Okay, so I was trying to be alliterative… it’s not really a mockup, it’s the real thing! The first sign to attach to the Freno Raingarden System arrived today and will soon be installed at the pilot project here in downtown St Louis. This sign will help people to know what’s going on, the benefits of urban rain gardens, and to learn more about the system itself. Nice job, Matt, Jim, and Paul!
Also, we got to admire the sign against the backdrop of some wonderful jazz music in the center space, courtesy of Jazz St Louis. The three student musicians were in as a part of …
A pilot project is generally a project designed as a test or trial to demonstrate the effectiveness of a full program or product. It was time we started doing this with FRENO. It has been in development for 2 years, and we’ve built prototypes, models, animations, etc.– it was time to get our hands dirty! Partnering with the Downtown Community Improvement District, HOK helped to choose an appropriate site in downtown St. Louis, and began the plans for installation. The first of many to come, we learned some valuable lessons installing FRENO for the first time. Read on for our findings:
Location, Location, Location! Situated away from historic buildings (and their challenging below-grade vaults), the location for this raingarden
This past weekend found our very own Matt Snelling taking off his landscape architect hat and trading it in for quite the sharp-looking fedora and a smashing plaid sportcoat. He played the role of a vendor at the ASLA National Meeting in Washington, DC. Although he did attend a few education sessions (most on stormwater management… believe it or not…), Matt spent the majority of his time manning a booth at the Expo to educate people about Freno and to spread the HOK Product Design love.
A session that really stood out for Matt was by Kevin Robert Perry from Nevue Ngan Associates along with Matthew …
I was rushing up to my desk the other day and captured a pretty cool sight – Matt was playing with hislegos. In advance of a demonstration project to test Freno, an urban rain garden system he developed here at HOK with teammates Paul Wilhelms and HOK alum Jim Fetterman, Matt was thinking through the layout utilizing some small models built by our in-house model shop. Perfectly to scale, and leading to some great tweaks in the design, these pieces act like a kit of parts – enabling a quick rain garden building experience right there on the deck.
It’s been a while since I wrote about our friendly product development happening right behind my desk. Matt’s been fast at work moving toward a pilot project here in downtown St Louis and tweaking last-minute details. Matt Snelling, along with Paul Wilhelms and Jim Fetterman are the brains behind the operation, but Matt has really been around since day 1, and thus, is the subject of this post.
Recently I fired off a bunch of questions to Matt (I mean really, why just turn around and talk to him when I can send a verbose email?) and I think some of his answers really get to the heart of this project. Stay tuned …
Rain’s in the forecast and so what better excuse do I have to post-pone that massive amount of yardwork I would love to be doing to bring you a bit more….Freno! Matt showed me the video he and Javier, another co-hort from Planning who also sits next to Matt, created showing the features of this product. I’ve embedded the video below, but for those of you more literary types, here’s the deal in print.
To touch on what we covered in the last post, Freno is what we call a segmental wall system, it’s basically a kit of 3 concrete parts that are precast just like building blocks in a variety of arrangements to accommodate any site’s installation …
Here in the Planning Group we’re always trying to come up with an ideal way to deal with rainwater on-site rather than piping it. We’ve tried infiltration fields, bioswales, rain gardens, etc etc. These all work when you have plenty of space, permeable surface, and the option to alter topography on sites. This, as you can imagine, gets a bit difficult when you’re in the middle of a city…in the middle of a street…
I was rushing up to my desk the other day and captured a pretty cool sight – 
