Climate-adapted design for surface water solutions

More Information

Products/Technical solution, Technologies and Building systems

DESCRIPTION:

Landscape design of a school courtyard developed as a park with a variety of vegetation at different heights and with permeable surfaces and natural surfaces covering at least 30% of the outdoor flooring. The design was part of a broader strategy from the City of Oslo promoting the use of open, local surface water management to avoid the rainwater runoff from damaging buildings, properties, and infrastructures and creating inconveniences to the local residents.

BUSINESS ROUTE

Target Users

Architects, Constructors, Local authorities, Material providers, Policy makers and regulating authorities, Research community

VALUE

The City of Oslo’s work on stormwater management is a critical initiative for the city to become climate resilient. Numerous measures have been implemented since the Stormwater Management Action Plan was considered at political level in 2019. Oslo’s property enterprise promotes the use of open, local surface water management on municipal land to contrast the damage to buildings and infrastructure produced by poor rainwater management. Such a problem is exacerbated by climate change, which in the Nordics will lead to more rain and sudden heavy rainfall. By opening closed streams and rivers and using green roofs and draining surfaces instead of asphalt, rainwater flows are slowed down and the risk of flooding reduced. The demonstration of this innovation in the Voldsløkka project aims at showing how technological solutions for effective local storm water management can be designed and implemented by integrating educational purposes and without sacrificing the aesthetic of a natural environment within city borders.

APPLICATION

This innovative storm water management system in the Voldsløkka project has been fully operative from August 2023. It will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of such solutions and its technical limitations (durability of materials, growing rate and health of vegetation, effectiveness of stormwater outflows over time) in relation to the replicability potential in other geographical areas. The school’s green areas are organized and planned in two main groups with different designs, to facilitate natural protection of the vegetation, green areas at the plot edges, and green island in the middle. The central green areas were developed as islands surrounded by channels. These channels are the features that ensure an efficient stormwater management on the school grounds. The terrain around the channels is planned so that rainwater flows towards the islands. The channels are covered by metal grates below which rain beds are placed. On the rain beds, a flower meadow with Norwegian, wild, perennial meadow plants is placed. The stormwater is collected by the channels and redirected to the islands, where it is absorbed and led deeper down towards the crushed stone reservoir below. The system with islands-channels is designed in such a way to clearly show the water flows and the mechanism of storm water management employed in the school site.