Designing your site is like harvesting the productive use of your land resource. Increasingly, it also means managing the environmental resources that impact your site. From wetlands constraints to low-impact design (LID), from site layout to water and wastewater infrastructure engineering, and from on-site traffic management to green building design, each design element represents the management of resources in the built environment.
Woodard & Curran begins the concept planning stage with a site constraints analysis to provide clients with an opportunity to re-evaluate the feasibility and potential success of the project based on site-specific information. Our project teams are set up to deliver cost-efficient site designs by incorporating remedial strategies and permitting requirements to the design process.
LID techniques are incorporated into the preliminary design process with a focus on creating sustainable stormwater management practices. Once the preliminary designs receive required approvals, final designs are prepared to add detail information that is necessary for construction.
Woodard & Curran’s in-house Quality Assurance/Quality Control program requires all design products to be rigorously reviewed by senior staff prior to issue. This step is critical to minimizing field changes, thus controlling construction change orders and costs.
Project Highlights
Engineer and Owner’s Representative
Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral
The Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral have turned to Woodard & Curran to be their engineer and owner’s representative on projects at several of the properties the Trustees own in New York City. Projects include managing and overseeing the construction of a 32,000 square foot mausoleum at the Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island, NY. Woodard & Curran prepared obtained all required permits and completed the site design, which reduced stormwater flows and improved environmental conditions at the site. Other work includes drainage improvements and infrastructure assessment, structural evaluation and roofing system design, and addressing flooding issues at another facility.
Low Impact Development & Stormwater Management
University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME
The University of Southern Maine’s (USM’s) vision for its urban campus in Portland, ME was to apply low impact development techniques and LEED standard to create a focus for campus life. USM requested that Woodard & Curran be added to the architect’s team to perform the land-use and environmental permitting, as well as the site/civil engineering design. Woodard & Curran collaborated with the University and the entire design team to implement stormwater management techniques and technologies that reduced the impervious cover on the site and significantly enhanced the quality of stormwater runoff from the site. This included porous asphalt sidewalks, soil filters such as tree box filters and bioretention cells, and a system for storing and reusing runoff from the roof of the new Wishcamper Center as flush water in the building’s restrooms. A section of green roof was also installed on the Wishcamper Center to filter stormwater before it reaches the ground. These elements allowed USM to meet the stringent permitting requirements and create an inviting, environmentally sensitive open space that provides a focus for its urban campus.
Brownfield Redevelopment
Pharmaceutical Company
Read about Woodard & Curran's brownfield redevelopment project for this global pharmaceutical company.
Site Design for LEED Development
Quisinart center for culinary arts, Johnson & Wales University, providence, RI
Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI is home to one of America’s premier culinary institutes. When the University was planning its Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence, a new flagship building for the Culinary Arts program, there were some major challenges with the site they planned to use. Not only was it a brownfield, but it is in the floodplain of the Providence River. To overcome these challenges, the lowest level of the facility is limited to building core elements, access, and loading. The building is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Site-related LEED elements include capturing and recycling roof runoff in a 20,000-gallon storage tank for irrigation and non-potable grey water uses such as toilet flushing. In addition to the site design, Woodard & Curran was also responsible for obtaining permits from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM), Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), and Narragansett Bay Commission (NBC).
Brownfield Redevelopment for Retail Use
Target Corporation, CT
Read about Woodard & Curran's brownfield redevelopment work for Target.