Artful Rainwater Design: Creative Ways to Manage Stormwater

This beautifully illustrated, comprehensive guide explains how to design creative, yet practical, landscapes that treat onsite stormwater management as an opportunity to enhance site design. Artful Rainwater Design is a must-have resource for landscape architects, urban designers, civil engineers, and architects looking to create landscapes that celebrate rain for the life-giving resource it is—and contribute to more sustainable, healthy, and even fun, built environments.

About the Author :
Dr. Stuart Echols is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University where he teaches courses in stormwater management, urban design, land development, environmental site construction methods, design research methods, land-use assessment, and design implementation. He is a registered landscape architect and has practiced in Texas, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Eliza Pennypacker has been a faculty member in Pennsylvania State University's Department of Landscape Architecture since 1982. She has taught a wide range of courses, including the History of Landscape Architecture, First-Year Seminar, and all levels of design studio. Professor Pennypacker's creative work has also included the winning entry to the national design competition for a Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and design and curation of an award-winning, travelling interpretive exhibition and exhibition catalogue titled Abstracting the Landscape: the Artistry of Landscape Architect A. E. Bye.

Review :
"Features some of the most innovative solutions to rainwater collection and retention."-- "American Gardener" "Stuart Echols and Eliza Pennypacker rethink traditional stormwater treatment systems and offer innovative solutions for managing heavy rainwater and the runoff in ways that are valuable and beautiful. From the book's opening pages, readers are reminded that rain is a resource, not a waste product."-- "The College" "The book is practical as well as visionary... the gorgeous photographs on almost every page make an eloquent case for twinning beauty with sustainability."-- "Planning" "This book is a treasure and an inspiration for owners, architects, and civil engineers working with landscape architects to create function and beauty in creative ways on sites. One learns why and how to get two-fers and three-fers while collaborating to provide innovative and functional stormwater solutions."--Judith Nitsch "We depend on water for our very existence, a fact which has thrust water management into the front line of public policy. Unfortunately, a common result has been the proliferation of single-purpose, utilitarian solutions. Echols and Pennypacker present compelling alternatives to ugly stormwater management facilities through artful, landscape-based rainwater interventions and illustrate how we can better interact with water through creative design."--Frederick Steiner "Building on a decade of research, travel, and development, Echols and Pennypacker explain the design of every stage of rainwater's path through crowded cities. Their Artful Design paradigm restores the urban water environment, and articulates the places where people live, making them active parts of their lives." --Bruce K. Ferguson, Creator of Ferguson's Portal, former Director of the School of Environmental Design, University of Georgia "...[Artful Rainwater Design] instills hope that the days of drab detention ponds may soon be coming to an end, ushering in a new era of rain-celebrating landscapes."-- "ASLA's The Dirt" "A timely book that provides needed solutions to challenges occurring simultaneously in urban and suburban built environments across the nation: new development and aging infrastructure...Artful Rainwater Design has the potential to cross over into practice in ways that textbooks often do not--an important quality."-- "Journal of Planning Education and Research" "In redefining the relationship between 'problem' and 'amenity, ' the authors of Artful Rainwater Design have produced a capacious catalog of exemplars for harnessing excess runoff. Well organized, documented, and illustrated, this trove of techniques demonstrates how landscape designers and engineers can transform public perception and thus policy goals for urban stormwater management." --M. Elen Deming "What was once considered to be a nuisance or of little consequence has become the focus of city leaders around the world, triggering a call to action to support the better management of the critical, life-giving natural resource: water. Artful Rainwater Design: Creative Ways to Manage Stormwater is a timely book that provides insight into the strategies, implementation methods, design parameters, and amenities that creative stormwater design can yield." -- "The Nature of Cities"