PLUG N’ PLAY BOSTON
The reimagination of a defunct dry dock in South Boston into a live-learn-play city hub!
ROLE: DESIGNER
FOR: NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY M.ARCH
STATUS: COMPLETED
The meandering design connects and overlaps across the site, creating layers over layers of shadow in public areas, while allowing for the project to recieve daylight. The circular and curved shape gets rid of the illusion of a physical barrier while moderating heat, sun and shadow. Activating elements are encrusted alongside the path as hubs, such as pools, sprinkler areas and green spaces and activities, as well as seamless circulation in promenade to interior spaces. Plug n’ Play Boston!
The concept anchors in the shape and location of the Dry Dock N4, a unique reaching-into-the-sea structure in one of Boston’s buzzling neighborhoods. The identity of the South Boston Waterfront area is marked by its industrial legacy and port connections. With this in mind, the project’s conceptualization started as a testament to ensure and reinforce the physical and visual connection between city and sea. The first massing attempt defines focus points along the structure’s sections, also dubbed as hubs, and a sinuous geometry to promenade the project from shore to shore.
The assembly strategy of building and path looks into the multi-level connections of the dry dock. The basin of the dry dock structure creates a lower level that does not need to be destroyed or filled, but used as a pedestrian arena with access to all buildings and structures around it. The ramp is added as a wrapping element that allows both a scenic route of the project, and instant access to the buildings’ circulation rings. The buildings are also combined in what is called meshed spaces, and occasionally, in hyper-meshed core connections that further the sense of movement and accessibility.
Plug N’ Play promotional graphic / Dry Dock N4 in South Boston / Axonometric view of the project.
The hubs are a system that decentralizes the focus of the public and social outdoor programs, and instead spreads them as focal points across the dock, connected by the paths and circulation in a way that they can also be accessed as resting spots. They are aided by green platforms, true lounge areas that serve additional uses such as playgrounds and sprinklers depending on their size. This is a playful puzzle-like drop-in system that distinguishes different categories, each with a programmatic fulfillment. These are: cooling, learning, performing, and gathering.
On the public level, the buildings have programs related to the closest hubs. The Cooling Hub building serves as heat relief haven in the middle of the project, making it most accessible to all patrons. It features art studios and shops, as well as lounging areas. The Learning Hub building houses all workshops and educational spaces in the project, mainly related to Learning Hub’s oyster farming activity. This provides an opportunity for locals to engage and be trained in a trade that gives back to the community, while helping raise awareness of the global warming effects on the waterfront, with bacteria that thrive in warmer waters keeping Massachusetts’ oyster fisheries on high alert. The Performing Hub building offers office space, as well as a coworking level, and a neighborhood indoor theater. The Gathering Hub building is located closest to the city end of the dock, in order to serve as the welcoming connector to activities brought in from the city front in. This features commerce spaces, with shops both indoors and outdoors, an observatory mezzanine for the concerts in the Leader Bank Pavilion venue, as well as a comforting sea view stage. Lastly, the Housing Building combines affordable housing and artist lofts levels across 5 levels, with complimentary art studios for the latter. It compliments Boston’s Affordable Artist Housing efforts, and features multiple ammenities.
Hub Buildings and programmatic functions.
Plan diagrams of housing builing, affordable (artist subsidized) housing levels.
The three future scenarios that the projected considered include some of the top concerns (and priorities) in Boston’s Climate Action plan and the strengthening of its resilience to the impacts.
Three scenarios according to location-based risks.
Scenario 1: Heatwave of 3 days with temperatures over 100 degrees
Modular design that connects and overlaps creating layers over layers of shadow in public areas, while allowing for the project to recieve daylight. The circular and curved shape poses less of a barrier and more of a moderator of heat, sun and shadow.
Scenario 2: Flood risk response to extreme 36” rise event
The design keeps ground and first levels free of collision elements by elevating the circulation and sequences of spaces with the ramp.
Scenario 3: 2050 Healthy Living
The accessibility of the project derives from the current issue of waterfront and urban barriers that alienate lower income neighborhoods and reinforces the redlining past of Boston.
View of ex-dry dock basin, now a courtyard level with access to the Hubs and Buildings.
Path and Hub view out to Boston’s harbor.
Cooling Hub area with sprinklers.
Performing Hub amphitheater view.
Terraced levels connect levels and step in and out of green platforms.
Housing Unit Model, Distribution A.
Housing Unit Model, Distribution B.
Project Section Model.
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