Boston, Massachusetts
2007

The conceptual study for the Harvard campus expansion across the Charles River questions the linear regiment of demolition clearing the way for construction. By exploring alternatives to incrementally and concurrently create a shared landscape with the Allston community, a salvaging strategy suggested a productive reuse of excavated soils and demolished materials.

An investigation of subsurface materials revealed the ideal ingredients for amending the degraded urban fill with the excavated layers of peat and sand. Avoiding over twenty thousand trucks rambling through the neighborhood to distant landfills, the dirt dance retraces the rail infrastructure to transport fixings to a dirt farm manufacturing healthy soils. As the supply of fill is reused, the corridor evolves into a greenway from the local residents’ streets through the new campus to the river.

Clients + Collaborators

Haley & Aldrich, engineers