The name alone acknowledges the beauty and functionality of one of UWM’s latest award-winning projects: the UWM Spiral Garden and Power Plant Cistern Project. The project has transformed 2 acres of nonpermeable rooftops and pavement between the Klotsche Center and power plant into the water supply system for a lush garden that absorbs or stores stormwater, reducing the likelihood of flooding after heavy rain.
The project was conceived by architecture professor Jim Wasley in 2005 and completed five years ago. Now, it has been honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Wisconsin Chapter with the group’s 2018 award for landscape projects costing $500,000 or less.
The project addresses several challenges that could result from excessive stormwater, such as minimizing flooding on Edgewood Avenue, reducing combined sewer overflows into Lake Michigan and cleaning water that flows into the city’s sewer system. Urban rainfall picks up oil, gas, animal droppings and other pollutants from pavement and rooftops, and these contaminants can be filtered out and broken down in the gardens.
The garden is a colorful patch of native Wisconsin flora in the heart of UWM’s East Side campus. It features two 20-foot cisterns that can hold up to 12,000 gallons of water. Like the garden itself, the cisterns help prevent flooding and stop stormwater from rushing into Lake Michigan in one big polluted gulp.
One sculptural water channel, called a sluice, redirects water from the roof of UWM’s 13,000-square-foot power plant into the first cistern. A second sluice sends water into the garden once the linked cisterns are full. The system then slowly drains the stormwater through small outlets in the garden for up to 24 hours after a heavy rainfall.
The design manages stormwater on campus with the aesthetic bonus of, as Wasley explains, “transforming the campus into an urban garden in the process.”
Wasley gives credit for the award to Claude Schuttey, the recently retired director of UWM campus planning and an early backer of the project, as well as landscape architect Gerard Rewolinski. Wasley is now working on a fountain project for the School of Freshwater Sciences’ Harbor Campus.
