Windows into Boston

Boston Visions Design Competition

“Windows into Boston,” one of thirty-two concepts published in the Boston Visions National Design Competition catalog, provided new glimpses into the city’s exciting and important world of underground urban systems. This design proposal, developed by Ed Shoucair of the Collaborative and Don Reed, involved the installation of a variety of openings – via “windows” – into the seldom-seen and under-appreciated subterranean cityscape of pipes, telephone cables, subways, roadways, and gas lines.

The windows provide permanent views of the city’s infrastructure and present a new urban aesthetic. Adjacent interpretive plaques help increase awareness of Boston’s man-made environment and raise appreciation of the effort involved in building the city. A large window along the depressed Central Artery tunnel reveals multiple layers of the city’s past and present.

Union Crossing

City of Lawrence, MA

The Collaborative’s Landscape Architecture/Urban Design Group created the design for Union Crossing in Lawrence, MA, transforming a traditional industrial district into a new and vibrant neighborhood. New housing and a day care facility on the site will help accommodate temporary and permanent personnel for the nearby medical facility. The design approach provides for almost an acre of “green” deck for a variety of passive and active recreational uses. The design includes a large lawn, shade trees, an orchard of fruit trees, and raised planters for a community garden. A rain garden forms part of the overall rain-water harvesting system and will be fed by a series of upland bioswales. 100 trees of varying size and species have been planted.

NYC Penn Station Redevelopment

Federal Railroad Administration

The Collaborative played a key role in efforts to redevelop NYC’s Pennsylvania Station. Redevelopment involves transferring most of Amtrak’s operations from the existing Pennsylvania Station underneath Madison Square Garden into the historic landmark James A. Farley Post Office Building across 8th Avenue. In helping to assess the viability of the project, the Collaborative examined the project’s potential regarding pedestrian circulation within and around the new station complex, land use and economic opportunities, and what the redevelopment project would mean to the local residential and commercial communities.

Today, the $1.6 Billion project is underway. The plan transforms the Farley building into an enormous 255,000-square-foot train hall, with a 92-foot skylight that’s meant to evoke the look and feel of the old Penn Station—as in, the one designed by McKim, Mead and White back at the turn of the 20th century.