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Nationwide, we’re seeing more frequent, intense, and historic storms. With this increased stormwater volume, many municipalities are finding that their traditional ‘gray’ infrastructure is dangerously nearing capacity, poorly maintained, and often on the brink of failure.
Meanwhile, property owners, developers, and commercial project professionals are dealing with their own set of obstacles caused by increased volumes of stormwater. Things like soggy yards and disappearing shorelines, or stormwater management requirements and client demand for amenity space.
Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) is the answer. It’s the perfect approach for managing rainwater that also mimics, restores, or maintains nature’s hydrology. Using soil and plants, GSI captures rain where it falls and — through gravity and the basic hydrological principles of infiltration, evaporation, and transpiration — cycles it back into the ecosystem.
Contrary to what many contractors, developers, and design teams believe, we consider stormwater as a valuable resource rather than a waste product. Through GSI, we thrive on the design opportunities this natural phenomenon provides.
Simply put, GSI manages excess water more efficiently and economically. It’s the best solution to reduce the volume and slow the flow of water moving along and through your site, while delivering enduring, beautifully green, and ecologically resilient landscapes.
A green roof — or vegetated roof, garden roof, living roof, or eco-roof — is a multi-layered system of plants, lightweight growing media, and other geotechnical components that are installed over a man-made, waterproof membrane. It's the most popular form of Green Stormwater Infrastructure and helps transform a rooftop into a beautiful amenity space.
A rain garden includes native shrubs, perennials, and other vegetation, planted together within depressions in the landscape, usually along a natural slope. It's designed to allow for a large portion of stormwater runoff to soak into the ground rather than rush by, preventing erosion and other issues downstream.
A green roof — or vegetated roof, garden roof, living roof, or eco-roof — is a multi-layered system of plants, lightweight growing media, and other geotechnical components that are installed over a man-made, waterproof membrane. It's the most popular form of Green Stormwater Infrastructure and helps transform a rooftop into a beautiful amenity space.
Through an ecological and sustainable approach to landscaping, we use design practices that are rooted in long-term success. We employ native plant materials in our installations to manage stormwater, eliminate the cause and effects of erosion, and create natural habitats that encourage biodiversity and environmental richness.
A green wall is a vertical, vegetated surface that can be installed indoors or out. It brings a dramatic design element to any project, with the added benefits of increased air quality and stormwater management.
Green street installations use a combination of vegetated and permeable surfaces to provide a resilient system that supports a municipality's existing stormwater infrastructure. Used at street level, they reduce and slow down stormwater runoff volumes while increasing infiltration rates into native groundwater systems.
A rain garden includes native shrubs, perennials, and other vegetation, planted together within depressions in the landscape, usually along a natural slope. It's designed to allow for a large portion of stormwater runoff to soak into the ground rather than rush by, preventing erosion and other issues downstream.
Natural shorelines couple eco-friendly components and plant materials together in a bioengineered system that provides a natural, vegetated buffer between your commercial or residential property and its neighboring body of water. It's an eco-minded solution that stabilizes a shoreline while protecting its ecosystem.
While green roofs will always be Inhabitect’s passion, we focus on using them in tandem with other GSI technologies — like rain gardens, bioswales, green walls, porous paving, and natural/bioengineered shorelines — so that we can maximize effectiveness in what we call the stormwater treatment train.
These systems include the various treatment stages — or ‘train stops’ — to deal with the water that falls from the sky. Using carefully selected vegetation, every drop is retained or detained, allowed to infiltrate through specially designed soils, and slowed enough to evaporate and transpire.
Though the goals of these treatment trains are similar, each system is uniquely designed depending on your needs and other factors like existing infrastructure, budget, scale, site orientation & use, topography, local ordinances, storm frequencies/severities, and water collection goals.
The following treatment train examples show how we can stack these GSI technologies to mimic natural hydrological cycles and slow the velocity of water, bringing you increased time of concentration and reduced overall volume of your stormwater runoff.
A. Green Roof
B. Green Wall
C. Water Catchment / Cistern
D. Stormwater Planter
E. Underground Detention / Retention / Reuse
F. Vegetated Bio-Retention / Rain Garden
A. Green Roof
B. Green Wall
C. Permeable / Porous Paving (Non-Motorized)
D. Stormwater Planter / Catchment Basin
E. Permeable / Porous Paving (Motorized)
A. Green Roof
B. Green Wall
C. Permeable / Porous Paving (Non-Motorized)
D. Vegetated Bio-Retention / Rain Garden
E. Upland Habitat – Runoff / Sheet Flow Management / Infiltration
F. Natural Shoreline / Buffer / Bioengineering
A. Green Roof
B. Permeable Buffer
C. Permeable Paving
D. Rain Garden / Pollinator Garden
E. Bird Habitat
F. Edible Landscape
By adding GSI technology to your site, you have a hand in improving your quality of life, and that of nearby waterways and the environment as a whole. And while it’s not a complete replacement for traditional ‘gray’ stormwater infrastructure, GSI offers a way to enhance the standard ‘old school’ approach to water management, resulting in a community that’s more resilient and livable.
Inhabitect is a full-service firm dedicated to designing, building, and growing all forms of living architecture. Based in Traverse City, Michigan — and consulting throughout North America — we create green roofs, natural shorelines, and other stormwater management and eco-minded landscape solutions for clients across the state. We’re bringing a new meaning to ‘GREEN.’