In doing our templete, I would like clarity of what each component is and some examples of each. Our company provided the landscaping portion for a green addition and remodel for an office building. Within the landscaped area, I designed 3 rain gardens and selected all native plants that survive in storm water collected areas as well as plants for the high dry sites. Also used various sizes of gravel and rock, a small hardscape area with gravel between joints and pitch to 3 sides of raingarden and to planting bed. If I structured the components of the new landscape & the rain gardens based on many site visit studies during heavy rains prior to construction to best retain stormwater and utilize all water runoff to provide for plant material and nature, is it a structural control or not by LEED definition? One of the rain gardens run parallel to the building and was designed to 'appear' as a dry stream bed collecting water from the higher elevation, the other 2 collect from disconnected downspouts. The entire landscape design and installation was to save all runoff water 100%, utilize and filter it with plant material and coarse wood chip mulch and it proved to be highly successful as my calculation proved in 6.1 template of 99.78% I am just not sure how to complete 6.2 Thank you
Carol Palansky Nature's Way Inc Land Care Chesterland Ohio
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Amy Rider
Sustainability ManagerKEMA Services
161 thumbs up
January 11, 2011 - 5:44 pm
Hi Carol,
Rain gardens and similar plant based stormwater treatment and infiltration zones are generally considered non-structural.
For what it is worth, the two categories aren't weighed differently on the LEED Form, so when in doubt as to which category is appropriate, guessing should not change the outcome.
carol palansky
designer/arboristnature's way land care
5 thumbs up
January 11, 2011 - 9:30 pm
Thank you, Amy, for your reply. I get mixed answers on this as our local soil and water engineer thought it to be structural items since a small hardscape is within the rain garden area. Good to know not weighed on exact catagory on this particular section.
Michael DeVuono
Regional Stormwater LeaderArcadis North America
LEEDuser Expert
186 thumbs up
March 3, 2012 - 9:40 am
Terminology varies on this, I feel it correlates directly with how the State BMP Manuals define....
I refer to structural as anything that is "built" i.e, not a naturally-occurring BMP. (raingarden, infiltration trenches, constructed wetlans, etc).
Non-structural i refer to naturally-occurting BMPs or "smart construction" techniques, i.e disconnecting impervious areas, discharging roof leaders to a veggie swale, or minimized grading during construction.