These designs summarize an investigation of park and associated drainage concepts for the Village of Corrales, Salce Park, New Mexico.

This investigation was conducted at the request of the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority. The intent of these conceptual public works was to mirror the concept of Low Impact Development.

Here I investigated a method for integrating art that also contributed to the retention of water on site. Without discharge, local runoff does not accumulate and the need for public collection, conveyance and downstream regional facilities for flood control is eliminated. Additionally, because water slowly percolates into the water table rather than speeding towards a larger body of water (in this case the Rio Grande), the water is filtered in a more natural way and eventually enters the water table as a clean resource.

Specifically I wanted to make the idea of bio-infiltration systems more accessible and more visible to the users of this park in the hopes of communicating the importance of infiltration.

‘Water belongs in the subsurface’ is a simple principle that is supported by the fundamental way landscapes maintain themselves. Infiltration into the subsurface of landscapes is restoration that cures the disease. Infiltration, unlike any surface approach to storm water management, is capable within the limitations of specific sites, of solving all the problems of urban runoff: peak flows, base flow, groundwater recharge and quality, because it calls on the power of the underlying landscape. The subsurface is a natural resource for filtration and storage waiting to be taken advantage of on essentially every site, as nature has always used it in the past.