The goal of this masters project was to explore sustainable approaches to stormwater infrastructure that maintain the hydrologic health of the landscape, provide cultural amenities, and promote economic growth.

A site in Springfield, Massachusetts was chosen as a means for demonstrating these ideas in an urban context. An additional objective of this project, beyond demonstrating the effectiveness of sustainable stormwater management techniques, was to use stormwater infrastructure as the driving framework for urban planning and design. To accomplish this, a defining design objective of this project was to reconnect the city to its riverfront.

Analyses were conducted at the watershed-, city-, and site-scales and included studies of land use patterns, impervious surfaces, economic growth, trail systems, streamflows, pedestrian circulation and other elements. Personal discussions with experts and city officials also guided the project. This collective information was applied to the design of a new urban plaza in which plants, landform, and soil work to intercept, retain, cleanse, and infiltrate stormwater. Each one of these elements is integrated into the overall design. These elements work in concert with proposed pedestrian circulation patterns to encourage connections to the existing urban fabric of Springfield and its riverfront. The end result is a vibrant demonstration project that provides water resource managers, city planners, and designers with a visualization of how these sustainable stormwater methods can be incorporated into the design of urban space.