Boston Coastal Commonwealth
Fall 2019
In collaboration with Kymberly Ware, Kongyun He, Chloe Soltis
Critic: Rosalea Monacella
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Our current jurisdictional structures are unable to
address the complexity and nuance of spatial forces and conditions playing out
at the coastal edge. Water can no longer be treated as a force to be kept out
with static boundaries. The Boston Coastal Commonwealth project explores water
and sediment as dynamic materials that are assets in a strategic opening of the
edge for common benefit in Boston Harbor. Dredged sediment is considered as an
asset, rather than waste, to create public littoral zones in post-industrial Designated
Port Areas (DPAs) dominating the coastline. DPAs can be sites for
acknowledging risk and redefining the coastal edge as a constantly fluctuating
territory that can be designed to produce public benefits.