Presented at the AIA Design on the Delaware conference, Philadelphia 2007. Focus is stormwater infrastructure executed by landscape architects in collaboration with engineers and architects. Venice Island Park, designed for Philadelphia Water Department is a case study.
21. Collection System Statistics
% Combined Sewer 60%
% Separate Sewer 40%
% Impervious – Citywide 47.4%
% Impervious – STREETS (10,000 acres) 23%
Miles of sewer 2,955
# of Street Inlets 75,000
# of CSOs 175
Annual CSO Volume 19 BG/yr
Rain Events per Year 80/yr
# of Stormwater Outfalls 457
Annual SW Volume 12 BG/yr
* BG = Billion Gallons
22. New Stormwater Regulations – Private Development
New Requirements
Flood Protection
Match Pre to Post
Development
Release Rates for
a Range of Events
Existing Ordinance
Objectives
Channel
Protection
Detain
the1-yr, 24
hour storm
for24hrs
Provide Groundwater
Recharge and Water
Quality Treatment
1” from Directly
Connected Impervious
Area
39. Ask for more:
Divert three million gallons of stormwater from
the entering the Schuylkill River
Improve connections from the island to local
businesses
Manage every reasonable drop of rain that falls
onto the Island
Maintain two hundred parking spaces to serve
business community
Improve the facilities used by local stakeholders
Develop new active recreation opportunities
Improve connections to the river
Improve the Island’s ability to recover from
flooding
Maintain natural quality of island
Make Island a civic space for Manayunk
Provide new performing arts facilities
Develop safer provisions for flooding on the
Island
Showcase sustainable development techniques
Create access for watercraft
Make a space for sporting events in Manayunk
Infrastructure has played a critical role in shaping urban form since people began to aggregate into settlements. Early public works projects successfully balanced natural principles with an articulation of civic ambition and urban formmaking. Water, energy, crops, materials and waste were the raw ingredients in human society. As it became necessary to draw these ingredients from greater distances to satisfy the appetites of cities, the concept of public works arose – monumental, practical achievements that celebrated urban civilisation.
Macchu Picchu
Urban spaces organized around water catchment for crop use. Agricultural terraces followed natural bowl shape in landscape while spring from several miles away in jungle fed runnel leading to a series of 16 fountains and basins. The fountains were both agricultural, distributing water to terraces but also serves houses and ceremonial function at temple on top of mountain (agriculture, religion, domestic water, determined urban form)
Italy’s Trevi fountain marked the termination point of the city of Rome’s gravity based water system and became a supplier of freshwater as well as a generator of urban form. The fountain at the juncture of three roads (tre vie) marks the terminal point of the Aqua Virgo (Italian: Acqua Vergine), one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to Rome. Infrastructure closely linked with ideas of civilization that the fall of Rome is actually marked by the destruction of the system that served the fountain and Roman’s subsequent reliance on fouled wells and the polluted Tigris.
In this country there is a legacy of infrastructure projects that leverage straightforward natural processes to deliver freshwater, manage flooding, create real estate value and provide recreational open space to cities. Some of these early infrastructure projects accomplished much more than efficiently transporting a resource, they were expressions of civic aspiration and the catalysts for urban development.
Salt River canal system. The Salt River canal system, supplying modern day Phoenix AZ with multiple uses – irrigation water, receation, open space – built from a system of irrigation ditches, constructed with stone hoes by Hohokam Indians, peaceful farmers who inhabited the Salt River Valley for about a thousand years, from A.D. 300 to 1450. Their system of traversed nearly 500 miles and may have served as many as 50,000 people at a time.
Boston’s Back Bay Fens – 19th century Boston integrated sewage treatment, positive surface drainage and flood control with a plan for a park system that that included restored fens as a constructed wetland system. The plan also accommodated new street organization and boulevards within the setting of a naturalized landscape.
Central Park – Designed as the “lungs for the city” became real estate catalyst and recreational centerpiece of city. As an example of "evolutionary" infrastructure, CP has reinvigorated citizens' understandings of their places within the city. … (Poole);
Foresight of PWD, to begin Fairmount Park land acquisition to assure water quality. Celebrated in Philadelphia’s Central Square with monumental pump house.
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The City of Philadelphia is made up of Seven Major Watersheds which ultimately feed the Delaware River. For those who don’t know, a watershed is the surface drainage area that contributes water to a particular river or stream. Now Philadelphia’s infrastructure, about 60% actually, is comprised of combined sewers. This is pretty common in old cities, like Chicago, New York, Boston, when wastewater treatment wasn’t a concern during the construction of sewers.
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In order to have a successful based program, we are actively intergrating three broad classes of projects. Land based, Water based, and Infrastructure based initiatives.