Constructed Landscapes: From Parking to Park
Professor:  Sara Cohen, Eamonn Hutton
Year: Fall 2013

 

The project is sited in Boston at the busy intersection of Washington Street and East Berkely Street. The main focus and goal was to redefine a frequently used parking space into a green space that allows the reconstruction of a diverse community. Site circulation was a driving force in the design of this park. With various issues in the site, a proposal was created to funnel the community so that an intersection of diversity, culture and conversation can develop. This initiation reaches beyond just the site and acknowledges the structure of Boston.

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The initial studies began looking at the circulation on the site: pedestrian, vehicular, transit. The various programs within the site offered different edges, defined as a parking edge, active edge, and fast edge. From these studies a preliminary design concept was proposed.

 

The plan organizes the park into 4 seperate experiences. The first gravel pit southwest of the site allows a more pedestrian friendly play area for children and also opens the space for potential food vendors. A hill emerges from the ground and is carved by the intersecting paths. In the center lies an open field and stage. Simple paths cut through the park to not only enhance a pedestrian experience but to also funnel them towards downtown Boston, north of the site.

 

 

The next steps were taken to extract a detail from the park and to create a 1:1 scaled detail model. I decided to study and design a bench chair. The initial study model tests were created to examine the same formal quality of funneling and how the larger idea can be viewed at various scales. In this detail, as pedestrians sit closer and closer to the public stage, the more the grass grows, creating a natural growing wall along side the stage. This transition from accessible seating to vegetation is a constant transition throughout the park and site. 

 

The pink foam is used to represent earth.