Comment of the Holcim Awards 2005 Jury for North America
The project is commended for its ambitious effort to resolve severe community infrastructural problems caused by flooding, erosion, sewage infiltration and groundwater pollution.
Additionally, the solution convincingly offers the possibility for developing attractive recreational areas that serve to strengthen the ecosystem and increase biodiversity. Acute sensitivity is displayed toward urban ecology and toward the challenging measures required to enhance the quality of life, thus providing important lessons in environmental sustainability.
The approach introduces a novel and innovative systematicity in context analysis to an American audience. The scope of the research is also worthy of merit, addressing a diversity of ecological issues such as improvement of water quality, mitigation of pollution, increasing biodiversity, nutrient cycling, enhancing soil formation, as well as controlling erosion.
A sensitive social agenda is also pursued at the level of providing environmentally responsive recreation amenities and improving public services. The integrity of urban form is enhanced by a self-organizing landscape that incorporates both media and biological processes in a synthesized ecosystem.