The new corporate headquarters and landscape for Mediacom Communications, a cable television company in Blooming Grove, New York, is a 110,000 sq. ft. dual-wing shaped building with an accessory utility building of 12,000 sq. ft. Fast tracked from initial meetings through programming, site application approvals, construction document and construction, the new campus project was occupied within 23 months of breaking ground. Photos: William Weiss

Greenland Landscape Company, Inc., was hired in October 2012 to perform the design/build landscape architecture and construction of a corporate headquarters for a major media company on 35 of 200 acres of farmland.

The company is Mediacom Communications in Blooming Grove, New York. Blooming Grove (pop. 18,028) is in the southeast corner of the state. The campus sits on the crest of a hill overlooking Sugarloaf and Chester, New York. Although just 30 seconds from the off ramp of a regional highway on an old country road, the site feels secluded, and from another time.

Since the area has legacy farmland, the building was the interloper, the farmland the native condition. Farm walls were rebuilt and wild flower meadows created to frame the corporate landscape. Evergreen trees"?uPicea abies excels (Norway spruce) and Picea pungens "Moerheimii'"?uwere planted on the ridge for screening.

Mediacom is the eighth largest cable television company in the U.S., based on the number of basic video subscribers. The company serves 1,500 communities, mostly smaller cities and towns in the Midwest and South, and is the leading provider of broadband services in Iowa and the second largest in Illinois. "The Mediacom corporate campus project started for us in April 2011," explains William Weiss, III, ASLA. Weiss says the somewhat unconventional landscape plan created special ways to capture water on the site for use in the landscape without having to rely on potable well water. "We were two years in designing the plans, which included a 30,000 sq. foot roof rainwater capture system that supplies the irrigation and fountain water for the project." Two 10,000-gallon fiberglass tanks were installed underground and linked to accept runoff from the roof. Graf filters treat the runoff, with overflow going to a biobasin.

Site Strategy
The site strategy was the result of a balance of disparate factors: topography analysis; the buildable area; building massing; site access; prominent views; site orientation; and program and budget.

The corporate headquarters building is 110,000 sq. ft., with an accessory utility building of 12,000 sq. ft. Fast tracked from initial meetings through programming, site application approvals, construction document and construction, the new campus project was occupied within 23 months of the start time.

The building features two extended "fin" walls (west and south) that tether the structure to the land. These walls act as gateways separating the natural meadow foreground from the more manicured buildings, parking and landscape. The project defines and enhances the contrast between the man-made esthetic and the natural farmland context. Mediacom had previously occupied a number of rented building spaces about 15 miles west of the new site. The owner, who had acquired the farmland and the top of the hill approximately 10 years ago, decided this would be an excellent place to put all his company people in one building. The views from the top of the crest look outward to the west 25 miles to the mountains of Pennsylvania, and to the south through Warwick, New York and beyond to magnificent forested mountaintops.

The larger of the site's fountains has upper and lower basins, each 30-ft. by 30-ft., constructed with 45mil EPDM rubber liners, with rainwater boxes supporting the rock above. The pumps are in an underground vault 10 feet below grade. The vault pumps draw water from the rainwater collection tanks. Water enters a 6-inch overflow pipe back to the rainwater tank, which is located about 85 feet from the basin to be recirculated. Three extremely quiet, efficient pumps (Performance Pro) produce 190 gpm to the jets. The geyser was custom made in the field to meet the owner's specifications and desired look. On initial start up, the fountain reached a height of 40 feet. Once the basin fills and the jets are covered with water, the fountain rises to 18 feet with a spread of 8 feet. The fountain design is by Waterfall Creations, NYC, Greg Nagin, principal.

The weather at the 795-foot elevation of the site is always changeable, at once beautiful and terrifying. During the course of construction team members many times experienced extreme swings in weather and temperature. Building stonewalls in the dead of winter and driving winds and snow was a challenge, but necessary for a spring deadline grand opening. With as much as 14 inches of permafrost it was mandatory to heat the ground with frost melting machines to enable construction of a good wall base.

"With all these engineering precautions we still had some settlement and had to rebuild several sections of wall that slumped when the spring thaw arrived," notes the landscape architect.

Integrating Farmlands with High-Tech
One of the project objectives was to build a high-tech corporate headquarters building wrapped around by farmland. The only formal outdoor spaces for the project are the front dining terrace, the parking lots and entry to the building.

Since the area has "legacy" farmland, the building was the interloper, the farmland the native condition. Farm walls were rebuilt and wild flower meadows created to frame the corporate landscape.

Every rock for every wall and fountain was found on the site and either belonged to an old farm wall along the country road, or was brought out from an old farm wall deep in the woods.

The planting selections have a high degree of deer browsing resistance, although there was a balance between native species and those that flower and are pleasing for a corporate entrance, like the roses here, and an Acer rubrum "October Glory'.

The two fountains are for punctuation and architectural delineation. The water for their use does not come from municipal potable water, but rather from rainwater diverted from the 30,000 square-foot roof into two 10,000 gallon storage tanks. This is the water source to run the fountains and the irrigation system. No potable water is used for any landscape purpose. Each tank has a submersible pump for the transducing system that automatically adjusts for flow and pressure. These pumps are used as the "master valve" for the two 32-zone irrigation system.

Upon measuring the condensate from the rooftop air conditioners, it was found the rainwater system is capturing about 1,200 gallons a week of pure distilled water from the rooftop air-conditioning units.

Landscape Plantings
The planting for this project was designed with deer in mind. All the plants were chosen specifically for their high degree of deer browsing resistance. The planting plan had to be a delicate balance between native species and those that flower and are pleasing for a corporate entrance. In some cases though, we cheated a bit and used roses for accent and color by the front doors.

A biobasin planted with suitable wetland and upland species collects and filters water before seeping through a drainage system to slowly percolate water back to the ground. The basin is dry after 48 hours and emergent wetland species grow on the bottom of it, with upland shrubs and wetland species on the sides of the basin.

The geometric design and layout of the paths adjacent to the building call to mind the Dutch painter Pieter Mondrian.

Dining Terrace
The dining terrace is constructed of 2x2 and 2x4 Wausau tiles for a formal corporate look. The trees are uplit by LEDs; indeed the entire parking lot and building is exclusively illuminated by LEDs. The terrace plateau was designed with how it would look from three floors up, as well as experienced at grade. The design of the adjacent paths and patios has a certain Mondrian-style flair, particularly when seen from above inside the building.

Rainwater Collection
Rainwater harvesting for the grounds is via a RainHarvest system with two Xerxes 10,000 gallon tanks connected with an 8-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe for leveling. The dead leveling allows each tank, which are 500 feet apart, to collect an equal amount of runoff. The rainwater off the 12-inch collector pipe is split and filters through to graph rainwater stainless steel filters. The overflow passes over these filters and goes to the biobasin.

It is the nature of rainwater harvesting that a slow steady rain makes for more efficient collection, as opposed to a sudden, intense downpour. During a gentle rain, explains the landscape architect, the filters collect nearly 100 percent of the 30,000 square-foot roof water; during a heavy rain, however, the collection is about 30 percent. This is primarily because during a heavy rain the water overwhelms the filter. Only a small amount passes down through the mesh screen, while the top part flushes the top surface and runs downhill to the biobasin. A gentle all day ???(R)???AE?-inch is much preferable than a half an inch of rain in 10 minutes.

Mediacom Team
Landscape Architect
William Weiss, III, ASLA
Greenland Associates – Landscape Architects, LLC
Paramus, N.J.
Architect
Barry Poskanzer, AIA
Poskanzer Skott Architects, Ridgewood, N.J.
Civil Engineer
Lanc and Tully, Goshen, N.Y.
General Contractor
Bergen Engineering Corp., East Rutherford, N.J.
Project Manager: James Verrnochi
Site Superintendent: Ray Ferro

Vendors
Structure: Structure Studio, Morristown, N.J.
Fountains: Waterfall Creations, NYC, Greg Nagin, principal
MEP: Omdex, Inc., Midland Park, N.J.
Interiors: Diane Picyk at Poskanzer Skott Architects, Ridgewood, N.J.
Lighting: Clinard Design Studio LLC, NYC
Roofing: Watsky Associates, Inc., Valhalla, N.Y.