Integration of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture into a Low Impact Stormwater Design

Preliminary design for an innovative greenfields development in Wanaka was undertaken by a team comprising urban design, landscape architecture and stormwater management expertise. The design and planning approach to the entire development required acknowledgement of the interesting and valuable natural landforms of the subject site, with several distinct proposed residential clusters being formed that focussed on local natural features.

A Low Impact Design philosophy for the stormwater management plan, having the intention of closely mimicking natural rainfall-runoff behaviour, was adopted and integrated with the requirements for urban design and landscape architectural design.

With a wide variation in the character of different residential clusters within the proposed development, the LID stormwater management systems were required to achieve visual agreement while still serving their primary functions. As such a range of different and innovative concepts were amalgamated over the entire proposed development, many of which achieve a similar underlying behaviour but which vary widely in visual character.

This paper describes the overall design philosophy, with a focus on how effective low impact stormwater management was integrated with the requirements for good urban design as well as meeting visual and aesthetic requirements driven by landscape architectural approaches.