Pervious Parking Stalls in Aptos
Parking stalls never looked so good! Here you can see, courtesy of Google maps, the top down look at parking stalls for this large apartment complex in Soquel, California. Below, you can see up close, pervious parking stalls with marking paint. While we don’t encourage AC pavement draining onto adjacent pervious concrete as a design concept, this went in well, and will be in service for a long time. Find more photos below!
Evolution Architectural Pervious Concrete Certificate of Endorsement!
Please contact us for pricing and references so that we can install for you soon!
More Photos of the Valley Oak Co-Housing Project
Tell us what you think! Do these look like livable hardscapes to you? Honestly, I just want to pet that puppy! 
USGBC Greener Builder - a fantastic conference!
There were good options for every panel, but as pervious concrete sub-contractors, we went to the subcontractor panel, hosted by John Home and Jeff Swinyer of Rudolph and Sletten, pictured below.
Lauren, pictured below, was interested in the drive toward clear performance specs to allow for differentiation at the sub-contractor level. As a pervious concrete subcontractor, we differentiate ourselves with our embrace of leading edge technologies for mix design and installation. Unfortunately, many current specs don’t reflect the progress in the installation, mix designs, equipment and curing materials that has developed in the last few years.
The next panel we attended discussed Environmental Product Disclosures (EPDs), a labeling system that discloses the resource footprint of the many materials that go into the built environment. The panel also included the next iteration, the Health Product Disclosures, which discloses the materials and chemicals that have been proven or correlated in causing health problems for humans.
Central Concrete, a sponsor of the event, has been heavily involved in the EPD project for disclosing the materials for the concrete industry. Below is a photo of the panelists from this panel.
The last panel of the day went over Net Zero Energy buildings with John Andary and Scott Shell, pictured below. It was a fascinating look at what is currently possible with technologies now: buildings that use as much energy as they make. The building case studies discussed also illustrated how livable and workable these spaces were, with thought for passive heating and cooling. Many of the designs features windows that bounced daylight far into the building envelope, as well as fresh air ventilation. It was a wonderful talk, even though their topics stayed primarily inside the building envelope.
The final speaker, Jason McLennan, pictured below, gave a wonderful talk on self limits. His talk really stood out for his candor and optimism. For a young guy, has accomplished quite a bit in the green building spaces. Currently he is pioneering the Living Building movement.
After his talk, Jason McLennan was joined by George Salah, of Google, and David Gottfried of the USGBC. They discussed everything from George’s living-building home construction project to Jason’s motivation to do the work that he does: “I give a shit.” That was wonderful.
FInally, after it was all over, we found that there was a fantastic array of beers, wine and snacks to round out the day’s networking. It was a great event, and one we will look forward to attending next year!
A BIG thank you to Charlie Nucci, who took these photos at the event. You can find more about Charlie and his work at his website here.
Valley Oak Co-Housing in Sonoma
A fantastic new co-housing community in the City of Sonoma now has pervious concrete walkways throughout their development. Designers and architects chose Evolution Paving’s Architectural Fine Sidewalk mix for the pervious walkways in the new multi family residential neighborhood. This project features many ‘green’ details, from all of the hardscapes being pervious, to the radiant floor heating. Of course our favorite was the pervious concrete! The pervious concrete sidewalk mix was to be installed with curbs, so we used those as the forms.
This mix uses much smaller crushed aggregate, so the finished product features a smoother finish. In an attempt to mitigate costs, this pervious concrete was poured in composite lifts, 4” of 3/8 pervious concrete and 1” of the Architectural Fine Mix. It was an exciting challenge to logistically get it all in place - AND it turned out GREAT!
We worked with Evolution Paving out of Salem, Oregon, mixing the Architectural Fines Sidewalk mix, as well as a great mix collaboration with Shamrock Materials in Sonoma County for the 3/8 layer.
Water Conservation Showcase a success!
Our own Lauren Wray attended the USGBC and P&E’s Water Conservation Showcase this year. The Bay Area Pervious Concrete Booth was in this video, above, and photos of Wray and pervious concrete made it into PG&E’s “Currents”, a P&E news site. Check out the video and let us know your thoughts! Did you attend the Water Conservation Showcase this year?
Pervious Patios at the Hyatt Regency
The Hyatt wanted a new look and feel for two areas on either side of a walkway that connected the north entrance and the parking garage. They wanted to rip out the existing plants and replace it with a usable patio space. They also wanted pervious concrete - so they called us!
We came in and removed the existing plants and material, making room for the drain rock base and the pervious concrete.
After we installed the Polished Pervious® concrete, we scored it, completing the look. The Hyatt put out this sleek and modern furniture, turning this previously unusable corner into a nice place to take a break! Below is the larger area, to the east of the pathway. Beneath that is the smaller area, to the west.
If you have a before and after job for us, let us know- contact us or leave a comment below!
Architectural Fine Grain Pervious Concrete in San Francisco!
Great news! Currently the City of San Francisco is considering installing some Architectural Fine Grain Pervious Concrete as a part of the Folsom Streetscape Improvement Project. While it isn't installed yet, it will be * hopefully! * in the next year. While it is specified, the Architectural Fine Grain Pervious Concrete is an alternate design but we are bidding it for a few contractors. If you know any other contractors who need a bid for the Folsom Streetscape Improvement Project let us know! We are uniquely qualified as we are NRMCA certified Pervious Concrete Installers and well versed in Evolution Paving's Architectural Fine Grain Pervious Concrete. If you are interested in seeing it on the ground, Lyngso has a sample in their yard, it looks nice! If you want to see some of our decorative work, you can see it here.
A new parking lot at the Beth Abraham Temple
Monday we poured pervious concrete in the parking lot of the Temple Beth Abraham. Above is the finished first of 2 slabs. Below you can see the pervious pavers and pea gravel they had installed before:
And here is the after:
As you can see there is still a drainage system, an artifact from the previous installation. It gets an early retirement, and the water will now infiltrate back into the native soil. And in the below, you can see our truck!