Event Overview

Join us to expand your knowledge on delivering successful swale and raingarden projects.

Swales play an important role in urban landscapes by disconnecting impervious surfaces from downstream waterways, helping to protect them during frequent storm events and improving stormwater runoff water quality. With the right plant selection and placement, swales can also enhance the aesthetic value of streetscapes and open spaces.

Sustaining vegetation in raingardens depends on various factors, such as organic and clay content in the filter media. Is the current filter media specification suitable for the Adelaide’s climate?

Is supplementary watering essential, especially for batters?

Join us as we explore these questions and provide insights to ensure success for your next biofiltration project.

Event Program

Time	Topic	Presenter
1:45 PM	Registration
2:00 pm	Welcome & overview	Kerri Muller
	Swales
2:05 pm	St Peters Street swales won the 2024 AILA Water for Life Award for the innovative approach to streetscape swales. This design offers an exciting alternative to how we deliver streetscapes in the future.	James Butterworth
2:25pm	The Dover Square Raingarden not only resolves a local drainage challenge, but it also provides passive irrigation to significant trees and has transformed the frontage of the Dover Square Tennis Club surroundings with a thriving micro-meadow, in a low-maintenance format.	Shaun Kennedy
2:45 pm	*Discussion* – Learnings from our guest presenters and WSUD practitioners to inform SA guidelines for swale plant selection and placement	Dave Janzow & Kerri Muller
	Biofilter media
3:00 pm	Biofiltration system media specifications and construction hold points. We revisit the industry standard specifications and provide an opportunity to inspect samples of the common media type available in Adelaide.	Dave Janzow
3:20 pm	Filter media that can deliver high performing raingardens in Adelaide’s climate – does it exist and what other conditions are needed?	Russell King
3:40pm	Discussion	Kerri Muller, facilitator
4:10pm	Site tour St Peters Street, St Peters Swales	James Butterworth
4:35pm	Close

Who should attend

Landscape architects
Council design and construction engineers (project management)
WSUD asset maintenance officers

Resources

Draft guidelines for Selection and placement of plant species for swales

Presenters

Shaun Kennedy

SA Water | Vegetation Services Specialist

Shaun graduated from Adelaide University with an Honours degree in Botany & Zoology and has 20 years’ experience in the design and delivery of a broad range of ecological restoration projects covering more than 1,100 hectares and several prominent landscape installations featuring indigenous plants.

Shaun has a keen interest in improving the quality of ecological restoration efforts and urban biodiversity.

James Butterworth

Landskap | Associate

James is a registered landscape architect and urban planner with experience delivering a broad range of projects, including landscape, urban design, strategic planning, environmental and gardens.

James aims to facilitate the establishment of places that are bold, engaging, and responsive to the local environment. James has also tutored landscape architecture and urban design at the University of Adelaide within the School of Architecture & Built Environment.

Dave Janzow

Water Sensitive SA | WSUD Assets Officer

Dave has always had a passion for the natural environment and improving outdoor areas. In his early career, after gaining a degree in Environmental Management, he started an environmental company providing revegetation and weed management services to councils and catchment boards. For two decades he also had a large garden design and construction firm. After a transition phase in life, Dave gained a fresh tertiary qualification in Environmental Policy and Management during which he discovered the marvels of Water Sensitive Urban Design.

Having worked in WSUD for 18 months including ten months as WSUD Officer in local council, he is applying his diverse skillset to assist our partners to manage and maintain their biofiltration assets proactively and effectively so they can achieve long term intended performance outcomes.

Russell King

City of West Torrens | Project Delivery Lead

Russell is a civil engineer with a passion for integrated, sustainable green urban form and function. Russell has formed and led design and construction teams on projects incorporating porous and permeable road and footpath pavements on reactive clay soil, ‘daylighting’ of urban stormwater systems, rain gardens for flow moderation and purification, and harvesting storm runoff for passive urban irrigation. He focuses not only on the project outcomes but also on improving how councils deliver projects, on intergenerational equity, and on making the world a better place one project at a time.

When he’s not in the office he might be on the ice hockey rink, searching out interesting cuisines around the world with his 2 tween girls, or perhaps just keeping his bees busy at home.