Year: 2014

Location: Gowanus, Brooklyn

Scope: design, project management, masonry, planting

At the entrance to the Green Building, along the Gowanus Canal, a stormwater garden diverts rain runoff from an entire block and provides a unique green focal point in an otherwise industrial hardscape.

Layers of permeable material including river rocks, together with beds of native grasses and swamp cypress, replace strategic sections of impermeable sidewalk concrete, improving drainage and providing natural rainwater filtration.

The garden alleviates pressure on a nearby city sewer grate, reducing asphalt and concrete runoff, as well as the overall volume of stormwater emptying directly into the Canal.

Next door, at the Sky Gallery — an art event and exhibition space — a dense forest of crape myrtle trees anchors the bright, viney courtyard, creating a striking backdrop for sculptural displays.

With colorful bark, glossy foliage, and bunches of bright flowers, the crape myrtles provide interest in every season, developing into an increasingly generous natural canopy.

Around the edges of the courtyard and up the exterior walls of the gallery, lush ivy reaches and climbs on simple, steel trellises. In a third, related event space across the street, akebia vines grow up steel cables, creating aesthetic and atmospheric continuity.