Garbini & Garbini, Inc.
San Diego

Garbini & Garbini Landscape Architecture, Inc., is a professional design firm servicing public and private sector clients since 1984. Gail and Rick Garbini are the principals; there is a staff of six. The firm specializes in the interrelated fields of landscape architecture, urban design and environmental planning. Garbini & Garbini is a Caltrans certified State Woman Business Enterprise, a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and a certified Small Business Enterprise. With a vast portfolio ranging from streetscapes to environmental restoration to roof-level terraces, G&G uses a team approach to bring clients sustainable and affordable solutions.

City of San Diego Low-Impact Development (LID) Manual, San Diego
The city of San Diego is implementing a long-term strategy to minimize and improve the quality of storm water reaching San Diego’s canyons, wetlands, beaches and bays. By minimizing peak flows, the cost of maintaining and upgrading storm water infrastructure will be significantly reduced. The first step was to create a Low-Impact Development (LID) Manual to assist city planners and engineers in developing innovative solutions for new projects and redevelopment of existing rights-of-way. The end product will be “green streets” and parking lots that employ permeable materials and ecologically appropriate plantings to infiltrate and cleanse storm water. Garbini & Garbini provided photographs, 3-D Illustrations and a detailed bioretention area plant matrix for the LID Manual. Since the strategies employed are not yet common in San Diego, images were chosen for their unique Southern California appearance. Likewise, the selected plants were those best suited to San Diego’s climate, many native to the area. Close coordination with the water resources engineers was essential in planning and developing the illustrative graphics that will ultimately be used in the manual.