impact development commercial office park that we planned and designed in collaboration with our good friend Dave Merrifield of Holden Design Shop. Owners and developers New Leaf Builders imagined the office park to be more like a neighborhood, with four buildings resembling homes instead offices.
The undeveloped site was typical of the natural Lowcountry landscape, with numerous grand trees and a freshwater wetland. These natural features served as our design inspiration for the office park, and the site plan was developed to work with the existing landscape and natural resources. The office park was named “Tupelo Bend” in honor of the native tupelo trees within the wetland and the entrance road that was designed to bend around the existing trees and wetlands.
Following the original drainage patterns of the landscape, we designed a series of inter-connected bio-retention basins. This distributed stormwater management system creates a functional landscape of shallow depressions, swales, and vast areas of native vegetation that store, treat, and use stormwater runoff. A beautifully-crafted pedestrian bridge crosses the central bio-retention basin, creating a unique, serene arrival experience to the offices of New Leaf Builders and their neighbors.
Experts devising ways to make stormwater ponds more natural, functional
Joshua Robinson recently spoke with David Quick at the Post & Courier about stormwater bioretention, constructed wetlands, and pond naturalization retrofits. Read the full article here.
Photo by David Quick, Post & Courier
A Neighborhood Built not to Flood
In 2012 we worked with New Leaf Builders to create Fox Hollow, an infill neighborhood on James Island. Thanks to SC Public Radio and journalist Alexandra Olgin for the chance to talk about the low impact development approach and stormwater wetlands at Fox Hollow. This piece is part of a larger conversation about the October 2015 floods and what they’ve shown us about stormwater management and sea level rise in coastal South Carolina.
Joshua Robinson at the 9-home LID neighborhood (Alexandra Olgin)
Paddling Gadsden Creek
On May 16, 2015, four friends paddled the majority of Gadsden Creek, the last remaining tidal creek in Charleston's Old City District, on an urban expedition. The four embarked from the upstream end of Section II, located at Line Street and Hagood Avenue, and paddled to the end of Section IV, terminating at Lockwood Boulevard.
Best New Community
Fox Hollow, our recent low-impact development neighborhood on James Island, has received a 2013 Prism Award by the Charleston Home Builders Association. Congratulations to New Leaf Builders, and many thanks for the opportunity!
New enclave in the works on James Island earns wildlife federation seal for staying eco-friendly
Our low-impact development neighborhood on James Island was recently covered by the Post & Courier.
Fox Hollow, a hamlet off Woodland Shores Road on James Island, was named a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation recently (Leroy Burnell, Post & Courier)