How can landscape and architecture adapt regional infrastructure and open space corridors to service local communities while also protecting them from sea-level rise and coastal flooding? Our project explores this question by creating a continuous corridor around the Neponset River Estuary. In strategic locations, the corridor becomes a berm, which accommodates pedestrians and bicycles, while also protecting adjacent industry, infrastructure, offices, and residents from flooding. This berm is constructed from the excavated material from three Confined Disposal Facilities located in the estuary’s upper basin. These CDF’s have sat unused, since the 1960s, when the Army Corps of Engineers built them to contain dredged sediment from the upper reaches of the river. Our project transforms these CDFs into living machines, which collect sediment during flood events, thereby setting in motion a cyclical process of re-growth, sedimentation, and excavation, which fuels the construction of a landscape system and biogas generation. In strategic locations, architectural interventions are inserted into the berm. These buildings are multi-purpose facilities, which treat municipal wastewater, generate energy, and provide flexible program space for people. The building acts as a bridge between the communities behind the berm and the estuary beyond. Within the buildings, a unique and productive landscape of constructed Phragmites australis marshes occupy greenhouses to provide localized infrastructural services to the surrounding neighborhoods. The result is an interior environment that blurs the lines between infrastructure, landscape, and inhabitable space.
BOSTON
BOSTON HARBOR D ORCHE S TE R BAY
DORC HESTER
NE P O NSE T R IVE R E STUA RY
QU INCY
MI LTON
PHRAGFRASTRUCTURE J ACKS ON PLU MLE E , J E AN- PIE RO ARGU E LLO, AND K S E N I YA N ARGON OVA