Project 2A (Cold Climate)

Located in Victoria BC, the Dockside Green Development Project is a LEED Platinum project that occupys 15 acres of former industrial waterfront. It is for the most part a brownfield development project that incorporates almost all aspects of sustainable design, from thermal, lighting, moisture and community.

The development has its own built in sewege treatment plant that filters and cleans most of the water that is used on site. As part of the idea of education, the Architects (Busby, Perkins + Will) made visiable the process by exposing the moving water instead of concealling it in underground pipes, making for an aesthetically pleasing environment.

The idea seems to borrow off marshlands from what I understand so far, and more research will be done to make certain this assumption. But what IS clear is that the achitects and developers have made a conscious decision to copy a natural system in the conception of the filtration system.

This then brings me back to the initial idea I had before about using the Kortright Centre here in Toronto (or rather Woodbridge) and their use of the 'Living Machine' in order to turn otherwise black water back into drinkable white water. While not the biomimicry of a single organisim, this comes from an entire ecological process found in the marshlands.