EPHEMERAL WETLANDS PLUS
On the crest of the park is an architect-designed children’s adventure playground complete with shade sails, treehouse network with rope bridges, climbing frames, and rock-climbing walls, plus seesaw, spinami, hoop carousel, multi swing and mounded slippery slide. Safeguarding the gums involved detailed earthworks, hand digging around their roots to prevent damage to delicate, centuries old root systems and position them higher than their surrounds. Standing tall, the gum trees have also been retained for birdlife to flourish. The old farm gate that formed an entrance to the Rawlings’ farm has been retained. Torhaven was owned by the Rawlings, a prominent Ipswich family which in 1898 founded Rawlings Shoes and Menswear store in Ipswich. All the while, allowing engagement by residents – both human and wildlife – with a previously unusable floodplain.
While dormant for extended dry periods, the ephemeral wetlands can accommodate torrential run-off from Torhaven and 45 hectares beyond, removing pollutants naturally before the water flows back into the local Deebing Creek system.
Torhaven’s ephemeral wetland sits within a floodplain, replacing traditional bio retention stormwater systems, and retains the land’s slope and existing watercourse. As a result, floodplains become “giant drains” and eyesores. Covering 2.2ha, the former farmland has been landscaped to incorporate a meandering creek-like catchment descending into and passing through an industry-first “ephemeral floodplain wetlands” solution, completed in early 2019.Ĭurrently, best practice urban flood management strategies restrict the use, embellishment or development of floodplains, creating large unusable land spaces within urban developments. Torhaven Park frames the entrance to DHA’s Torhaven estate in the Ipswich suburb of Deebing Heights.