A Mississippi State landscape architecture class is rethinking the modern-day household. Students in the design of sustainable communities course are learning how to create a home environment that can produce its own water source and cause less harm to surrounding ecosystems. Professor of landscape architecture Pete Melby assigned his 25 students to design a theoretical four-person household that can live on a self-sustained water source.
The class has constructed a scaled-model environment, which is currently on display on the third floor of the Mitchell Memorial Library.
The project relies on harvesting rainwater so it can be purified and reused for several purposes. Mississippi currently receives 58 inches of rain each year, and the class is trying to discover new ways to use that water.
In the artificial community, the students must figure out ways to harvest and reuse 90 percent of the water it receives.
“The main goal of the project is to create a home that has a much lower impact on the surrounding areas,” Melby said. “Storm water runoff gathers lots of harmful pollutants as it travels through communities. That water eventually goes into our rivers and oceans and contaminates the ecosystem. Using creative methods, the water a household receives can be treated so that it is not harmful to the environment.”
The environment uses cisterns to gather rainwater, where it is purified and reused. Melby said modern-day water treatment plants currently use chlorine, a harmful carcinogen, to purify water. The environment designed by the students would rely on using alternate methods, such as UV light, to purify water. The water harvested by these environments would be much cleaner than current water sources.
Senior landscape architecture major Henry Minor worked on the project.
“We had to calculate the amount of water the family would need for drinking, as well as irrigation,” he said. “The family could be totally self-sustained using harvested rain water.”
One of the unique aspects of the project is treating sewage water on the home site instead of sending it to a sewage treatment plant. The environment uses an efficient system to purify sewage water. After water is collected in the septic tank, it usually runs off into the ground where it causes pollution.
In the designed community, the students created a system where the sewage water runs into an elaborate rock garden, where it is purified before being redistributed.
Melby said that water contamination is a problem in Mississippi that needs to be addressed immediately.
“Half of the nation’s water runoff is deposited in the Gulf Coast, and the area is being heavily polluted because this water is so heavily contaminated,” he said. “In the Mobile Bay in Alabama, there is an abundant number of oysters, but you cannot eat them because the area is so polluted.”
A 9,000-square-ft. area off the New Orleans coast has been declared a dead zone because all life from sea floor to surface has been killed by contaminated runoff, Melby said.
“A consortium of 400 scientists from around the world has concluded that the world has 20 years to act on this problem before our oceans are in an irreversible state of decline,” Melby said.
He hopes that projects like the one his class has done will be helpful in solving the problem.
“We are the first class in the country to do anything like this. I hope our work will be helpful,” he said. “Mississippians care about keeping their lakes and rivers clean.