Dias y Flores

520-522 E. 13th Street
East Village, Manhattan

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The colorful mosaics covering the paths and entryway of the Dias y Flores garden are all made from recycled glass bottles! In an attempt to make this garden as beautiful as possible, one of the basic rules of building a rain water harvesting system was broken. The general rule is to have a downward pitch in all pipes so that gravity will keep the water flowing. However, the rain water system here has an inflow pipe that is pitched upward. This means that it must rain enough for the water to fill up the roof washer and the inflow pipe before it can enter the tank. This was done so that the roof washer could be positioned below the brick wall and not interfere with the tree limb or the neighbor’s views. This 1000 gallon tank collects from a 1500 square foot adjacent roof.