STORM KING

Went up to Storm King on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to see this landscape at the height of autumn color. My true desire though was to tag along on a tour of Darrel Morrison's majestic designs of native grasses. Darrel Morrison, FASLA, is a longtime advocate of the use of native vegetation in landscape design and restoration work. He taught in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Wisconsin for 14 years where his emphasis was on native plants, native plant communities, and landscape restoration. Subsequently, he taught in the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia where he served as Dean and professor emiritus from 1983 to 1992. Currently, he is a professor at Columbia in the Graduate Landscape Design program and maintains his own practice consulting and designing landscapes for some very high profile clients . I am very fortunate and blessed to have studied under him at Columbia.

Following are some images of Darrel's luxurious swaths of grasses and a few other artists work...

Foreground is Sorghastrum nutans (Indian grass)

Swath on near left is Schizachyrium scoparium (Little Bluestem w. Partridge pea + few other species mix); swath on far right is Panicum virgatum (Switchgrass)
Close-up of Panicum virgatum seed heads

A simple, yet elegant path...

Maya Lin's wave installation (which Darrel Morrison consulted on)

Andy Goldsworthy's stone wall

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR RESIDENTIAL DRIVEWAY

Impervious surfaces (such as driveways) limit the amount of stormwater capture and retention. During rain storms these surfaces (built from materials such as asphalt, cement and concrete) along with rooftops, carry polluted stormwater to storm drains, instead of allowing the water to percolate through the soil. This causes flooding as there is no absorption into the ground. Most municipal storm sewer systems discharge stormwater, untreated to streams, rivers, bays. In New York City, my understanding is that the overtaxed sewage system overflows into the East River.

So,…controlling the amount of stormwater runoff from urban homes is paramount in creating green infrastructure. The challenge is to allow the stormwater to percolate into the soil or ground, thereby reducing levels of urban runoff.

Thanks to a wonderful client of ours in Brooklyn, my partner Dinorah and I designed a sustainable solution to their problematic residential driveway in the midst of redesigning the entire property. The existing asphalt was cracking, pot-holed, consistently failing and flooding during rainstorms. As per local ordinances we could not repave + re-pitch the driveway to direct stormwater into the street. As we were demolishing the pressure treated wood deck in the rear, we chose to create a pea gravel driveway with secured wood boards from the demolished deck (which would then allow the stormwater to percolate down). The broken up asphalt driveway was then used to provide fill for the newly designed above grade stone deck. Only the pea gravel was trucked in, since we used material on-site to produce this. Best of all, the client reaped a tremendous cost savings through this solution!

Old driveway
Old deck
Sustainable Driveway solution