Landfill Garden

Providence, Rhode Island | 2012

Collaboration

LIRIO: Ron Henderson, Chris Macfarlane, Colin Kennedy, Annie Campbell, Tanya Kelley, Kate Dana, Hou Jiaoyu, Zhang Jingni

Kite Architects: Albert Garcia, Principal

Kleinfelder SEA Consultants; CH2M Hill; Acentech; Daniel O’Connell’s Sons

Recognition

Honor Award for Design, Rhode Island ASLA

Honor Award for Infrastructure, Construction Management Association of America

Merit Award Sustainable Design, Rhode Island AIA

LEED Gold Certification

Credits

Albert Garcia, Sandy Nesbitt, Ron Henderson

Trees (60)

The Landfill Garden is a component of a $65 million modernization and construction project for the Narragansett Bay Commission’s (NBC) Field’s Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in Providence, Rhode Island that drew on the expertise of scientists, engineers, landscape architects and architects in the design of the Biological Nutrient Removal Project. The overall project substantially reduced the amount of nitrogen and other pollutants entering Narragansett Bay, the second largest bay on America’s Atlantic Ocean coast.

The new 10,000 sq. ft. Landfill Garden is so named because the design harvests and re-uses over 90 tons of debris from site demolition that would have otherwise been sent to the landfill. Concrete planks (sawn from an existing ash storage tank) and crushed asphalt (from an existing parking area) are recycled in the garden into a striking black and white garden surface.

The Landfill Garden and the green roof of the new Operations Center perform as a water infiltration and filtration systems integrated with an outdoor room for staff and for educational groups that frequently tour the center.