The BAC Green Alley collects water from the Boston Aarchitectural College's primary buildings, neighboring buildings, and regular ground water run-off. The Green Alley water catchment system has been designed at a capacity to hold thousands of gallons of water. Even with over 10 inches of rain during June 2013, the Green Alley was able to collect all water from surrounding buildings.
Conventional water management practices transfer water from storm-drains directly to local waterways. In this case, storm water flows into the Charles River. The process of channeling water away from the soil makes the city vulnerable to a dropping water table, exposing most of Back Bay's building stock to the risk of pier failure from rot. Infiltrating rainwater directly into the ground under the BAC helps to avoid this risk.
This project was designed and installed as a state-of-the-art monitoring system, to keep track of rainfall and how the Alley handles water flows, as well as effects on the ground water levels in the area of the BAC. This information is presented in a dashboard display, as well as being retained for future student and faculty research into this technology.
Submitter: Linnean Solutions