FUNCTIONS & USERS

Informal Path (4)

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN THEMES & FOCUS AREAS

The Town of Longmeadow contracted the Conway School to develop conceptual designs for three focus areas in Bliss and Laurel Parks. Focus areas were chosen in collaboration with the client, Tighe & Bond, and the Conway team and informed by the historical and ecological context of each area.

a. WaterWorks

The former waterworks and reservoir are key elements of the historical narrative in Laurel Park. This area represents over a century of human intervention in the landscape where the town of Longmeadow made land use decisions supported by community values and the infrastructure needs of a growing population. With century-old infrastructure abandoned in the stream, this area faces problems of neglected management, ecological degradation, and poor accessibility.

B. laurel Pond

Designed by the Olmsted Brothers, this area is a point of pride and rich cultural history in the Longmeadow community. As the needs and functions of Cooley Brook once again change, the open views and cherished history of Laurel Pond make it a logical location to design for the preservation of the beauty and peaceful serenity of the landscape while improving its ecological functioning and strengthening the human-stream connection.

c. headWaters

The headwaters face some of the most serious erosion problems and bank failures in the parks. The active recreation facilities see the most use of any location in the parks, yet the people who use them don’t often interact with the nearby stream. For this, the headwaters represents the loss of human connection with Cooley Brook. Stormwater infiltration, human-stream connection and ecosystem health could be improved in this area to increase the resilience of Cooley Brook in the face of climate change.

Design Themes

Design concepts are organized into two themes to help visualize alternatives and understand their trade-offs. Functional elements for a Regenerative and Healthy Ecosystem may coexist with elements from an Improved Human-Stream Experience. For the purposes of this document, the first concept for each focus area attempts to prioritize elements of a Regenerative and Healthy Ecosystem, while the second prioritizes elements for an Improved Human-Stream Experience.

Regenerative & Healthy Ecosystem functional elements

Bioengineering strategies

• Erosion/bank stabilization

• Floodplain connectivity

• Stream habitat connectivity

Infiltration & bioretention

Riparian buffer vegetation

Selective stream access

Reduced turf

Conceptual Design Alternatives

Some elements may coexist, but others require trade-offs.

Improved Human-Stream Experience

Stream interaction

All-persons trails

Boardwalks & observation decks

Bridges

Interpretive signage and interactive elements

Picnic/rest areas

Natural play spaces

Interventions

Each focus area is preceded by a site-specific summary analysis that includes pertinent analyses from the first part of this document. Design elements are organized into two categories to help characterize interventions and assess the trade-offs between ecological health, human-stream connection, and maintenance requirements of each design.

hydro-ecologIcal changes

Landscape interventions that change the stream, vegetation, and soils of the site; hydrology and hydraulics of the stream and watershed; and infiltration and stabilization in the stream and surrounding area.

The Human Element

Landscape interventions that change how people connect to their culture and history, the natural world and each other.

comParIson Bar

To quickly assess the trade-offs between ecological health, human stream connection, and maintenance requirements, each concept page uses a sliding comparison bar. This is used to compare the concepts to one another, and is not based on hard criteria. The comparison bars should provoke thought, conversation, and critical thinking. The thought process to support these decisions is described through Pros and Cons and discussion of installation and maintenance in the side bar of each design.

Waterworks Summary Analysis

Highly altered stream flow dynamics caused by 120-year-old abandoned pipe and reservoir infrastructure and associated land use history create a complicated and highly variable active river area.

Downstream 250 feet from the Laurel Pond dam, Cooley Brook enters an approximately 2,500-square-foot concrete-walled reservoir. The water then flows into a concrete channel where it is conveyed to a second dam. As the water flows over the dam, it enters a buried clay pipe and flows underground before resurfacing approximately 200 feet downstream. A secondary channel has also been formed by time and high flow, so along the entirety of these 500 feet of altered channel dynamics, there is both a natural channel and a constructed channel. The vegetation reveals the land’s history: this area was cleared for access when the reservoir was used as the town’s swimming hole called “The Pump” and then was subsequently abandoned once the pool in Bliss Park was constructed. Today the vegetation consists of a thick tangle of invasive species and early successional forest species, which blocks views of the leftover waterworks infrastructure and limits human interactions with the stream. The bridge crossing the river forms the main point of human/stream connection in this area.

Buried pipe resurfaces; end of infrastructure

Water enters concrete channel Dam; water enters buried clay pipe

100-year

Stormwater Infrastructure

Slopes >33%

Site of Intense Erosion (>1.9 tons/year)