Hall’s Pond Sanctuary is a 3.5 acre nature preserve in Brookline, Massachusetts. The pond is connected to the adjacent Amory Park by a pathway which links it to the parking lot in the north and Beacon Street in the south. This is a simple tree and shrub planting scheme for the stretch of path between the parking lot and the pond entrance, along with fact sheets on each of the five selected shrub species.
“The bedrock attribute of a successful city district is that a person must feel personally safe and secure on the street among all these strangers.”
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
A large, walk-up multifamily housing development in Boston’s South End. Focused on resolving the tension between privacy and community-building, it uses abundant outdoor space, private terraces, and communal circulation to encourage spending time outdoors and interacting with neighbors. Though this specific development was required to be completely residential, the ground floor is open and flexible enough to be converted to retail or other uses if needed.
The building is constructed of mass timber and features abundant green roofing, giving both interiors and exteriors a rustic and homey feel. In order to balance conflicting interests of density and privacy, the units are spacious and multi-floored, while still being oriented towards the outdoors and the communal spaces.
“The first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other. This is a lesson no one learns by being told.”
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
View the entire project below:
A series of diagrams about the history of the 1999-2016 restoration of the Penobscot River in Maine through the removal of two dams and construction of a fish ladder around the third. This project details the necessity for and process of dam removal, demonstrates the workings of the Penobscot ecosystem with and without the dam, and models future ecological and economic recovery of the area.
The traditional library model is becoming, in many ways, obsolete. The majority of its functions can be done in easier and more convenient ways online or through other physical avenues. This new library concept in Boston’s Chinatown provides one possible solution to bring this important archetype into the modern age.
This design highlights the library’s function as a center of the neighborhood and a “home away from home”. Specifically, the building is highly accessible because of the open colonnade allowing entry and exit from either side and features multiple large open spaces and community centered programs. This function is amplified by the addition of an allotment gardening program which helps the new building fit in the context of the pre-existing parks and create another community focused activity. These garden plots can be rented by residents yearly.
The first phase of this project was to design a temporary summer library in Chinatown Park. The design is based on a 6′ square grid system and is made of wooden trellis, where residents can plant. The plan is meandering with many crevices for people to sit in or walk through.
The final library design is approximately 30,000 square feet, optimized to serve the specific needs of the Chinatown residents. The park concept evolved into a community garden, where residents can rent a garden plot to plant fruits and vegetables. The library is centered around a courtyard filled with plots and encased a colonnade with hydroponically-grown climbing plants. It retains the meandering quality of the previous iteration, having multiple means of circulation on multiple levels.
A study of the parks and other green spaces of Boston on a large scale, and those of the Chinatown neighborhood in greater detail, in order to incorporate the green library into the existing fabric.
Created using Google Earth Pro and Adobe Illustrator.
The site contains plants of various sizes, lifespans and growth rates, illustrated in the diagram on the left.