The Moakley Park Vision Plan balances outdoor recreational needs and community gathering spaces for a major park in South Boston, with protection against climate-change impacts such as flooding from increased rainfall and sea-level rise. The plan provides a vision for the programmatic development of the park that ensures a diverse and balanced mix of uses, increases active recreational opportunities, cultural amenities, and safety. At the same time, it will consider how the design of the park can help increase the neighborhood’s resilience against coastal flooding and reduce the impact of rainfall on recreational fields.
The planning process itself seeks to stimulate meaningful and inclusive community engagement and identify both a long-term design approach to the park that encourages a wide range of users as well as early ‘catalyst’ projects and partnerships to help promote and sustain future park renovation projects. The vision will seek to increase connectivity between Moakley Park and adjacent neighborhoods as well as Carson Beach and The Boston Harbor Islands, just steps away. The Vision Plan process spanned the course of a single year. Four major community events were planned during this time. For these events, ONE and Stoss designed immersive public engagement centered around play activities simulating flood protection and interactive exercises to help determine the park’s future programming. In addition, the team conducted a routine series of open houses, interviews, and stakeholder meetings. In the initial stages of the project, a Community Advisory Board was formed to inform the design team of questions, concerns, and aspirations for future users of Moakley. In Fall 2018, ONE and Stoss were invited to the Ontario Climate Consortium to present on their innovative techniques through an imitation engagement session, Lateral Dialogues.
Presently, the team is working on the schematic design of the full park, as well as developing the “Phase 1” project which will commence construction in late 2021.
Status: Unbuilt
