Thursday, May 17, 2018
Images: TLS Landscape Architecture + Object Territories + [dhd] Derek Hoeferlin Design
David Flick, Principal and Founder of Terra Technologies, is proud to announce that Shane Staten, certified Professional Wetland Scientist with Terra Technologies, was the Ecology lead for one of the four teams that was under final consideration in the Chouteau Greenway international design competition. This project strives to transform St. Louis by creating many public spaces along new walking and biking trails that will connect two of that city’s most important destinations: the Gateway Arch National Park at the eastern end of the project and Forest Park and Washington University at the western end.
Terra Technologies was part of the team headed by TLS Landscape Architecture, Object Territories, and [dhd] Derek Hoeferlin Design. This group of international and local experts in design/planning, culture/advocacy, engineering/ecology, and zoning/land-use featured leadership in New York, Berkeley, Hong Kong, and Shanghai with other team members in St. Louis, Chicago, Oakland, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and other cities.
The team’s proposed greenway design aspired to look beyond the benefits of most greenways by also addressing ecology, education, innovation, culture, heritage, food, health, finance, and housing. It included two paths from Washington University’s Danforth Campus to the Arch with several north-south connectors between these paths. In addition, the team proposed to connect the north and south parts of the City through a series of north-south loops between Tower Grove Park, the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and Fairgrounds Park. The team’s concept name, +STL: Growing an Urban Mosaic, was inspired by the resulting shape of the combination of these east-west and north-south pathways.
Because the team’s vision was to have this project be as ecologically beneficial as possible, Terra Technologies was asked to provide local ecological knowledge and restoration design skills to the proposed greenway design. As described in the design report and the Ecology appendix authored by Shane Staten with graphics from the team leadership, the +STL proposal included native plants along all parts of the greenway with the plant communities modelled after the habitats that would naturally occur in those locations: prairie, open woodland, streamside forest, and wetland. Notably, the design included numerous low impact development technologies and applications to address St. Louis’ combined sewer overflow problem, a massive infrastructure undertaking that is estimated to cost the sewer utility at least $4.7 billion to resolve. This part of the +STL proposal, authored by eDesign Dynamics, would have assisted that effort through such proposed actions as intercepting runoff into rain gardens, restoring numerous buried storm sewer pipes to open channel streams, and the collection of runoff into a storm water management facility just southwest of Busch Stadium and near the planned St. Louis Aquarium. A concept developed by Shane Staten enhanced the design of this stormwater facility into a proposed urban birding and biodiversity hotspot to improve the human experience as well as the natural environment as a public park featuring wetland and prairie habitats focused on bird watching and nature observation. Along with the other aspects of our team’s greenway design, this concept intended to bring nature deep into the City for the benefit of plants, animals, and residents.
Following the vision of the team leadership, Terra Technologies helped the team to integrate infrastructure and ecology into their proposal, ensuring that the vegetative design was not only beautiful but that it included working landscapes that would clean the air, provide wildlife habitat, feature edible and medicinal species, include wetland habitats that would clean the water, provide phytoremediation benefits by cleaning mildly polluted soil, and feature pollinator-friendly plant species.
The final concepts from all four teams were submitted in April and then displayed in numerous locations throughout St. Louis in order to engage the public and get their feedback. Although the competition jury selected another well-deserving team to provide the final master plan, they stated that one of the strengths of our team was that “Water and ecology played a great part in the concept with innovative landscape and hydrological ideas.”
For more information on ecological services, contact your local office of Terra Technologies.
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