Landscape architects turn city code into sculptural opportunity at new Omaha development

From the sky, the project resembles a pair of captivating eyes, but the water flowing through it isn't tears.

The project, known as the Heartwood Greenway System, is designed to capture and contain the rainwater that falls on the Heartwood Preserve development in Omaha, Nebraska. The mixed-use development, spanning 500 acres, has two residential neighborhoods, Heartwood Estates and the Arbour, with lots ranging from $330,000 to $1.3 million.

Steve Menzies — chairman of Applied Underwriters and the owner of Heartwood Preserve — said the city's building ordinances require that any water falling on a development remain onsite. Heartwood Preserve, where the company is also headquartered, is in a watershed — an area of land where water drains into an outlet like a stream or river.

“We needed a flood-mitigation system that would protect not only Heartwood’s tenants and businesses but also nearby homes, businesses and public schools,” Menzies said. “To me, this represented an opportunity: Rather than simply meeting code, we could create something that was both functional and distinctive.”

So Applied Underwriters searched for the best people to design an operational yet aesthetically pleasing system. The company set aside 80 acres for the greenways and hired David Meyer and Grace Amundson of Meyers Studio Land Architects in Berkeley, California, to design the system.

Construction began on the project in 2018, with completion slated for next year.

The system features a network of 14 water detention basins that prevent erosion and recharge aquifers. “The basins have the capacity to capture and store as much as 55 million gallons of water — the equivalent of 55 large municipal water towers,” Menzies said.

Meyer, 72, and a Berkeley, California, resident, has been working in landscape architecture since 1976.

He was initially attracted to the project because he is originally from Iowa and felt close to it.

“A big part of our site design in the greenways was understanding how to manipulate and design topography," Meyer said.

Before Meyer and Amundson's involvement, an engineer from Applied Underwriters had created a series of retention ponds along the edge of the property. The land architects took a different approach, replacing the ponds with vessels that funnel, contain and store water over 80 acres.

What's known as the A North basin is a linear vessel. "It's narrow, it's tapered, and it's that shape because we didn't have a big footprint of land,” Meyer said. “You go down to the 'Cosmic Bowl' to the south, where we had a lot of land, then we were able to go to a large, circular earthen bowl that had a totally different expression." Menzies said inspiration for the design of the greenways came from classical Roman architecture and Andy Goldsworthy’s permanent installation “Drawn Stone” at San Francisco’s de Young Museum.

“Beyond managing water, the Heartwood Greenway system is designed to connect people with their environment,” Menzies said. “Each basin is defined by monolithic, dry-stacked limestone walls ... and over time, flooding will weather the stones, leaving visible waterlines that serve as a lasting record of extreme weather events.”

Earlier in September, the system won the Innovation by Design Award from Fast Company.

Menzies said it was a high honor.

“Fast Company is a business magazine that celebrates innovation in technology, design, and leadership, encouraging leaders to think expansively and shape the future,” he said. “It’s gratifying to be recognized for creating something that is both a design achievement and an economic asset.”

When they added plants to the system, they focused on native species.

“I would say 98% of it is native plant material,” Meyer said. “The ground plane throughout the greenways is irrigated turf. It's limited. We used it to be a shoulder to all the pathways so that people walking through there would have a little bit of refinement and protection from the ticks and the triggers that might be out in the native landscape.”

There are also picnic areas, and then in the larger outreach between the walkways and picnic areas, Meyer said, you'll find native prairie grasses.

“All of this is adding diversity to a landscape that once was the monoculture of either corn or beans,” Meyer said. “So, we're excited about the habitat that we're creating because we are already seeing the critters starting to come to the site, from quail to foxes to songbirds and migratory birds.”

They also added numerous trees.

“Most of the trees are native trees: oaks and redbuds and pines and spruce and crab apples,” he said.

For Meyer, the scale of the project was pretty liberating.

“We had a lot of land to work with,” he said. “We also had the need for large areas of water collection, and maybe the most enjoyable part of this project has been the ability to work with shaping the land as sculpture in a large area and being able to be sustainable at an effective scale.”

Amundson, 29 and a Brooklyn resident, said this project has taken a lot of dedication and hard work.

“Heartwood has been a surreal endeavor from the very beginning,” Amundson said. “David is truly a master at shaping the earth, and getting to work with him at this scale has been the opportunity of a lifetime. To watch these sculpted forms take shape with very few spatial limitations was such a rare experience.”

Their partnership began at UC Berkeley, where Meyer has taught for 25 years. Though she was not his student, Amundson sought Meyer out after hearing he was one of the toughest instructors on campus.

Impressed by her drive, he remembered her when she later inquired about internship opportunities. That first week, he offered her a permanent position.

He said Amundson has become an integral part of the practice, contributing significantly to both its design and execution.

“She's such a fabulous person,” Meyer said. “Coming up with the ideas is one thing, but rolling up your sleeves and drawing and producing and crafting the work and producing construction documents, that's where it really makes or breaks a project, and she's done the bulk of that.”

Though he’s been a part of other large-scale developments, Meyer said Heartwood was one with more tangible results.

“Doing master plans that sit in a drawer and have beautiful ideas is OK, but I get excited when things get built," Meyer said. "I can't wait to see this project in 15 years. When the trees grow in, the spaces evolve and feel different.”