SvR
Management: Tom von Schrader, civil engineering; Peg Staeheli, landscape architecture
Specialty: Landscape, civil engineering, wetlands
Year founded: 1989
Current projects: High Point, Joint Training Facility for city of Seattle
SvR is curbing use of impervious materials for landscape design at the High Point development in West Seattle. Seattle Housing Authority’s new development just east of 35th Avenue is budgeted at $65 million for phase one, said Peg Staeheli of SvR.
Staeheli said people who live in high-density developments tend to like patios and walkways. “We look at (the design) and ask, ‘Do we really need that extra foot?’"
Low-impact is critical because High Point’s stormwater runoff feeds into Longfellow Creek, a salmon-bearing stream, Staeheli said. That’s why soils and drainage patterns are driving the landscape design.
“Drawing a line between what’s landscape and what’s civil is hard,” Staeheli said. A pond will be on site to handle runoff from large storms. But smaller storms, too, have to be accounted for in order to ease runoff into streams.
Loosening soils, adding compost and using plants rather than grass are examples of landscaping measures to help slow flows.
A running theme throughout the design is water flow and movement. Artist Bruce Myers is designing splash blocks and bronze plates at drainage points to give form to this idea.
Staeheli said collaboration across disciplines is something that SvR is seeing more often these days.