Conceived as the focus of a temporary public park, this infrastructure project creates a public destination at the edge of Boston’s Fort Point Channel.
Our design for two 300 foot tall exhaust towers rising above the below-grade service building to ventilate the underground Central Artery Tunnel anticipates hotel/residential development that would surround it at a later date. For an interim period of uncertain duration, the two towers standing alone were conceived as the anchor of a temporary public park and landscape development at the water’s edge.
We proposed several alternatives to transform the towers. A light steel frame defining a single tower volume created a structure we dubbed “Industrial lace.” A perforated mesh structure wrapping the two towers suggested an “Unfolding Spiral.” The “Art Parks” concept added galvanized steel elements to the base of the concrete stacks to create a sculpture and mixed media park. “The Giraffes” imagined a playful and economical painting of the two towers to respond to the Children’s Museum across the channel.
With the revival of economic development in the city, the interim period was very brief, and the two stacks were quickly surrounded by a hotel/ condominium tower development fully occupying the site. The service building below the towers extends a full five stories below grade and connects to the Central Artery vehicular tunnels.