Since 1792, it’s been the seat of government in Virginia, served for a short time as the Capitol of the Confederacy during the Civil War and is even sometimes used as a stand-in for the White House for exterior shots for television and movie productions.

Today, the capitol’s grounds and adjacent streets and alleys are in the midst of a project that are using a mix of environmental design changes, including permeable StormPave® pavers from Pine Hall Brick, in an effort to protect the river that Jefferson admired from that hilltop more than two centuries ago.

The “Greening Virginia’s Capitol” project has brought together the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Department of General Services, the City of Richmond and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to implement this project, which is being funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The overall goal is to both use and improve water wisely, by conserving clean water and cleaning pollutants from runoff.  To lessen the demand on clean water, an existing underground tank that was originally installed to collect stormwater runoff is being modified to redirect stormwater into the irrigation system on the capitol grounds, thus reducing the demand on the public water supply during the spring and summer.

The second is to cut back on runoff being treated off site, by reducing the area of impervious surface within Capitol Square, to include a rain garden, green streets, rainwater harvesting and StormPave® permeable brick pavers by Pine Hall Brick.

StormPave® is being used for walkways and notably, for a 150-foot staircase that leads to a monument on the grounds.

Planners say the changes are intended to reduce the amount of polluted stormwater flowing into Richmond’s sewer system by 64 percent and to reduce the amount of phosphorus in that stormwater by 69 percent and nitrogen by 70 percent. Nitrogen and phosphorus are two of the biggest sources of pollution in area rivers and within the nearby Chesapeake Bay.

Chris Hale, ASLA, LEED AP, is principal of Bioform Landscape Architecture & Environmental Design, which is providing design services for the project, said that the state had an interest in cutting down on the amount of pollution on the site, because it is so close to the nearby James River.

He explained that rain runoff is mixed with sewer outflow in downtown Richmond. Cleaning up the runoff means less sewage treatment and cleaner water being discharged downstream into the James River. Using permeable pavers means that stormwater is filtered naturally by flowing into the ground, instead of washing pollutants like fertilizer across a solid surface to a storm drain.

“The proximity to the river was really a driving factor in improving the water quality,” said Hale.

Ironically, within the walks and plazas on the capitol grounds, some of the new StormPave® clay brick pavers replaced older clay brick pavers that had been mortared into place. The older bricks were salvaged and taken to a recycling plant, where they will be turned into a brick aggregate.

“The new brick matched pretty well  with what was out there,” said Hale. “We worked with the historic character of the brick that was there, which allowed us to do the permeable system. We’re getting ready to do a few more walkways and when they replace these older walks, they want to use the permeable pavers.”

This includes a geothermal heating system, with 40 450-foot-deep wells drilled into the solid limestone bedrock.

Last September, the Children’s Discovery Meadow opened outside the building, where children explore a native meadow habitat and learn about plants, insects, soil conservation and natural water purification.

The idea is that, within 48 hours, the water will redistribute itself into the property.—John McGrann, as reported in the Lancaster, PA Intelligencer Journal.

Penn Stone installed this water permeable pathway and patio as part of its local library's Children's Discovery Meadow.

When you visit the Children’s Discovery Meadow today, you’ll find a pathway and patio made of Pine Hall Brick StormPave® pavers that was provided at no cost to the library through a collaboration of area businesses.

John McGrann, owner of Penn Stone, a Pine Hall Brick dealer who provided the pavers, said the installation is intended as a working model to teach some lessons of its own.

There is a lot of interest throughout the county in permeable paving and other stormwater management strategies. The City of Lancaster is under intense pressure to solve stormwater management woes and they have 20 years to do it in, before the EPA comes in and enforces an expensive solution.—John McGrann

Several different sites were discussed, until the township and McGrann’s group settled on installing the pavers as part of the Children’s Discovery Meadow. Projects using StormPave® have been approved in both commercial and residential uses, but municipalities in Pennsylvania have not been as quick to embrace permeable paving.

McGrann is determined to show that the technology works from the first rainfall. His company paid to have the pavers shipped from the plant in North Carolina to Pennsylvania. Erb Brothers Landscaping did the installation. Excavation contractor B.R. Kreider & Son helped with aggregate and labor to clear the site before the installation.

I am glad to have a real-life installation five minutes from my office to be able to encourage people to go and look at it. And I have followed up with municipal officials and we’ve been able to show that it works, and works well.—John McGrann

Guilford Technical Community College (Greensboro, NC) students level water-permeable aggregate in preparation for laying StormPave® clay pavvers in LEED certified home project.

Water permeable clay pavers play an important role in this application in Greensboro, NC, being installed by carpentry and landscaping students at Guilford Technical Community College.

Carpentry and landscaping students get an expert tutorial from Pine Hall Brick management Ted Corvey (first from left), Walt Steele (light blue shirt holding pavers) and Harold Beaty (green shirt, center).

The pavers contribute to the LEED qualification in three ways. First, they’re regionally available product. Second, the pavers come in colors that reflect heat. Third, water permeable paving is installed to allow storm water to drain between the pavers, into the special aggregate base that naturally filters the water back into the ground.

Harold Beaty presents the finer points of a "basket weave" design using water permeable pavers.

The three-bedroom, two-bath house was designed and built by students and demonstrates that green building techniques can be incorporated into a home that’s within the financial reach of many middle-income homeowners.

Pine Hall Brick and its management regularly support educational projects with product donations and by providing adjunct instruction in paver installation.

GTCC students have built houses for more than 20 years. This is, however, the first time the school has focused on green construction. The school and GHG Construction Corp., a not-for-profit that oversees GTCC’s building projects, wanted to give students an introduction to sustainable construction techniques and materials. Accordingly, the house was designed and built with an eye toward Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Water permeable paving is a must-have skill for residential construction.

ASLA noted that it when it comes to landscape elements, efficiency and sustainability reign supreme. The most popular for 2011 include low maintenance landscapes (94.2 percent), native plants (87.2), water-efficient irrigation (83.1 percent), ornamental water features (81 percent) and food/vegetable gardens (80.3 percent). Other popular sustainability features for 2011 include permeable paving (77 percent), reduced lawn (72.6 percent) and rainwater harvesting (63.6 percent).

As water permeable clay pavers demonstrate their combination of performance and beauty in municipal and institutional applications, look for more homes featuring water-conserving patios, driveways and walkways.

This fall, two water permeable paving projects using StormPave clay pavers have been  recognized in the Hardscape North America Fourth Annual Hardscape Project Awards competition.

The projects are separated by almost 800 miles and are widely different uses, but both had to treat an existing stormwater problem and while fitting in with nearby historic structures.

The Plaza at Kenan Hall, an installation at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, won for paver installation firm PaverScape Inc.

Gotts’ Court, a parking plaza and garden in Annapolis, Maryland, won an honorable mention for contractor Avon Construction.

The Plaza at Kenan Hall is in front of a main classroom building, equipped with seating and access to outdoor electrical outlets, to power laptops, lighting and sound systems. Since its completion, the 5,300-square-foot space has become a popular gathering spot. Classes sometimes meet there and after class, it's used for student-sponsored events, meals and parties, or fairs where potential employers and representatives of graduate schools set up tables and meet with students.

Gott’s Court serves as the entry point for visitors to Historic Annapolis and the Annapolis and Chesapeake Bay Visitor’s Center. Traditional red clay brick is the most common material found in the Annapolis Historic District, in both buildings and sidewalks, and Stormpave pavers match these surroundings. The project was designed to redirect stormwater to six rain gardens and from there, to an overflow pipe. In winter, it eliminates ice from building up and causing the parking lot to be shut down. In late summer and autumn, heavy rains have barely registered a trickle from the overflow pipe.

Torrents fell on the parking lot of the Annapolis & The Chesapeake Bay Visitor’s Center, paved with StormPave clay brick permeable pavers and promptly disappeared.

The 10,000-square foot parking lot is designed to direct all the rainwater to six rain gardens and from there, to an overflow pipe. Despite the volume of water, the pipe measured barely a trickle. The rain naturally flowed in between the spaces between the pavers, to an underground system of aggregates, instead of washing across the surface, picking up pollutants and carrying them to the nearest storm sewer.

This year, Hurricane Irene came first, hitting the bricks with 5.54 inches of rainfall on August 28 and on September 5 and 8, an additional 8.11 inches fell as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee hung overhead. Results were identical to the previous year.

Gott's Court.

Landscape architect Shelley Rentsch, RLA, ALA, principal of Annapolis Landscape Architects and the designer of the parking lot, known locally as Gott’s Court, said everything worked perfectly this year, the same way this year as it had last year.

The Pine Hall Brick unit pavers worked exactly as planned and absorbed a tremendous quantity of rainfall during the Hurricane Irene inundation with stormwater rapidly disappearing through the pavers into the subgrade systems. With so many areas experiencing flooding, one could only imagine a more widespread use of this phenomenal product.—Shelley Rentsch

Case in point: The Artist’s Backyard, a joint project between NC State University’s departments of Landscape Architecture and University Housing. It’s a plaza and rain garden between two older dormitories, Owen and Turlington Halls. It uses a combination of StormPave®  permeable pavers by Pine Hall Brick, along with materials that were recycled from a building demolition. New benches anchor a gathering space where students visit with each other, read a book or text-message their friends. The area is central to campus, located near the Free Expression Tunnel and a historic courtyard.

Andrew Fox, an assistant professor at the NCSU College of Design, who is overseeing the project, said The Artists Backyard is an outgrowth of last year’s renovation at Syme Hall on East Campus. Fox pursued a $20,000 teaching grant through the NC State Provost’s Office to lead his students through a design/build exercise to improve the site from a muddy mess to a beautiful rain garden.

People noticed. Dr. Tim Luckadoo, associate vice chancellor for student affairs, who oversees housing on campus, immediately sought out Fox to talk about additional projects. And that turned into a five-year plan and $175,000 in funding to improve the landscape outside of several NC State residence halls.

Students get the real-world experience of designing and helping construct natural common areas, and the university gets cost-effective improvements to its surroundings.

Before the Artists Backyard was built, surging stormwater would carry leaves, mulch and other debris across the existing concrete sidewalk. The solution is to use Low Impact Development design techniques to slow, capture and clean stormwater on site. Cisterns and the permeable paver installation re-direct stormwater into the rain garden and the ground, effectively filtering it and preventing erosion. The soil itself was treated with compost and other materials to protect plants and help them grow. To carry out the permeable paver installation, Fox and the students turned to Fred Adams Paving of Morrisville, NC – and the students and the professionals worked side by side for weeks in the middle of a North Carolina summer.

Then, on a Saturday morning, nine days after the project was completed, thunderstorms rolled across central North Carolina and dropped 4.69 inches of rain on the new landscape. It was a 100-year flood.

“The surface water had drained into the rain garden, and it was dry, no puddling,” said Fox. “The rain garden had handled that huge pulse of rain water. After four hours, the test wells were slowly infiltrating and the water was not standing.”

From an engineering standpoint, then, the project works exactly as intended.  From an aesthetic standpoint, Fox said, the StormPave® pavers are right at home, because NC State is the “Brick Capitol” of college campuses, with brick pavers historically used in plazas and sidewalks. From an educational standpoint, it’s appropriate for students who are setting out to be landscape architects to do real hands-on projects, instead of listening to lectures about them.

And for those students who aren’t majoring in landscape architecture (those who walk through the Artists Backyard on their way to class), it’s important for them to not only enjoy their surroundings, but to use them to learn more about sustainable design and landscape management.

The winners were: a Silver Award for the Plaza at Kenan Hall/Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida; and Bronze Awards for Pack Square Park in Asheville, North Carolina; and BB&T Ballpark in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The Kenan Hall/Flagler College and Pack Square Park awards came in the Paving and Landscape Architecture category; while the BB&T Ballpark Award came in the Commercial category.

A new place for students

The Plaza at Kenan Hall/Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, won the Silver Award for paving and landscape architecture for landscape architect Sharon Fowler of Hauber Fowler & Associates; builder A.D. Davis Construction; distributor Oldcastle Coastal of Jacksonville; mason contractor Paverscape Inc.; and manufacturer Pine Hall Brick Company.

The Plaza at Kenan Hall/Flager College

The project is a plaza in front of a main classroom building, equipped with seating and access to outdoor electrical outlets, to power laptops, lighting and sound systems.

Fowler said that the two main considerations were to resolve a drainage problem and to tie the design in with the historic nature of its surroundings.

Bringing back downtown

The Pack Square Park in Asheville, North Carolina won the Bronze Award for paving and landscape architecture for landscape architect LaQuatra Bonci Associates; builder and mason contractor ValleyCrest Landscape Development; and manufacturer Pine Hall Brick.

Asheville, NC's Pack Square Park

Pack Square Park is a six and a half acre public park in the center of downtown Asheville, which features Pine Hall Brick pavers as an integral part of the main plazas and sidewalks. The park has a large open green space on a slope overlooking the main stage, three water features and original, large-scale art by regional artists.

Pack Square Park is rapidly being seen as both a destination – and as an example of what can happen when private not-for-profit conservation groups and governments work together on a common goal.

A place for our team

The BB&T Ballpark in Winston-Salem, North Carolina won the Bronze Award in the commercial category for CJMW Architecture; builder Samet Corporation; mason contractor Proffit Brick & Stone Work Inc.; and brick manufacturer Pine Hall Brick Company. 

The Dash, Winston-Salem’s hometown Class A Advanced Carolina League baseball team, which is affiliated with the Chicago White Sox, had long needed a new home, while downtown Winston-Salem, like downtowns everywhere, needed a boost, a reason to bring people back into the center city.

The previous stadium, built in an isolated part of town in the 1920’s, was outdated and not up to current league standards. The new BB&T Ballpark, sited on an 8-acre parcel at the edge of downtown, has not only given The Dash a beautiful, state-of-the-art new home, but has also spurred economic development for the city—and over the past two seasons, has served as an effective destination for wholesome family entertainment.

Pack Square Park in Asheville, NC, is a six-and-a-half acre public park in the center of downtown Asheville, which uses Pine Hall Brick pavers as an integral part of the main plazas and sidewalks. In addition to the Roger McGuire Green in the front of City Hall and the County Building, the park has a large open green space on a slope overlooking the main stage, three water features and original, large-scale art by regional artists. After a decade of work, Pack Square Park has been getting noticed far beyond downtown Asheville.

Recently, the park was featured in Landscape Architect and Specifier News and was named a “Frontline Park” by the national urban park advocacy organization City Parks Alliance. Each month, City Parks Alliance recognizes two “Frontline Parks” to promote and highlight inspiring examples of urban park excellence, innovation and stewardship across the country. The program also seeks to highlight examples of the challenges facing our cities’ parks as a result of shrinking municipal budgets, land use pressures and urban neighborhood decay.

“We selected Pack Square Park for recognition because it exemplifies the power of public-private partnerships to create and maintain urban parks that make our cities sustainable and viable,” said Catherine Nagel, executive director of City Parks Alliance. “We hope that by shining the spotlight on this park we can raise awareness about both the necessity and the promise of these kinds of partnerships to spur investments in our nation’s urban parks.”

The money part of the equation came about when the Pack Square Park Conservancy, the public-private partnership that funded and built the park, commissioned a study to determine its economic impact.

Sims & Steele Consulting estimated the park’s development and ongoing tourism impact, from 2000 to 2012, at $23.2 million in total direct, indirect and induced sales, $9.2 million in total income impact and more than 300 jobs created or sustained.

These impacts produced nearly $1.9 million in sales tax revenues, including $374,592 allocated to the City of Asheville. Observers are also pointing to an decreased vacancy rate for businesses close to the park and double-digit increases in restaurant sales.
Rodney Porter, a landscape architect who works for the LaQuatra Bonci firm in Asheville, who oversaw the design for the park, said that specifying Pine Hall Brick pavers for the plazas and sidewalks were a good fit, given the historic nature of the surrounding buildings.

“Pine Hall Brick really is the city’s standard for pavers now,” said Porter.

Porter said that a decade ago, a fountain downtown began to leak into an underground parking garage.  A citizen’s group came together to come up with ideas on what should be done about it. The first suggestion was to fill it in with cement, but the effort snowballed to ask a larger question: What if we extended this to all of downtown?

Those early meetings turned into the Pack Square Conservancy, a non-profit group with a volunteer board of directors and a mission. Before it was over, the conservancy and area governments came together with plans and the funds to implement them.  The consensus was for more open, green space downtown, a place for concerts and water features, which led to Splasheville, an unlikely but welcome beach in the middle of the North Carolina mountains.

The park is now in its second summer season of concerts and other events. Ruth Planey, administrative coordinator of the Pack Square Park Conservancy, says that so far, 30 events are planned between June and Labor Day.

“The park has been very well received,” said Planey. “It’s becoming more of a destination. You can see a good, diverse cross-section of the community there. People bring picnics and beach blankets. Kids are down there squirting water at each other and at the adults. It’s just a really neat place.”

Enter the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house, a big brick (11,414 square feet) house near the university campus. John Rhett, principal of Rhett Architects, is overseeing alterations and renovations to the 1920s-era home to 26 fraternity brothers, restoring it back to its original condition, with complete mechanical upgrades. When complete, the changes will allow the owners to achieve tax credits.

Rhett said the landscape design presented a challenge. With the house taking up nearly the entire corner lot, there is hardly any usable outdoor space. City ordinances forbade putting down a 1,500 square foot concrete pad, so StormPave® permeable clay pavers were chosen.

“We really did not want to exceed the runoff quotient,” said Rhett. “The character and the function of that product were just ideal. This will be a parking lot and a patio at the same time. They have a lot of social activities and lawns just don’t stand up to the activities very well.”

Rhett said that the property does not comply completely with the city code, but could not, given the measurements of the house and the lot, “You have to do the best you can, even if you can’t reach the entire goal.”

Jeff Craig, vice president of Westwood Contractors, DBA WestCon, has installed permeable pavers for years. This will be his first experience with StormPave, but not with Pine Hall Brick. Craig’s company has done extensive installations of Pine Hall Brick’s conventional clay brick pavers in downtown Norfolk and Richmond.

“I first saw the StormPave at a hardscapes convention in Tennessee three years ago and I have been asking the local guys about it ever since,” said Craig. “The past three years, it has really stepped up and we have seen a lot of pervious designs coming out.”

Craig said that the key to good design is to install a ground surface that picks up the colors from the vertical walls. He said the StormPave will do just that.

“This color will truly complement the house,” said Rhett. “I think this is going to polish up well.”