Wesbrook UBC
Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood - an urban village in the woods...
The Site
Our landscape design for a 24-unit townhouse development in Wesbrook Place in UBC'S South Campus has been called "innovative" by the UBC Urban Design Panel. The units sit atop an underground parkade which covers approximately 92% of the property. The property is located in the South Campus area is bordered to the north by Smith Park and to the east by a section of the "Green Streets" pathways called Scholar's Greenway.
The Challenge
Development of the South Campus at UBC is based on sustainability principles which will provide social, environmental, and economic benefits.
These principles include landscape design strategies to integrate a native planting palette, rain water detention and distribution with green roofs, rain gardens, permeable surfaces, creation of wildlife corridors and habitat spaces….For this development - the challenge lies in integrating these strategies on top of the roof parkade.
The Design
Our design integrates UBC's vision for an "urban village in the forest." Since a large part of the green space between the town homes sits above an underground parkade, the landscape appears to be at ground level. The townhouses cluster around a central courtyard space which has been designed to emulate an open forest vernacular -complete with native groundcovers, shrubs/ferns, understory and larger forest like trees. And with the stands of existing conifers in the neighbouring park and Green Street, plus those we've included in our design, residents will truly feel like they're living in an urban forest.
We're illustrating - in an abstract way - how storm water naturally falls, runs-off and infiltrates by using rain chains to direct storm water from the roofs into a system of open concrete channels or "tributaries" which feed to a central "creek" which runs through the middle of the courtyard and into rain gardens.
Design of Rain Canal and Rain Garden System
Construction of Rain Garden and Rain Channels the Feed Water from Building Roofs
Sustainability
Instead of burying storm- water collection, conveyance, and infiltration in pipes and other under ground systems, we're bringing it to the surface so residents can see how it works. The abstract creek flows into a series of rain gardens located just off the slab and into native grade and help to recharge the ground water table. Also, the green roof will use a light, new soil including a super-absorbent polymer, to increase water holding capacity without damaging water logging.
Plant materials will include many native species like, western sword fern, vine maples, and flowering dogwoods to enhance the wild-life habitat. Bog Rose Mary and Iris that like wet conditions, but are tolerant of drier summer periods, have been selected for the rain gardens. To save energy, we've surrounded the edges of the property with a canopy of large deciduous trees to provide cooling shade in the summer and allow the low winter sun to filter through windows in the cooler months.
Learn more... UBC's Neighbourhood Vision .
