03 Monumental Maintenance
EXH - RES
DATE: 2024
Awarded 1st Prize in the 2024 Rotch Competition, by the Boston Society of Architects, which awards one early-career architect each year with $40,000 to support travel for research.
Awarded 1st Prize in the 2024 Rotch Competition, by the Boston Society of Architects, which awards one early-career architect each year with $40,000 to support travel for research.
Monumental Maintenance presents a new “maintenance district” for the city of Boston in the form of an archipelago of monuments – small and large – for the communities past and present who take care of our environments and the materials that make it possible. The focal point of this new distr
ict is the existing Boston Public Works (BPW) facility, which is located in a challenging site. The BPW site is flanked to the west by I-93 overpasses and to the east by rail lines that have together made the BPW site an inaccessible “island.” Ironically, that which the BPW helps maintain and keeps running smoothly also isolates it from the rest of the city.
To help integrate the current BPW “island,” the new district operationalizes a series of recreational installations, educational monuments, green spaces, and public amenities by scattering them across the site forming an “archipelago of care.” Three educational monuments called “The Pudding,” “The Post,” and “The Cone” help educate visitors on the immense labor BPW provides to the public. The Pudding features a 260-ton chunk of local Roxbury Puddingstone (Massachusetts’ state rock). Its weight is symbolic of the 260,000 tons of solid waste that BPW collects annually (1000 times the weight of the stone). Its material is symbolic of the bedrock of the city and commemorates millenia of land stewards in the region. The Post features a series of illuminated metal posts that ascend up and over I-93 and commemorates the 68,055 street lights BPW maintains. The posts form a playground at grade underneath I-93. The Cone – shaped like the iconic traffic marker – offers the public a viewing tower to look out over ongoing BPW projects and the 802 miles of roadways BPW maintains.
In addition to the educational monuments, the primary objective of the project is to provide safe, accessible passage across the site along with new public amenities. A ramp connects east and west cutting underneath Frontage Road for bikers and pedestrians. Public restrooms, new vegetation, new bus stops, a playground, and an outdoor performance space for screening movies or hosting events activate the underside of I-93. Finally, the BPW facility is given a upgraded look with a new roof/cladding system that provides facility storage on one side and a public market on the other along the South Bay Harbor Trail. Overall, the new district – featuring elements in hi-vis orange, green, and yellow and motifs/shapes of maintenance – make the BPW site an iconic new destination for the city of Boston and renders essential maintenance work visible to the public.
ict is the existing Boston Public Works (BPW) facility, which is located in a challenging site. The BPW site is flanked to the west by I-93 overpasses and to the east by rail lines that have together made the BPW site an inaccessible “island.” Ironically, that which the BPW helps maintain and keeps running smoothly also isolates it from the rest of the city.
To help integrate the current BPW “island,” the new district operationalizes a series of recreational installations, educational monuments, green spaces, and public amenities by scattering them across the site forming an “archipelago of care.” Three educational monuments called “The Pudding,” “The Post,” and “The Cone” help educate visitors on the immense labor BPW provides to the public. The Pudding features a 260-ton chunk of local Roxbury Puddingstone (Massachusetts’ state rock). Its weight is symbolic of the 260,000 tons of solid waste that BPW collects annually (1000 times the weight of the stone). Its material is symbolic of the bedrock of the city and commemorates millenia of land stewards in the region. The Post features a series of illuminated metal posts that ascend up and over I-93 and commemorates the 68,055 street lights BPW maintains. The posts form a playground at grade underneath I-93. The Cone – shaped like the iconic traffic marker – offers the public a viewing tower to look out over ongoing BPW projects and the 802 miles of roadways BPW maintains.
In addition to the educational monuments, the primary objective of the project is to provide safe, accessible passage across the site along with new public amenities. A ramp connects east and west cutting underneath Frontage Road for bikers and pedestrians. Public restrooms, new vegetation, new bus stops, a playground, and an outdoor performance space for screening movies or hosting events activate the underside of I-93. Finally, the BPW facility is given a upgraded look with a new roof/cladding system that provides facility storage on one side and a public market on the other along the South Bay Harbor Trail. Overall, the new district – featuring elements in hi-vis orange, green, and yellow and motifs/shapes of maintenance – make the BPW site an iconic new destination for the city of Boston and renders essential maintenance work visible to the public.