Most of the land leftover in Boston from the area where the elevated highway used to stand has been turned into amazing landscaped vistas. However, some of these places are now overgrown and waiting for spaces to be created. In one of the most important areas, a proverbial gateway to Boston’s north end, stands one of these lots. This lot serves as a make-shift bus stop for tour buses in the area and overflow from Haymarket.
The Boston Interchange looks to service both of these programs, the market and bus stop, to create a permanent space for both and create an interchange across these two programs. By studying the existing programs adjacent to the site, new “program tubes” were created that embodied the overflows of the program onto the site. These program tubes evolved into the final building that connects the surrounding uses found on the site, creating a gateway piece for Boston’s North End.
Boathouse
The boathouse facility was designed for use as a clubhouse for gathering, socializing and events of a small boating club. The club has canoes, kayaks and small sailboats available for use by the members. The maximum length boat is 14 feet. The facility will contain changing rooms, bathrooms, indoor and covered storage for boats and related accessories, a small kitchen and an event room. The event room, kitchen and office areas are to be heated by wood and serve as 2-3 season spaces. The event room should be adjacent to an outdoor area either a deck, patio or beach area.
When I first saw this site I saw it as a frame. The tight formation of thick trees which open at the end to reveal views of the lake. This frame is something I knew I wanted to reinforce with my building. This was accomplished by strengthening the site’s natural axis and creating two cubic structures which not only frame the view but by using a long projection out to the water it also helps pull people into the boathouse.
Fitness Center
With all of the stresses facing college students today, a center where students can gather and engage in healthy activity has become essential to the modern college campus. For this reason recreation centers have become centers for student activity on college campuses across the country. This recreation should not only function as a recreation facility but also as a new campus center which will offer programmatic functions such as classrooms, cafes, recreation courts and areas for various types of fitness equipment.
A secondary function of a recreation center is to serve as an evacuation center. Over the last year, the need for hurricane and storm evacuation shelters has become alarmingly apparent in areas of the United States susceptible to these natural disasters. A recreation center can function as a safe and secure space where those in the community who are unable to travel can stay during storms.
The complex is laid out along new campus pedestrian paths that tie back into the existing pedestrian campus-wide circulation. A main east-west axis aligned with palm trees leads to a series of spaces naturally creating outdoor hallways between the buildings, organized around a central area of repose. This area of repose offers an area for people to gather under much needed shade of local palm trees or a canopy shading system. Dividing the program into several buildings encourages people to recreate both inside and outside, where groups of courts are placed off a main circulation path or overlooking an area of repose.
Mixed-Use Building, NYC
The program for this studio stated that we were to design a mixed use structure that would satisfy the needs of a neighborhood in the Chelsea district of NYC. The site selected for the building was along the High line and had to act to service the new program planned for the High line The first element I analyzed was the program. I was interested how a building in a district with real estate prices going through the roof can hold people from a bunch of different lifestyles and incomes. I design a system of webs to illustrate spaces I designated as negotiable spaces that people could rent/sell extra space to lower rent or create spaces that could serve several different tenets. The second element central to my design was the site and how to deal with the different levels of interaction with my site. I created a system of ramps that created different levels and area of interaction with my site and building that also served to assist in flow from street level to the High line level.
