Land planning and civil engineering are a big part of what it takes to bring a housing concept to life. Creating a community is a cross-disciplinary effort: from grading to environmental issues, from elevation to piping. The NEXTadventure home was no exception.
In Orlando, the site of the NEXTadventure home, it’s important to consider the characteristics of Florida’s climate and location when building a home and creating its landscaping. Planning starts with the high water table and low-lying land to factor in where stormwater and run-off can go. The landscapers think of how to manage rainwater and how it may affect mosquito control.
The research needed doesn’t end with the ecological sector, however. Home builders also have to consider the legislative rules and regulations. As per Florida state code, a significant number of drought-tolerant native plants must be used when building out a community’s green space, because they add tremendous value to the sustainability. Cabbage plants and windmill palms were used in the NEXTadventure home’s landscape to satisfy the state code.
It is often difficult to design aesthetically pleasing landscaping when not all native plants are created naturally, or equally, for that matter. To solve this issue, cultivars were planted at the NEXTadventure home to add variety and color. The result is a lush, environmentally friendly, and regionally specific outdoor landscape year-round. Plants were selected by their calculated blooming time and mixed with non-blooming varieties.
Here, Ryan Binkowski, director of planning and landscape architecture at Waldrop Engineering, explains how his firm created the right landscape for the 55-plus home buyer. The collaboration with the NEXTadventure proejct team made it simple and even allowed them to think of bringing interior design aspects into the programming of the hardscaping around the pool.
As the project research showed, this home buyer wants low maintenance, so Waldrop was careful to select plants that do not create clutter and do not require maintenance beyond what is included in the community’s amenities.
Learn more about this project at www.builderonline.com/nextadventure.
