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Harbor Gardens
A concept for Boston's Wharf District

Back to Harbor Gardens intro
Five principles for design and programming
Programming the public realm
Design parameters
Harbor gardens - A concept
A visual thesaurus

Youths in Nimes, France.

Programming the public realm

Building on the ideas developed in the 5 Principles, the Wharf District Working Group has extended this earlier work to examine the ideas implicit in Principles 3 and 4: To Support and Surround the Open Space with People and Activities, and To Create a Walkable and Attractive Environment. To make the Wharf District a lively and attractive public environment there is a need to develop destination points, to bring people to this area of the downtown waterfront at all times of the day and week, throughout the year. This document examines ways in which these destinations might be realized to enliven the park space and reunite the city with the harbor.

Urban goals
Social goals
Environmental goals
Developing a program

Urban goals

Defining the Wharf District:
The Central Artery Corridor and the maps that depict it define this part of the city in terms of the highway that caused the damage. Now that we are close to healing the wound it is essential to redefine the project in the language of the city - and to redraw the maps accordingly. The Wharf District defines that part of the city that was the original bay and landing used by the Europeans, becoming the heart of Boston's mercantile activity for over three centuries.

Reconnecting the City with the Waterfront:
The deep furrow ploughed through the city fabric by the original elevated artery cut off the heart of the city from its waterfront. The removal of the elevated structure allows the possibility of reconnecting the streets and spaces that were the original connectors between the active edge of the harbor and the businesses built on Boston's trade. Fingers to the Sea should be restored to reestablish those spatial connections. State Street, Central Street, Milk Street, India Street, Broad Street, High Street and Oliver Street await that reconnection.

Social goals

Activating the Sidewalks:
A principle interest in the development of a plan for the Wharf District is to increase activity on the sidewalks in the city beyond the 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday schedule of the working week and to make life in the public realm more attractive in the colder, wetter months. In addition there is a desire to reach out to ethnic communities, city neighborhoods and marginal age groups to create a 'common ground' for the city.

The Public Park: A Redefinition of Purpose:
An underlying assumption of the plan for open space on top of the Central Artery Tunnel is that green, open space in the city is environmentally desirable and socially responsible. In this sense the Central Artery Project's vision for green space downtown is in direct conceptual descent from the seminal work of Olmsted in the Emerald Necklace. The unhealthy and overcrowded city in the mid-nineteenth century and the far longer working week at that time made the creation of green open space and the opportunity for natural recreation not just a mitigation for public works (such as the drainage of the Fenway) but an imperative for public health. Urban policy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was almost exclusively focused on matters of public health: on sewage, drainage, water supply, public lighting and ventilation, and on the provision of fresh air and sunlight within easy access of the home. Olmsted, a patrician democrat to the core, was a man of his time.

In our own time, one hundred and fifty years after Olmsted, we can, with qualifications, state that Boston residents today enjoy fresher air and cleaner water than did their forebears in the nineteenth century. The urban malaise of the early twenty-first century is arguably less to do with physical morbidity than with the social and psychic alienation manifested in an increasingly individualized and atomized society. As a matter of public health, the most important goal for this city in the twenty first century is to ensure the continued vitality of the downtown and to create the common ground for residents and workers in the city as well as for visitors. By creating shared space in the center of the city, a civic realm which defines community on a grander scale than the self, the street or the neighborhood, the city will be performing an act as vital to its continuing health as the Emerald Necklace accomplished in its time.

The comparison of these two eras in the history of the city and the predominant concerns of physical and social health respectively, is not to counterpose 'green' versus 'built' solutions to the question of civic space. It is to argue for the layering of the two approaches so that they are mutually supportive. The integration of enclosed programmed space with open space will not only support the public park by lengthening the hours and seasons of activity within that space but will also help create links to neighborhood and community, engaging the periphery with the center in a shared place all Bostonians can call their own.

Environmental goals

The development of open space and supporting built space within the Wharf District is an opportunity to set new standards for a continuing and improving stewardship of this urban, civic, waterfront environment. For this new public space within the city to be truly sustainable, raised standards should be established for CO2 emissions, water run-off and filtration and energy conservation.

Central to the success of a public space program on top of the Central Artery is a transportation plan. There are at least five areas on which to focus:

Developing a program

The concept of supporting and surrounding open space with people and activities entails the development of a program consistent with the purpose and principles of the public realm. Whatever is programmed within or adjacent to the parks should:

Based on discussions with cultural institutions within the Boston area, a range of non-profit cultural institutions have been considered to meet these needs, creating and complementing a ranges of open spaces.

Cultural Facilities:

- Gallery and Exhibition Space
50,000 to 75,000 square feet
Art and Sculpture Galleries for permanent and revolving exhibitions

- Museum and Exposition Space
135,000 to 225,000 square feet
Exhibits of historical and contemporary culture of Boston and New England

Public Amenities:
Direct support services for the enjoyment of the open space, including:

- Information Centers
900 to 1,200 square feet

- Food kiosks
10,000 to 15,000 square feet

- Cafes and Restaurants
10,000 to 15,000 square feet

- Bus Drop-Off area
275 feet curbside

Open Space:
Open spaces should be developed serving a range of needs and interests:

Cultural institutions:
To flesh out the idea of cultural buildings set within a public park, a series of meetings was held with arts and cultural organizations in the Boston area. The meetings ranged from one-on-one briefings to brainstorming sessions involving wide and diverse groups. Below is a partial list of cultural and philanthropic organizations consulted:

Comparables:
Across the country and around the world, civic environments of distinctive cultural, aesthetic, environmental and social character engender high degrees of citizen pride, community use, worldwide recognition and international tourism. Examples often cited include:

These diverse settings share a variety of especially attractive qualities: a rich mix of recreational, cultural, social and entertainment opportunities; well-organized schemes of access, circulation and public information; high levels of environmental amenities, public services and physical care taking.

Information for this section was provided by the Artery Business Committee.