An interdisciplinary team of students from architecture, engineering, landscape architecture and environmental science and technology took second place in the 5th Annual Campus RainWorks Challenge, an annual competition through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that challenges student teams to design an innovative solution for a specific stormwater challenge on their college campus. UMD beat out 60 other collegiate teams in this year’s challenge.
While the focus of the RainWorks Challenge is to leverage green infrastructure to combat stormwater at its source, this year’s competition also centered on galvanizing public engagement. The team project, named “(Un)loading Nutrients,” proposed transforming the campus loading dock behind South Dining Hall into a campus amenity that also manages stormwater. The plan leveraged 6660 square feet of new plantings for bioretention, reducing impervious surface area by 18 percent and creating a safer pedestrian walkway between the dining hall and an adjacent classroom building.
Read about the win in UMD’s Diamondback
The team received a student prize of $1,000 and a faculty prize of $2,000. This is the third year that a team from the University of Maryland has placed in the competition; UMD took first place in 2014 and 2015.
Team UMD is: Christiane Machado (Architecture); Mark Dennis, Dylan Reilly and Vince Yi (Landscape Architecture); Michael Van Wie (Mechanical Engineering); and Emma Giese and Tuana Phillips (Environmental Science and Technology).