Santa Monica Water Garden Building

From an article in Stormwater Solutions––Storing water for aboveground water features at an office park – simple, right? Not so fast. The Santa Monica, Calif., Water Garden office park does not have a normal, garden-variety water feature. A series of walkways, a river, gardens, multiple pools, fountains, an amphitheater and other amenities are located on 17 acres of a complex manmade topography. Civil engineering firm Psomas and landscape architectural firm KSA Design Studio had to find a way to store the water under the “oasis in the city” in the most efficient way possible

The elaborate site called for nine different depths of water-storage chambers from 30 to 110 cm high. A modular and design-flexible solution was needed. Psomas turned to a product called Rainstore3 – a modular-underground water-storage system. It is engineered to be stackable in varying heights and can support H-20 loading requirements. Additionally, its geocells are manufactured from 100% recycled content. Every available depth from 30 to 110 cm, in 10-cm (4-in.) increments, was provided with Rainstore3. The entire water-feature network required more than 9,000 units of the product. “[It was] A big puzzle,” said Steve Lacap, project lead designer for KSA, referring to placing the Rainstore3 product to level out the landscape and prepare for the final grade. “Existing soils were as deep as 6 ft in some places.”

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