The Watershed Event

On October 7 and 8, 2011, we tested an idea intended to make the amount of water shed by a parking lot understandable.  The location was the parking area behind Folk Hall, the home of the Meyers School of Art at University of Akron in Ohio.

It takes several pictures to show the whole area, but you get the idea of a parking lot that you might see at a shooping center or next to an apartment tower.

Contrary to the image in the first picture, not all of it had tree plantings.

And the building itself, which used to be a car sales business, is as flat and harsh as the open parking lot.

More site information will be posted if there is interest.

The BIG idea, was to mark the parking lot in the fashion of a contour map. 

To accomplish this we enlisted the help of the ASCE Student Chapter at University of Akron.


 

Under the direction of Holly Grubaugh, from the Summit College Survey and Mapping Program, the students set up surveying equipment and base.


 

 




Using laser technology, ASCE students identified the locations of contours at six inch intervals.

Simultaneously, students from Enviormental Akron (a campus group), the Art School, and the ASCE began to mark the area with one blue dot in each square foot.