Designed to Co-Exist with Nature
The Lone Star project carefully situates AMD campus buildings to preserve natural habitat. Development is concentrated on approximately 33 of the available 58 acres, leaving approximately 25 acres of land undeveloped. This allows for an innovative and efficient stormwater management system that takes advantage of natural features and native-plant landscapes on the site. The campus will also include one of the largest rainwater collection and recycling systems to be implemented in the nation.
"AMD has distinguished itself by a willingness to dig deep, ask new questions, and explore innovative strategies, some of which have not been tried before in this region at this scale," says Gail Vittori, co-director of Austin's Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems. Part of that solution is to meet AMD's space needs within the smallest footprint possible. Much of the site will remain untouched to accommodate native plant and animal species. AMD and its design team utilize nature itself — the natural filtration provided by the site's soil, open areas, and slopes — to protect water quality.
This site plan is designed to restore and regenerate native plant populations over the next ten to fifteen years. Cattle grazing and fire suppression over during the past 200 years have disrupted the site’s ecosystem, contributed to erosion and impaired the site’s ability to efficiently store and filter rainwater. Through a partnership with the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, AMD will re-establish the natural recharge and filtration system provided by the soil and fibrous native grass root networks and return the site to its natural state as it existed hundreds of years ago.