Big Green: Play court surface options?

[Andrew Potts]

Joe,

Porous asphalt might be an option that accommodates all of your anticipated uses and perhaps your budget as well.  We designed a porous asphalt parking lot for the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca which you could look at as an example.  We've used porous asphalt successfully for a multi-use school play area in Philadelphia (http://www.thcahill.com/penn.html), basketball courts, bicycle trails, etc.


Andrew Potts, P.E.
Water Resources Engineer
LEED Accredited Professional

Cahill Associates
Environmental Consultants
104 S. High St.
West Chester, PA 19382
(610) 696-4150

Please visit our website at www.thcahill.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Nolan [mailto:jnolan at adobe.com]
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 1:05 PM
To: biggreen at lists.biggreen.org
Subject: Big Green: Play court surface options?



Hope this is an appropriate inquiry on this list -
I'm kind of an amateur green builder living in EcoVillage at Ithaca, 
which aspires to be a model eco-community.

I need to choose a surface for an outdoor play court, approx 2,000sf in 
area, which will be used for basketball, skateboarding, roller hockey, 
tricycles, etc.
Typical asphalt with a base of 6" compacted gravel is the default.
I think we have ruled out concrete due to cost (max budget is approx $9K).
Water permeability would be welcome, as would a softer more resilient 
surface for bball players' joints, but I don't know if those can be 
reconciled with the "smoothness" requirement of roller sports.
The motivation to combine the functions is mostly due to budget, but 
partly to avoid paving too much green space.
Someone suggested "rubber sidewalks" which I have not looked into, but 
which at first blush sound too soft for skating on.
Ideas?
thanks!
Joe Nolan
EcoVillage at Ithaca
<http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/>

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