As Project Manager and Lead Designer at Rana Creek, Marie led projects of various scopes and scales at the new Deacero Steel Mill in Ramos Arizpe, MX. The 500 acre site included enormous steel recycling and manufacturing facilities, a new Headquarters building and a site specific railroad for moving materials from building to building. The construction of the railroad required that the entire site be graded, which resulted in massive destruction of the native Chihuahuan desert landscape. Marie worked with Rana Creek’s biologist to develop a restoration plan to address this challenging environmental chaos and, through a longterm management plan, restore major areas of the site. The Project, developed in Phases, also included a large-scale site landscape design that included the use of Deacero products such as colorful fences with wildlife ‘doorway’s’ to maintain important wildlife corridors, and Gabion baskets filled with Recycled slag for site walls and custom furnishings. A major design objective for the project was water conservation and water management, which was achieved by converting existing concrete stormwater channels into wide vegetated swales to infiltrate stormwater, and an innovative constructed wetland design for treating, harvesting and infiltrating site waste water and stormwater. Lastly, the headquarters building needed a garden that would serve as a refuge from the hot desert sun and loud factory buildings that surrounded it. Marie designed a large gathering under a grove of Palo Verde trees and encircled the space with large berms planted with native desert flora. Slicing through the Atrium into the grove is a recirculating water feature / runnel made with Deacero I-beams and culminating in a circular reflecting pool that mirrors the brightly painted factory buildings surrounding the garden. Marie repurposed a slag aggregate, a byproduct of steel recycling, as a pervious paving material for the garden and gathering areas, and gabon baskets made onsite for site benches. The headquarters garden was completed in 2014.