Design With Nature
WHY DWN?
Environmental challenges are increasing every day. Understanding that nature is a unique and ever-changing part of the global system and thus needs to be understood and protected is why GZA started the Design with Nature Studio.
By combining art, science, and the environment, the Studio provides innovative and elegant solutions that protect infrastructure, create resiliency, and enhance the environment while helping to reconnect people to nature.
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Creating natural spaces
Nature-based solutions provide benefits such as enhanced green spaces, pollinator habitats, and urban cooling.
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Creating nature-rich environments
Design with Nature rebuilds ecosystem services into places where we work, live, and play.
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Restoring natural processes
Design with Nature looks to nature as an example to heal the environment and protect infrastructure.
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Protecting the biotic and abiotic
Design with Nature improves air and water quality, rebuilds soils, sequesters carbon, and creates resiliency.
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Adaptable and flexible
Nature-based solutions are designed to mimic the natural world, so as it changes, they can adapt.
Featured Projects
Restoring Nature Protects Coastal Communities
The Design with Nature approach is central to living shoreline, coastal green infrastructure, and shoreline restoration projects. If your project involves coastal erosion, flooding, or other forms of degradation, our Coastal Resilience & Nature-Based Solutions team provides deep engineering experience and regulatory understanding such as; metocean modeling, flood vulnerability assessment, and grant assistance.
All integrated with our ecological and landscape design philosophy.
Habitat Restoration
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Green Infrastructure
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Coastal and Shoreline Resilience
Our coastal and riverine shorelines are constantly under attack from hydrodynamic forces and climate change is exacerbating these effects.
Much of our infrastructure is built along the shoreline and therefore threatened by such forces which are occurring at higher frequency and intensity. There is increasing recognition that natural ecological systems alone or in combination with man-made structures protect this infrastructure while also enhancing ecological and human use and enjoyment. It takes a multidisciplinary team of experienced practitioners to affect such solutions. GZA has the requisite resources to plan, permit and design resilient shorelines in both riverine and tidal environments.
- Resource Area Delineation
- Floral and Faunal Assessments
- Hydrodynamic Modeling
- Living Shoreline Design
- Geospatial Analysis
- Waterfront Structures Design
- Site Civil Engineering
- Ecological Restoration Design
- Landscape Architecture
- Permitting
- Public Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement
- Grant Writing
Biotechnology and Bioremediation
Biotechnologies offer innovative and sustainable alternatives to traditional treatment mechanisms at both new and legacy sites; they utilize the physical, chemical, and biological properties of plants and microorganisms to manage and treat pollutants in stormwater, wastewater, and industrial waste streams.
Our curiosity to understand and utilize nature’s ingenuity drives innovation at GZA’s DWN Studio. We bring together our diverse expertise in these sciences to our DWN Studio where we strive to understand nature’s powerful tools and how to apply them in the natural and built environment. Through Natural and Nature-based Feature (NNBF) design, our DWN Studio creates innovative biotreatment mechanisms for our clients that are appropriate, sustainable, permittable, buildable, attainable, and cost effective.
Our Capabilities
- Stormwater Pollutant Source BMPs
- Stormwater Outfall Management
- Stormwater Volume Management
- Constructed Treatment Wetlands
- Remedial Action Plan Alternatives
- Phytotechnologies
- Rhizotechnologies
- Phyto-plots and Phyto-borders
- Pilot Studies for Plant Selection and Media Design
- Permitting and Construction Oversight
- Operations, Maintenance, Monitoring, and Management
Planning Services
GZA’s Planning practice considers the environment of people and the places they live, play, work, and move through, and the infrastructure that connects and sustains these relationships.
- Resiliency and Sustainability Planning
- Environmental Planning and Permitting
- Public and Intergovernmental Permitting
- Zoning consulting
Inquire Now
Learn how you can build a sustainable, resilient project that grows with your needs.
Our Insights About Design With Nature
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GZA Connects: Rosemarie Fusco, AICP, “The Heart of a Large Consulting Firm, the Soul of a Small Company”
In the latest episode of GZA Connects, Rosemarie Fusco, AICP, tells us about some of her favorite projects so far.
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WEDG Certifications: Why GZA has 14 WEDG Associates and Counting
The WEDG Associate credential equips practitioners with the knowledge to apply waterfront standards in real-world projects. Here’s what the certification means, and why it’s so important for GZA and our clients.
Read more : WEDG Certifications: Why GZA has 14 WEDG Associates and Counting
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Accelerating climate change demands ‘agile systems’ thinking — and action
In an opinion piece for Commonwealth Beacon, Curt Spalding talks about the need for most agile environmental management to address the likely impacts of accelerating climate change.
Read more : Accelerating climate change demands ‘agile systems’ thinking — and action
