Full Functional Art Space Rain Garden

Students from Adams Elementary School in Ballard lift metal gates to create waterfalls in their new rain garden.

Completed in April 2010, the rain garden at Adams Elementary in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has become a treasure for the school and community. Students from the 5th grade spent a morning learning about and playing in the interactive rain garden with David Minnery and Guy Michaelsen, landscape architects who led the design of the project pro bono.

The space will not only create educational opportunities for the students, but will reflect the energy and heart of the school in the landscape.

Stainless steel interactive scuppers that the children can control water flow over the river rock and the native planting.

A water hose may have supplied the water coursing through Adams Elementary School’s new rain garden, but that didn’t damped the debut of the new runoff control system. The project includes a cistern, stormwater planter, and concrete runnel with bronze flow diverters, scuppers with interactive weirs, a rain garden, outdoor classroom “council ring” and native plantings to enhance the entryway to the school.

The Adams rain garden takes rainwater from the school’s two roofs and directs it into a cistern. From the cistern, the water travels down a concrete channel before being released into a garden that will absorb the water and remove pollutants. As the water coursed down the channel, Adams students crowded together to splash in the water and watch as it cascaded into the garden.

David Minnery and Guy Michaelsen, landscape architects explain how the rain garden works.

Combines Education And Environmentalism
David Minnery, Minnery Landscape Design, donated the conceptual design for the rain garden, as a graduate student in landscape architecture, says it felt nice to see the students react when the water was turned on. He always intended the rain garden to be interactive and a space for play. Before the powering up of the rain garden, students read poetry. Principal Anne Johnson used it as an opportunity to teach the students about pursuing their vision and ideas.

Guy Michaelsen the landscape architect for the Berger Partnership donate his time and the final construction plans, is an Adams parent and one of the principals at The Berger Partnership, believes in the meaningful impact site and the landscape have on enriching our daily lives. His strong interest in planning, the urban environment and place making is complimented by his extensive public facilitation experience.

The donation of the design project from The Berger Partnership, a King County Waterworks Grant and additional funding from the Adams PTA, made this wonderful project possible.

Water runs through Adams Elementary School?EUR??,,????'?????< Photos courtesy of Michael Harthorne/BallardNewsTribune.com