How do we deal with leftover spaces below highways?
Core Features
See: help heal past injustices in public spaces through thoughtful design and ecological restoration. Once a key connector in Boston’s historic park system, Charlesgate Park was lost to Urban Renewal policies, its land seized by the government and buried beneath a major highway project. Decades of neglect, infrastructural decay, and environmental damage followed, leaving behind a space disconnected from both nature and the public it once served. Manifesting a reparative design included:
Community-Centered Planning
- Engaging residents, environmentalists, historians, and policymakers to ensure the space honors its past and serves future generations.
Phased Design Interventions
- Incremental solutions to revitalize the site, enhance accessibility, and restore biodiversity.
Daylighting the Muddy River
- Restoring a hidden, culverted waterway to improve ecosystem health and reconnect the park with Boston’s broader ecological system.
Public Land Return
- The design gives land back to the people, symbolizing the importance of collaboration between local, state, and federal entities in undoing past harm.
This project is not only a park, it’s about acknowledging historical injustices, healing environmental wounds, and fostering a shared civic space that respects all who have been, and will be, affected.
Key Contributions
- Site Modeling – Using grasshopper to automate 3D tree modeling & placement and using point-cloud survey data to create a meshified highway model
- Archival Research – Studying historical records and past designs to extract artifacts hidden in the landscape and to inform restoration efforts
- Community Engagement – Participating in public hearings and stakeholder meetings to integrate community voices into the design process.
- Maintenance Planning – Developing strategies for ongoing park upkeep, selecting equipment, and mapping required services to ensure long-term sustainability.
While employed at Landing Studio