Robinson Design Engineers : journal

It is hard to believe, but 2019 is well underway. This year promises to be an exciting one, and we are looking forward to sharing our current work and plans for the future. But we also need to get caught up on sharing our highlights from 2018!

This week we stopped by the grand opening of Tupelo Bend, a low-impact development commercial office park that we planned and designed in collaboration with our good friend Dave Merrifield of Holden Design Shop. Owners and developers New Leaf Builders imagined the office park to be more like a neighborhood, with four buildings resembling homes instead offices. 

The undeveloped site was typical of the natural Lowcountry landscape, with numerous grand trees and a freshwater wetland. These natural features served as our design inspiration for the office park, and the site plan was developed to work with the existing landscape and natural resources. The office park was named “Tupelo Bend” in honor of the native tupelo trees within the wetland and the entrance road that was designed to bend around the existing trees and wetlands.

“There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country. Just as we must conserve our men, women and children, so we must conserve the resources of the land on which they live.”

On this day in 1858, Theodore Roosevelt was born in Manhattan.  Although widely remembered for his political achievements and rugged cowboy persona, fewer recall that Roosevelt was a naval history scholar, expert ornithologist, wilderness explorer, cattle rancher, first-descent whitewater paddler, prolific author, and a terrible shot.  

Roosevelt’s life was marked by astounding personal hardship and misfortune.  Yet throughout his life, his primary source of inspiration and solace was the natural world.  As a frail and asthmatic youth, the precocious Roosevelt fancied himself a naturalist and taxidermist, creating the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” at age nine.  And as a young man, Roosevelt gradually overcame his timid demeanor and maladies through physical exertion, athletics, and wilderness expeditions.            

While president, Roosevelt spent much of his free time at a secluded, rustic hunting cabin in the mountains of Virginia, and was known to stroll the grounds of the White House bird watching and recording precise observations of urban wildlife.  He undertook wilderness expeditions with John Muir and other leading explorers and naturalists of his day.  He was even known to swim the Potomac River during the winter months.  And following his presidency, he nearly died on a canoeing expedition through the uncharted Amazon wilderness.

Today it’s difficult to imagine a president whose main political platform is environmental protection.  Yet for Roosevelt, whose experiences in the natural world were so deeply formative, his personal sense of obligation to protect the natural resources of the United States was primary.  He clearly recognized the unique environmental threats of his day, and fought tirelessly to preserve millions of acres of land in the face of westward expansion and industrialization.  

Today we are the beneficiaries of Roosevelt’s conservation efforts, and we honor his legacy by continually endeavoring to enhance human welfare while promoting the wise stewardship of natural resources.

Sea Aire: Southern “surf vibe” neighborhood coming to James Island soon

Sea Aire is a neighborhood project we’re leading in collaboration with Kerns Land Planning & Design and Holden Design Shop. Working closely with the developer & builder New Leaf Builders, we are designing the community as a “Cluster Development” under the City of Charleston’s relatively new land use ordinance section. The cluster development ordinance requires that 40 percent of the parcel be maintained as shared open space. At Sea Aire, the open space will include an activity lawn, a playground, a community garden, and perimeter buffers.

The neighborhood will consist of 24 custom modern homes carefully planned around Grand Trees and storm water drainage features. Existing drainage ditches will be converted to storm water bio-swales, and we’ve designed a bio-retention basin to serve as a functional landscape element within the community park.  

Several years ago we worked with New Leaf to create Fox Hollow, a 9 home neighborhood on James Island that was the 2013 PRISM Award Winner for Best New Community. 

Today’s peak tide at 9:42am was 8.046 feet above MLLW in the Charleston Harbor.