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EPA Headquarters Low Impact Development Demonstration Projects – Ariel Rios Building South Courtyard
In This Section
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Location:The Ariel Rios Building is on 12th Street between Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, DC. The South Courtyard is accessible to persons visiting EPA.
Address: EPA Headquarters, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20004 
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Plan
3-Dimensional Perspective Actual Perspective
Specifications:
- Site area: 8,600 square feet
- Landscaped area: 6,400 square feet
- Permeable paving: 564 square feet
- Disconnected impervious pavement: 1,636 square feet
- Bioretention cells: 280 square feet
Objective:
The Ariel Rios South Courtyard serves as an outdoor classroom that includes opportunities for specialized exhibits. It also demonstrates how to integrate LID practices into a small, historical urban site.
Description:
The LID demonstration project at the Ariel Rios South Courtyard is designed to showcase the sustainable strategy of addressing targeted watershed goals and objectives by using LID stormwater management techniques. The South Courtyard project demonstrates a wide range of techniques within a small area. This is primarily a utilitarian area that includes a loading dock and building services parking, but it is highly visible from the staircase EPA staff and visitors use at the Ariel Rios South Building’s entrances. The project was completed in December 2006.
LID practices used in the Courtyard include bioretention cells, permeable pavers, soil amendments, a cistern, and sustainable landscaping. The innovative techniques are integrated into the site design and create an inviting urban gathering place while reducing stormwater discharge.
Awards
In October 2007, the Ariel Rios South Courtyard development project was honored with a GSA Real Property Innovation Special Achievement Award from the U.S. General Services Administration for paving the way for future real property developments.
- The Ariel Rios South Courtyard project garnered a 2007 Landscape Contractors Association Grand Award for Commercial Landscape Installation for EPA's contractor on the project, John Shorb Landscaping.
LID Components:
- Bioretention cells (also called rain gardens)
- Permeable concrete paths and blocks
- 1,128-gallon cistern for irrigation
- Soil amendments
- Sustainable landscaping
- Land regrading/contouring
- High-efficiency irrigation system
Other Components:
- Water collection runnels
- Recycled-content furniture
- Recycled farm tool signs
- Recycled glass artwork in cistern
- High-efficiency lighting
- Recycled historic granite bench
- Historic fountain and paving (recirculating pump)
Benefits:
- Newly amended soils beneath the landscaped areas enhance water infiltration rates.
- Disconnecting impervious areas from the drainage system and re-grading the site to direct flows to landscaped and lawn areas help reduce the volume of runoff and pollutants from the paved areas and roofs.
- Implementing pervious pavers reduces stormwater runoff volumes and increases water quality.
- Bioretention areas provide more than 400 cubic feet of stormwater storage volume.
- A 1,128-gallon cistern located beneath the courtyard stores rainwater for irrigation of onsite vegetation, reducing potable water use and stormwater runoff to the storm sewer.
- The cistern dome is both educational and artistically creative, exhibiting views of the water collection tank system while integrating design features and using 100 percent recycled glass.
- Outdoor furniture is constructed with 90 percent recycled-content material, and signs are made from recycled farm tool parts.