Thank you for 20 great years.

August 2009

Alaska Airlines Magazine Covers Bicycling
The latest issue of Alaska Airlines Magazine features an article about what various cities are doing to promote healthier lifestyles. SvR’s Nathaniel Riedy and Tom von Schrader are featured as part of a profile of Cascade Bicycle Club’s Bike-to-Work Month. If you fly Alaska Airlines in September, you can find the article on page 44.

WashingtonState University LID Research Center in the News
Both The Puyallup Herald and Washington State University’s Today featured articles on the Washington State University Research and Extension Center’s new Low Impact Development Research Center. WSU’s facility will be an invaluable asset for researching low impact development technologies for our region. SvR has been honored to work on this project from grant application to design and now construction.

July 2009

Certificate in Low Impact Development
The University of Washington is offering a Certificate in Low Impact Development this fall through its professional education program. The program will cover practical applications, design and implementation, environmental regulations, and include field trips to expand technical skills in sustainable stormwater management. SvR’s Greg Giraldo is one of the course instructors. To learn more about the program please visit the University’s site here. If you are interested in the program, you can apply online.

Washington State University Puyallup Research and Extension Center LID
Since 2007, SvR has been working with Washington State University to design a living laboratory at its Puyallup Research and Extension Center. After aiding the University to earn a $1 million Department of Ecology LID grant to research and demonstrate bioretention and porous pavement technologies, we have gone on to design a series of rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavers, and porous asphalt. The different soil media and plant combinations in these experimental cells will be monitored to determine their impact on flow control and water quality. The project will also include educational elements, such as interpretive signage, to inform the public and visiting scientists about the experiments. The project was mentioned in an article in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. To read that article, click here.

June 2009

Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel Wins Outstanding Project Award
The Seattle Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded Seattle Public Utilities and SvR Design Company with its 2008 Local Outstanding Civil Engineering Award in Water Resources Engineering for the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel. Thornton Creek is located in Thornton Place, which is just south of Northgate Mall, at 301 NE 103rd Street. For more information, please see the project page.

New Photographs of Kitsap County Administration Building

We are proud to present new photographs from the Kitsap County Administration building showing our cistern system and channel in operation.

April 2009

City of Fife LID Ordinance in the News

The American Planning Association – Washington Chapter published an article on the City of Fife’s new LID Ordinance in the April issue of The Washington Planner. The article, titled City of Fife adopts new LID Ordinance, focuses on the City of Fife’s new LID Ordinance and the Fife Green Factor that were drafted by SvR. To view the article, please visit: http://www.washington-apa.org/documents/200904Newsletter.pdf. For more information on the project, please view our project page.

University of Washington On-Call Landscape Architectural Services

The University of Washington’s Capital Projects Office has selected SvR to provide on-call landscape architectural services for small-scale landscape restoration projects at the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses. Work may include planting plans, grading modifications, paving layout, irrigation design, site detailing and utilities to campus entrances and for courtyard renovations, roof terrace renovations and building entrance enhancements. SvR will also coordinate with subconsultants where necessary.

Brice Maryman now a member of the STAR Community Index Planning & Design Technical Advisory Committee

SvR’s Brice Maryman was selected to serve as a member of the STAR Community Index Planning & Design Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The STAR Community Index is a framework for measuring the sustainability and livability of U.S. communities.  As a volunteer member of this committee, Brice will help design and develop the program by collaborating on the development of indicators and metrics that comprise STAR. The program is currently under development by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the Center for American Progress (CAP). To learn more about the STAR Community Index, please visit: http://www.icleiusa.org/star.

March 2009

Brice Maryman Wins Doug Mason Memorial Award

On Wednesday, March 25, the Municipal League of King County honored SvR Design Company’s Brice Maryman with the Doug Mason Memorial Award for his volunteer work on Open Space Seattle 2100 and the Seattle Parks for All Levy. The Doug Mason Memorial is given to a person, age 35 or under, who has made a special contribution to the people of King County in the following areas: environmental protection and preservation, agricultural preservation, transportation, human services, housing, good government, ethics in politics, or effective government administration.

Maryman, who is a landscape architect at SvR, co-directed Open Space Seattle 2100, creating a collaborative planning process that directly engaged hundreds of multidisciplinary professionals and citizens to create long-term plans for Seattle's interconnected "green infrastructure," and helped catalyze and led the coalition that advocated for 2008’s successful parks and green spaces levy renewal.

Eight individuals and three organizations were honored in the Municipal League’s 50th annual Civic Awards for outstanding contribution to the community. Open Space Seattle 2100, which Brice co-directed with the University of Washington’s Nancy Rottle, was also the winner of the 2007 ASLA Planning + Analysis Honor Award.

July 2008

SvR Wins Seattle Great City Initiative’s Streets for People Competition

The Seattle Great City Initiative’s July 17 Summer Street Scene Party at the South Lake Union Discovery Center showcased sustainable products and alternative energy and transportation choices. As part of this event, they held a Streets for People competition. Nine teams competed in a contest to transform the street into an inviting place for people. SvR won by creating a living room environment, complete with a sitting area, sustainable twister game, foosball table, card table with dominoes, and a ping pong table. SvR was also a silver-level sponsor of the event. The Seattle Great City Initiative brings together organizations and individuals committed to making positive, lasting change, breaking down traditional barriers that can get in the way of smart planning and helping Seattle grow and thrive as a truly great city. To learn more about the Seattle Great City Initiative, please visit: http://www.greatcity.org/.

May 2008

A/E Bike-to-Work Challenge

For the second consecutive year, SvR hosted the A/E Bike-to-Work Challenge. The challenge ran during May, encouraging employees to commute to work by bicycle. Twenty-two Puget Sound-area architectural and engineering firms competed this year for the Golden Helmet Award, which is awarded based on a formula that includes: total miles ridden; percentage of firm participants; and percentage of trips made. The 22 firms fielded 368 riders who commuted 43,075 miles by bike during May.

At the month’s end, awards were given for the firm with the highest percentage of riders, the top three individual riders, and the firm with the highest adjusted score.

In this year’s challenge, SD Architects won the Firm with the Highest Percentage of Riders award. SD Architects had three out of four employees riding to work in May or 75 percent of the office. Runner ups included SvR and BOLA Architecture + Planning.

The top rider in the Challenge was Notkin Mechanical Engineers’ Igor Rozanski at 1,018 miles. Other top riders included Chris Robertson of Shannon and Wilson at 854.7 miles, and Joe Llona, formerly of TetraTech, at 768.5 miles.

The 2008 winner of the Golden Helmet is SvR, also last year’s winner, with an adjusted score of 1,763.06 miles. In May, SvR rode 4,462 miles in 682 trips with 32 out of 43 employees commuting by bicycle. LMN was runner up with an adjusted score of 761.13 miles followed by Mithun with an adjusted score of 756.92 miles.

Prowalk / Probike 2008 – Schedule and Programs Announced

Prowalk / Probike is scheduled for September 2-5, 2008, in Seattle, Washington. The annual conference brings together planners, engineers, advocates, safe routes to school coordinators, and public health practitioners to discuss and learn about pedestrian and bicycling issues.  This year, SvR is participating in two of the conference’s sessions: “Can Green Streets Be Complete Streets too?” and “The Common Language of the Broken Bone: Effectively Using Public Health to Inform Design Processes and Bolster Advocacy Positions.” For more information on Prowalk / Probike and to register for the conference, please see http://www.bikewalk.org/2008conference/index.html.

March 2008

Edmonds Cultural Corridor

The City of Edmonds selected the SvR-led team to complete the next step in the 4th Avenue Cultural Corridor Project. SvR will lead development of an implementation plan along Fourth Avenue to improve the pedestrian experience and enhance cultural tourism and economic development in downtown Edmonds. The team will be developing options for the right of way as well as partnering with Edmonds to create implementation and funding plans for this historic, art-rich corridor. The core SvR team includes designers from LMN, artist Pam Beyette, and public involvement specialist Marcia Wagoner.

January 2008

High Point Redevelopment Recognized for Site Development

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) honored the High Point Redevelopment with the 2006 Region 8 Outstanding Major Project Award for Site Development. Region 8 includes the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.

Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan

The SvR team was recently selected by the Seattle Department of Transportation to prepare the Pedestrian Master Plan. A walkable city is key to the health and well-being of our citizens as well as the vibrancy of Seattle. SvR will work closely with team members Toole Design Group, Bright Engineering, ReadWagoner, Livable Streets, Mark Fenton, and Heffron Transportation to overcome the hurdles of pedestrian planning and implement solutions for growth in Seattle. For more information on walking issues, please see: Walking.org.

Woonerf for Yale Campus on South Lake Union

SvR has been working as the landscape architect and civil engineer on this two block campus for the Blume Company. The campus will include four new office buildings adjacent to a “living street” where pedestrians, not cars, will be the focus of design. SvR is designing a variety of progressive green infrastructure elements to help the Blume Company realize this vision. These include a water-quality treatment swale, a woonerf that will act as a pedestrian plaza, and rain gardens. For recent press on this project please see the Seattle Times.

Dave Rodgers now a Principal at SvR

June 2007

High Point Redevelopment Receives Awards

The Urban Land Institute and the American Society of Civil Engineers (Seattle Chapter) recently honored the High Point Redevelopment with outstanding project awards.

Every year, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) honors outstanding real estate projects. The High Point Redevelopment was one of the 11 winners – from a pool of 170 entrants – of the 2007 ULI Awards for Excellence.

ULI Awards for Excellence recognize the full development process of a project--construction, economic viability, marketing, and management  – as well as design.

In June, High Point also received the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Seattle Chapter’s 2006 Outstanding Project Award in the Site Development category. The project will represent the Seattle Section in the Region 8 awards, which includes competition from other ASCE sections chapters in the Pacific Northwest, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Alaska, and Hawaii. 

High Point is an environmentally responsible low impact development community in West Seattle. To learn more about the project please visit our High Point Project Page.

April 2007

UWLA 433 Class

This spring, two SvR staff members are serving as guest lecturers at the University of Washington’s Landscape Architecture class: Large-Scale Site Construction. In this class, the final of a series, landscape architecture students are designing and preparing construction documents for the City of Kent’s Mill Creek Canyon Park Dam project. Greg Giraldo, PE, LEED® AP, and Amalia Leighton, PE, are assisting students in formulating the alternatives for the engineering solution. The City of Kent granted this review primarily because the work will be near and possibly impacting one of the original “earthworks sculptures” in the country. 

March 2007

Vision 2020 Award for the High Point Redevelopment

The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) recently honored the High Point Redevelopment with a Vision 2020 Award. The Vision 2020 award honors projects that direct growth in urban areas and regional growth centers in an environmentally responsible way, fostering economic development, and providing an efficient transportation system. The High Point project is a model of how to incorporate mixed-income, green building, and low impact development design approaches for infrastructure and site development.  SvR is the civil engineer and right-of-way landscape architect for this 120-acre redevelopment. For further information, please see the project description.

February 2007

Zoomazium earns LEED Gold Rating

This January, Woodland Park Zoo’s new interactive play space, Zoomazium, became the first zoo project to attain a LEED Gold rating in the world. SvR provided civil engineering services for the project including: rerouting of utilities and utility hookups for the irrigation of the green roof, design of a regional detention facility, and grading and drainage for the amphitheater and main pathway. The 8,300-square-foot facility demonstrates lessons in sustainability with: a green roof with native plantings, energy conservation methods, use of sustainable materials and recycled content materials, green solar screens, and patterned glass (which reduces bird strikes).