Light Imprint Bioswale

I am currently working on a retrofit project in Pueblo with EV Studio where the existing building and site have major drainage issues.  It is an extremely flat site and multiple courtyards really complicate the drainage issues.  In the design, we are faced with the reality of multiple depressed areas for drainage (to date, the building essentially acts as a retention pond) and attempting to send as much of the water away from the building with surface drainage.  In doing this, along with the multiple rain gardens on the site, we are utilizing a bioswale along the long side of the building.  This past weekend I sat down to quickly illustrate the concept with some watercolor just for fun.  On a side note, this is my first real attempt at using watercolor in over ten years, so please don’t critique the quality of the rendering.  You will see that we needed to use a small retaining wall on one side due to existing trees and slope that we wanted to maintain.  Ideally, this retaining wall will be created from natural dry-stacked stone.  Directly adjacent to it is where we anticipate the flow of water, so we have included larger river rock atop the smaller rock to minimize the migration of the smaller rock.  The plants are directly adjacent to it, in a location where flows would not be intense enough to disturb the plants, yet allow the roots to absorb as much plant material as possible.