Cardinals and Broncos at GreenWorks!

Students from programs at Ball State University (The Cardinals) and Cal Poly Pomona (The Broncos) visited our office this week. We always love talking to students, introducing them to our office, and giving them a glimpse into what they can expect when they begin their professional lives. It is also edifying for our staff to hear about what the next generation is learning in the classroom that will impact the future of the industry. From what we can see, the future is in great hands. Recent student visitors tell us about their studies in “cradle to cradle” or regenerative design, a holistic approach to design to attain efficient and waste-free environments. Our designers enjoy sharing our green infrastructure projects like the Portland Expo Center Stormwater Green Wall and Clay Street Green Street to illustrate sustainable design in Portland.

Paradise Under the Asphalt

Last weekend, GreenWorkers pitched in at Astor Elementary School’s depaving where a group of 100 volunteers spent a Saturday removing 5,000 square feet of asphalt. The demolition was orchestrated by Depave (depave.org) whose mission is to assist communities in transforming their pavement lots into neighborhood greenspaces. The asphalt removal is making way for a new playground which includes a turf mound, group swings, tree groves, and a custom log and boulder climber. GreenWorks was directly hired by Astor PTSO to design the playground which is on schedule for construction this summer.

Hosford Middle School Stormwater Project

Construction of a swale at Hosford Middle School began during the school’s winter break. It was designed by GreenWorks, PC and constructed by DeSantis Landscapes for the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership’s stormwater and schools efforts. The design includes a curved concrete wall and other features that reduce the maintenance efforts needed by Portland Public Schools. The swale infiltrates runoff from approximately 4,600 square feet of the school’s roof and reduces the amount of runoff to the combined sewer system. The rerouted downspout creates a runoff powered water feature by directing water through a series of basalt columns before spilling into the swale. The project provides schoolyard learning opportunities for students, beautifies the school grounds, and supports local and regional efforts to improve the health of our rivers through onsite stormwater management. Students and Estuary Partnership educators will plant several hundred native plants in the swale in the next few weeks. Project partners include Hosford Middle School, the Estuary Partnership and Portland Public Schools. We would like to thank the City of Portland, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, and New Seasons Market for their generous support.

Ace Mentoring Session at GreenWorks

GreenWorks hosted ACE Mentoring, a national program with the mission to engage, excite, and enlighten high school students to pursue careers in architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and construction. As one of the team leaders of ACE, Claire Maulhardt, landscape designer with GreenWorks, has been involved with this student group to promote the relationship between students and the Landscape Architecture profession.

On January 24^th, GreenWorks hosted an ACE Mentoring session geared toward site analysis, site design and the urban landscape. The ACE project this year is focused on an existing high school site that needs a new Career/Technical Education Addition or Arts Addition. Over the course of five months, the mentors will walk the students through the design and construction process using the project as an example. In an effort to instill sustainability in the minds of the students, the design will endeavor to reduce energy, conserve/store water, reduce and/or reuse waste, utilize on-site renewable energy sources, and incorporate the use of recycled materials.

The photographs below show a site planning exercise conducted by the students to determine the best location for the new addition on the existing school site.

GreenWorks Visits U of O Architecture Studio

GreenWorkers Dave Elkin and Jeff Boggess were invited to visit Kevin Nute’s fifth year/grad level architecture studio at the University of Oregon in Eugene on October 11th.  The class is in the first stages of a year-long design process to rethink future development of two decommissioned Titan I nuclear missile complexes built in Northern California during the Cold War era. Design challenges the students face include reuse of underground building infrastructure, removal of invasive plant species and remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater.

Dave and Jeff offered advice based on past and current bioremediation efforts (aka treatment wetlands and stormwater management), followed by an engaging round table discussion with the students and professor.

Thanks for the invite Kevin!  Good luck and keep us posted.

Grant High School Community Garden Construction Complete!

Northeast Portland Community Gardeners are happily planting, watering, weeding and harvesting food from their plots at the Grant High School Community Garden. The Environmental Club at the High School teamed up with Portland Community Gardens to transform a 7,700 square foot piece of lawn in the front of the school to a garden for the surrounding community. GreenWorks provided the garden design to maximize plot size, provide clear circulation, and create an aesthetically pleasing space that fits the context of the historic architecture of the school and neighborhood.

Lane Community College Health and Wellness Facility

A few GreenWorks employees recently visited the Lane Community College Health and Wellness Facility at Lane Community College in Eugene to see how the completed project is progressing. The facility functions as the northwestern gateway to the main campus integrating the new facility and existing campus. Clear circulation and a sense of arrival accentuate the overall design, which incorporates stormwater treatment solutions. Exterior spaces are active and engaging areas that translate health and wellness to the landscape.

Awards Granted to Hood River Middle School Music and Science Building!

The Hood River Middle School Music and Science Building is a LEED certified project designed as a hands-on learning laboratory, where students interact with the site's resource systems. The building additions were completed in September 2010.

• Last week the U.S. Green Building Council certified the Hood River Middle School additions as LEED Platinum, the highest possible LEED rating.

• The project was also recently named one of the American Institute of Architects Top Ten Green Projects for 2012.

GreenWorks worked closely with school faculty and the design team to create a site that meets school needs while utilizing a small ecological footprint. Resource system information, such as onsite rainwater harvesting, wastewater treatment and solar power generation, is tracked and fed to a central dashboard where students monitor the buildings' resource flows. In the native plant arboretum, each student is responsible for a plant that they care for, water, measure and observe throughout the seasons. The learning garden is an ever-changing canvas, which provides harvests enjoyed by students and the community. Students harvest and sell the produce at the local farmers market and learn permaculture principles in the multisensory, food forest where they grow and harvest plants for food, fiber, dye and other uses. GreenWorks' services included schematic design, construction documents, specifications, LEED documentation, bidding assistance and construction administration.

Read more about the project on the AIA website here.

Grant High School Community Garden

The Environmental Club at Grant High School in Northeast Portland is in the process of establishing a Community Garden and a Learning Garden in the front of the school. Their inspiration for the gardens came from a desire to give back to the local community, provide fresh food from the garden to the cafeteria, and learn about sustainable agriculture. The students received a grant from State Farm and have teamed up with Portland Community Gardens to make their dream a reality. The Environmental Club enlisted the help of GreenWorks to create a design for the garden that would be aesthetically pleasing to the surrounding community, include two ADA accessible plots, and maximize the available garden space.

The gardens are located in front of the school in the NE corner of the existing lawn on NE 36th Avenue. Portland Community Gardens will assign the community garden plots on a first come first served basis. The learning garden will be maintained by the environmental club and sustainable agriculture classes as well as the biology, special education and Japanese departments.

On February 16th the Environmental Club and Portland Community Gardens held a Town Hall event where they invited the local community to ask questions and express their concerns about the garden. The attendees voiced an enormous amount of support and enthusiasm for the project. Neighbors are eager to get a spot secured and start gardening!

GreenWorks was honored to contribute to the creation of the Grant High School Community and Learning Gardens. The Environmental Club has been working on the garden's implementation for over a year now, coming up against many set-backs and logistical road blocks. They are truly a remarkable group of students who simply wanted to give back to the surrounding community, supply their cafeteria with fresh and healthy food and provide an opportunity for future students to learn about sustainable agriculture. Follow the Grant High School Community Garden blog here.

Beverly Cleary School Completes Bioswale Construction

The school community at Beverly Cleary School in NE Portland recently completed construction on a bioswale as part of an overall landscape plan entitled the “Learning Landscape Project.” The project was inspired to develop a system that improved the school’s impact on urban stormwater. The bioswale works to mitigate the impact of polluted stormwater by collecting and filtering the water before it drains in to sewers, rivers, or streams. GreenWorks’ Michelle Mathis led the design effort of this project working with the Beverly Cleary School community. The Beverly Cleary K-8 School is a two-campus school; Kindergarten and first grade students are housed at the Hollyrood campus, and the second through eighth grade students are housed at the Fernwood campus. They built and planted a swale at the Fernwood School in the spring of 2006, but the downspouts were never disconnected to feed into the swale.

For more information and a video on the downspout visit:

http://greenworkspc.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/2501/