Low-impact development design
Low-impact development, on an Australian project, is water sensitive urban design at the source: permeable surfaces, swales, raingardens and other measures that sit in the architecture and the landscape. We help give those measures a real place in the layout before the basement, paving and planting are frozen.
Send us your drawings and any WSUD comments already received from council. We'll confirm the scope and the fee.
This page is part of Water Design.
Send the drawings, project address, climate and soils information if you have it, and any council WSUD notes already received.
“Low-impact development” is a widely used term for source-control stormwater design. In Australian planning and industry practice the established language is water sensitive urban design (WSUD). This page keeps both names and leads with WSUD for Australian projects. It is not a statutory rating.
Typical measures include permeable surfaces and reduced impervious cover; swales and buffers; raingardens and other natural filtration; rainwater tanks, coordinated with rainwater harvesting and reuse; and integration with landscape, levels and building layout.
A concept still has to be tested. On a small Victorian site that test is often a Blue Factor report. On a larger or more complex site it is usually MUSIC, which remains part of Water Design. Flooding, on-site detention and detailed drainage stay with the civil or hydraulic consultant.
The concept is not a sizing certificate and not an approval document. It does not, on its own, guarantee flood reduction, biodiversity gain, cleaner waterways, or a council or Green Star outcome.
A basement lid with podium paving leaves little depth, catchment or overflow space. Finding what the structure can still accept — and what would need to change — belongs in design development, not after landscape documentation.
A planted area is not a treatment system unless the measure is connected, given a catchment, and then tested in the right tool. Green Star Waterway Protection, where it applies, is documented separately on Green Star water credits.
[Sound familiar]
A basement lid with podium paving leaves little depth, catchment or overflow space. Finding what the structure can still accept belongs in design development.
A planted area is not a treatment system until it is connected, given a catchment and tested in the right tool.
We help give permeable paving, swales, raingardens and tanks a real place in the layout before the basement, paving and planting are frozen.
Send the layout and the site constraints.
We test source-control options against the architecture.
You receive a concept report and plans that the assessment model and the civil consultant can take forward. Timeframes are confirmed at quote.
They are closely related. “Low-impact development” is a widely used term for source-control stormwater design. In Australian planning and industry practice the established language is water sensitive urban design (WSUD), so this page leads with WSUD. It is not a statutory rating.
No. The concept is not a sizing certificate and not an approval document.
On a small Victorian site the test is often a Blue Factor report. On a larger or more complex site it is usually MUSIC.
No. Flooding, on-site detention and detailed drainage stay with the civil or hydraulic consultant.
Only if the measure is connected, given a catchment, and then tested in the right tool.
Send us your drawings, the project address, and any WSUD comments already received from council.
