Water Pressure
Two landscape architecture graduate students won recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency for their efforts to solve UT Arlington’s storm-water runoff problem. Competing against 217 teams from 42 states, Kent Elliott and Blake Samper earned an honorable mention in the EPA’s first Campus RainWorks Challenge. The contest sought ideas for innovative green infrastructure to lessen storm-water impact while supporting sustainable communities. Elliott and Samper’s design replaces surface parking with increased tree canopy and vegetation while adding rain gardens, green roofs, a rain barrel staircase, vegetated swales and terraces, hydrowalls, permeable paving, and an aqueduct.
Just out of idle curiosity, how will people conveniently get to the campus when “Elliott and Samper’s design replaces surface parking”? Furthermore, with the water shortages the State frequently suffers, one would think that the only designs considered would be ones which efficiently capture and store storm water runoff for drought mitigation during dry months. The architectural rendering looks beautiful, but this article doesn’t discuss how–or if–the Elliott and Samper design addresses these important issues.