Civic Garden Center
Cincinnati, OH
Project Context
The Green Learning Station located at the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati (CGC) focuses on gardening education in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The CGC provides educational outreach to schools, public lectures and programs such as the neighborhood gardens initiatives. The Civic Garden Center is developing a unique urban learning laboratory and sustainable landscape demonstration garden. The site is a former SOHIO gas station that was purchased for parking and storage for the CGC’s neighborhood gardens program. Some remediation still needs to be performed from the old station and the site is a typical urban expanse of asphalt and roof.
NSI Contributions
The sustainable design will transform this battered site into a model sustainable garden that has little or no discharge from the site. An onsite wastewater treatment system that incorporates constructed wetlands technology will process effluent to reuse quality standards.
Wastewater treatment infrastructure will be developed on the site and will include the following elements:
• Gravity Collection from building (by others)
• Onsite wastewater treatment system:
• Primary Treatment Tank
• Constructed wetlands with recirculation
• Effluent Storage
• Pressure sand filter
• Mechanical filtrationand UV disinfection
• Seasonal Irrigation via subsurface drip
• Reuse of reclaimed water as a supply for water closets
• Overflow to sanitary sewer for wintertime or emergency effluent disposal
The Civic Garden Center provided an excellent opportunity to explore the possibilities of sustainable design in the Cincinnati area. NSI was fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate with Meisner and Associates (Landscape Architecture), Glaserworks (Architecture), and HAWA Incorporated (MEP Engineer).
