Please Note; If you wish to obtain your LA CES CEU Credit, you must provide your license/member number below, then complete this live class in its entirety and pass a quiz. Once your attendance is recorded and the quiz is completed and passed, your results will be uploaded to the LA CES website.
For those Landscape Architects that are not members of LA CES, then you will receive a certificate of completion and you will be able to send this to your chapter/association for credit.
Webinar Information
This presentation reviews various site planning and design techniques, approaches, principles, successes, pitfalls and roadblocks to designing, preserving and establishing the native landscape and how those landscapes can integrate with designed environments. Based on the presenter’s philosophy that Nature Ignores Design That Ignores Nature, the historical natural patterns of hydrology and landscape will be reviewed and compared to impacted, manmade, designed and manipulated patterns of hydrology and landscape.
The content will show how we can learn from history by taking our cues from nature when thinking about water differently when we rethink the serious term known as "stormwater management” into a more accepting phrase such as "rainfall integration" and green infrastructure through the use of logical efficiencies and proven design methods.
Design techniques and real world projects will be shared in relation to using native landscape in site specific ways that even the general public can understand and appreciate. The presenter will discuss how this can be successfully achieved, but also how quickly these projects can turn into bad science projects if the commitment to their success isn't embraced by all project stakeholders.
Attendees will be able to better understand the relationship between the landscape architect, civil engineer, community members, municipality, architect and the client as it pertains to expectations, aesthetic tolerances, design methods, restrictive and prescriptive ordinances and design standards when applied to using green infrastructure to integrate rainfall onto a designed site through collaborative site planning methods.
Learning Objectives
- When and why a native landscape approach is the right choice.
- How to plan for a naturalized green infrastructure project.
- Some techniques to reduce and slow runoff – preserving natural areas, reducing land disturbance, slowing down runoff and minimizing impervious surfaces, where practical.
- The use of buffers, filter strips and/or level spreaders and how to enhance their performance.
- Proper design and installation techniques using native and naturalized landscape and green infrastructure.
- Incorporating native and naturalized plants into the stormwater design for ecological benefit and potential cost savings.
Tom Mortensen, PLA, ASLA
Site Planner / Landscape Architect
Tom Mortensen has over 35 years of experience in site design, landscape architecture and related design and construction professions. Tom has expertise in site planning, urban spaces, park and public open space design, memorials / public plazas, retail developments, restoration plans and integrated stormwater management / green infrastructure. He has worked on design projects for US Forest Service, National Park Service, Boy Scouts of America, Native American Tribes and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Tom has given presentations throughout the region at various conferences and events on topics pertaining to site design, master planning, rainfall integration / green infrastructure, water quality and site development. Since 2011, he has been teaching a class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Continuing Education in the Water Technology Certification program on the topic of green infrastructure and using native landscape and site design for more resilient management of rainfall on sites.