5. Moon Island
4. Long wharf
3. Spectacle Island
6. West End
1. Deer Island 2. West Fort Point
Case Study: Dynamic relationship of Warter and Soil Boston Harbor History is formed through continuously moving of soil, digging and filling. Harbor changed through time relating to the movement of soil and also the incentives for the move. Back in the history, people used different tools to dig the hill and place the soil into the ocean to form new land. With the needs of commercial and trade, people excavate the soil from underground and dredge to move the soil away, allowing more opportunities coming in. These large scale soil movements are heavily relied on human labors. Human use infrastructure to change the relationship between land and water, shrinking and altering the boundary of Boston harbor. Such infrastructures are like seawalls, dams, wharves and these have always been a dominant force in changing land, but natural forces have been always neglected or unwanted. Labors like river and plants are also important soil moving agencies. In history, people built 19 dams along Charles river, cutting the river into separate pieces, while the Charles river dam is at the mouth of the river, becoming the small wall that defines the boundary of the harbor. For building a dam, there is a large human labor investment in building, repairing, maintaining the dams, the life cycle of the dams is dramatically short. So we claim to unleash the river by dismantling the Charles river dam and redefine the inland harbor by letting natural agencies to help form new harbor.
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River has always been an actor in moving soil and reshaping edges of the land. Soil has been moved from one place to another, creating new conditions for other natural forces, like plants that could hold soil and reduce erosion. Therefore, we propose to combine human, water and plant labors in forming our new harbor in lower Charles river under the tidal condition after dam removal.
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