Architect: Carol R. Johnson + Associates and Crosby, Schlessinger, Smallridge LLC and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd + EDAW and Copley Wolff Design Group + Halvorson Design Associates
Year realisation: 2008
Size: 61.000 sqm
Location: Boston, USA
Elements: walkway, art, monuments, greenery, plazas, fountains
Materials: stone, wood, greenery, metal
More then 1000 buildings where demolished in 1951 to great space for the “Highway in the Skies”. An elevated highway through downtown Boston. In 1991 construction began on a tunnel which should replace the elevated highway. A complex and one of the largest highway projects in the USA.
By relocating the highway underground a new urban landscape was ready to design. In 2008 the Greenway opened. The Greenway consists a lot of smaller parks. Together they form a green belt around downtown Boston and connecting some of the oldest neighbourhoods together. Every park is designed by an other architectural firm. TheArmenian Heritage Park is dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, the North Ends Park reflect the scale of the adjacent North End neighbourhood and the Wharf District Parks contain areas of paved surfaces for active public use and a gathering space for public events known as the Great Room. One of the new additions to the Wharf District Parks, the Harbor Islands Pavilion is an open-air structure informing about the island around Boston.
I think it was a good decision to relocate the highway. The Highline project in New York has the same characteristic. Accept from his central location in the urban context. Because of this digging a tunnel for the highway, creating a new green zone was a good idea.
Patterns:
33 Night life – there are possibilities to establish nightlife
71 Still water – different ways of using and designing still water
88 Street café –you will find a couple of cafés in the Greenway.
106 Positive outdoor space – in my opinion the concept creates a positive outdoor space in the heart of an urban zone, like the city centre of Boston.
120 Paths and goals – although the different park are designed by different architects you easily find your way to through the Greenway
125 Stair seats – there are a couple of stair seats.
126 Something roughly in the middle – the new added information centre.
POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE 