Meadow Springs is a long standing WGE project that commenced some 12 years ago and has recently been awarded the Urban Development Institute Australia Award for Excellence -Residential Development over 250 Lots.
The project was reinvigorated in 2010, when Mirvac decided to undertake the mammoth task of re-master planning the remaining 600 Lots to deliver a more desirable product mix and provide better community functionality and amenity.
The development surrounds the Meadow Springs Country Club Golf Course, south of Perth, Western Australia and is further beautified by the Meadow Springs Quarry Park.
The project incorporated a number of key design principles which assisted in developing this master planned community into an award winning success.
Tree retention
Tree retention was a key mandate in the engineering design and has been strongly supported by Mirvac and the City of Mandurah.
Tree retention was meticulously incorporated into engineering design requirements and constraints early in the design process to enable early identification of trees to be retained.
Urban water management and drainage
Great focus was given to water management and drainage principles, highlighted by some of the following strategies:
- Maintain and if possible improve water quality (surface and groundwater) within the development in relation to pre-development water quality.
- Promote infiltration of surface water to recharge groundwater levels and mimic pre-development conditions.
- In conjunction with the City of Mandurah, implement best management practices with regard to stormwater management.
- Utilise Stormtech cells to have greater flexibility for the direct recharge of stormwater into the ground, as well as limit the environmental impact when compared to the traditional use of concreted pits and pipe systems.
- Direct overflow of road surface runoff into Public Open Space (POS) was encouraged by the City of Mandurah and utilised to some effect.
- Road runoff to be treated via the vegetation and landscaping in the POS areas where ever possible.
- Consideration was given to ensure discharge points utilised the natural landforms as much as possible and minimal impact was induced on the natural environment and topography.
Utilisation of natural features and topography
The development generally utilised the natural topography to:
- Maximise views and golf course interface opportunities.
- Retain natural landforms, including a limestone quarry.
- Utilise natural significant vegetation to naturally beautify the estate.
- Conform to engineering and design requirements whilst utilising sustainability in design principles.
Sustainability in design principles
Some of the key sustainability in design principles utilised for the Meadow Springs Estate are as follows:
- Minimisation of imported fill, though maximum utilisation of existing soils.
- Re-use of mulching for landscaping areas and POS treatments.
- Limiting the use of sand fill through site specific lot treatment engineering design.
- Sand mining from areas capable of being mined to limit importation of fill.
- Re-use of topsoil for surface treatments.
- Recharge of stormwater drainage at source.
- Retention of natural landform.
- Use of alternative drainage disposal systems.
