Dammit...

Steven Holl

and

MVVA

sidwell friends

miller|hull's pierce county environmental services building?

most of the projects attempting living building challenge?

the olympic park in china had extensive ecological sanitation measures...

there are some great reports of constructed wetlands online.

LOL. Start by not looking at projects done by architects, no offense. Probably should leave the LOL off the front of the sentence.

Architecture is almost entirely not involved in this process.

TL;DR version-- the entire concept is essentially supporting an infrastructures of plant that can be used to generate an algae mat with the greatest possible surface area to sustain a periphyton community.

Constructed wetlands are so monumentally expensive and labor intensive... not to mention next to impossible to locate a site... that an architectural treatment or misappropriation of the technology not only dilutes it but increases the cost to a point of non-viability.

Sorry.

Even in modestly-sized projects, the amount of land necessary to process 30,000-1,000,000 gallons of wastewater is in the acres. A tiny patch of decorate peat bog ain't gonna cut it.

http://www.archdaily.com/32490/ad-interviews-kieran-timberlake/

HEALTH HAZARD.

http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/07/wetland-discovery-point-takes-leed-platinum.html

Hello, massive population of blackflies.

http://www.dexigner.com/news/18439

LOL, they displaced a wetlands, created an artificial wetlands to treat run off to feed the displace wetlands.

thanks holz... that miller/hull project was one that i've seen before but couldn't recall the architect...

treekiller?

I'm a fan of the SMURRF

Also like the New Town Creek by Polshek

UG - wetlands are not monumentally expensive or labor intensive - the require more land then a mechanical system, but le$$ to operate and maintain.

barry: The New Town Creek project was known as "The Shitty Titties" by the locals.

phillip,

not a problem. that is one of my favorite projects of late... some really nice moments and got a tour a while back.

miller hull might have a couple others... i think they've got a project in vancouver off columbia river underway that is supposed to meet LBC... there is also the willamette river water treatment facility which might be applicable, i can't recall offhand.

For a well-designed option, they're certainly not cheap. They're not bio-reactor expensive but the land they can potentially consume is often more valuable than what they actually provide.

I am more or less dubious of them because they're often a "slap on" greening 'technology.' Not only is central infrastructure (if it even exists) better equipped to handle it, constructed wetlands are for all intents and purposes a public health hazard unless they are treating specifically storm water runoff.

Stormwater runoff doesn't pose any risks as long as it is not contaminated by pesticides or clearing agents nor does it come in contact with any asphalt-laden surfaces.

I was more or less referring to SSF (subsurface flow) treatment systems which do have to be periodically dug up. FWS aren't without their pitfalls either. In either system... the accumulation of dirt and decomposing organic matter has to be periodically dredged. And dredge sludge from engineered wetlands is a hazardous waste that most be disposed of or treated accordingly.

when i was in undergrad in the 1980's i was right into john and nancy todd and the book they wrote called bio-shelters ocean arks and city farming. not sure if they were just one of many but they did lots of prescient stuff ( i think) and were involved in setting up a few water purification systems as well as invent the living machine to deal with sewage at local scale. it is worth checking them out, just to understand where some of what we see around us now came from...

Couldn't one make the argument that any green roof project does this?

It is just a matter of a scale/capacity and level of cleansing ie: storm-water vs black water etc....

but then i guess we would have to define what you mean by landscapes roof vs parklands etc

many other projects by Andropogon (Sidwell School) & Wenk of all the LA firms have rainwater systems integrated into the overt design.

In Meyerson, chat with Anu or Jim if you spot them.

Any number of works from SvR, Wenk, MVVA, any high end landscape architecture practice really.

Sponge Park by dlandstudio is nice too.

See ASLA website for recent awards, most have some stormwater component.

phillip crosby -

this might be of some interest to you. Chicago office UrbanLab has done some work with urban water reclemation... a lot of work in fact. Here is a concept of theirs which i believe won last years City of the Future competition.

http://www.urbanlab.com/h2o/

find other work of theirs regarding your topic here...

http://www.urbanlab.com/urban/growingwater.html

The eco-boulevard concept is pretty cool

The work of Atelier Dreiseitl seems relevant

Big name firms and heavy engineering are not always the best way, and constructed wetlands are not necessarily a health hazard. Look to Arcata CA. Took them decades to prove it would work.
http://www.humboldt.edu/arcatamarsh/index.htm