Background Information

Background Information:

The first step in this project was to find a site that we could work on. It is important when picking your site to think of the different challenges that you will face. The site that we originally picked could not be used because it was on top of the underground subway system. This prevented us from doing anything underground and so we decided to pick a new site. The site that you pick should be a site that would benefit from GSI systems, any site that receives a lot of stormwater runoff and does not have adequate absorbency should be good. 

The key program that helped the most in the design process of our project was Sketchup. This program allowed us to draw all of the profiles for our systems, as well as the plans we had for the overall area of the site. Sketchup can be downloaded onto your computer for free or you could download Sketchup Pro for a free 30 day trial. Once you have downloaded this program you will find that there are many tutorials on how to use the different functions that are available. Looking at these tutorials helped our group out a lot and once we learned how to use the program we were able to make our sketches easily. 

 The deliverables that needed to be completed for this project were: a base plan, a drainage area map, a proposed design plan, profiles of the proposed systems, and the calculations for the stormwater runoff and the volume of water that can be contained by each system. In order to complete these we looked at the examples that were provided for us by Scott Jeffers, our TA. 

The base plan needs to show the existing conditions of a site. The drainage area map should show how the runoff flows at your site. The proposed design plan shows what the site will look like after you have added GSI systems. The proposed system profiles show what GSI systems you plan on using. Finally, the calculations show how much stormwater needs to be absorbed at that site and how much stormwater your proposed GSI systems can absorb.