Transition-Scape
Elements of Urban Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design
2019 Fall
Location: Westwood, Massachusetts
Group member: Hua Zheng
Instructor: Julia Watson
This project looks at the Route 128 Station in Westwood, MA, an urban peripheral area in flux. Like many suburbs in the United States, Westwood reached its peak in the 1970s and has since been in a state of stasis, albeit a relatively prosperous one in this case. Westwood is a well-connected suburb in the Boston region, located at the intersection of two major highways: the I-128, the major ring road around Boston, and the I-93, the main route southwards. It is a transit hub, with direct Amtrak connections to Boston and New York via the rapid Acela service, and MBTA commuter rail service to Boston South Station. Next door is Norwood Airport, the base of a flight school, and a hub for chartered flights to Boston. The Route 128 Station was built as one of the first park-and-ride facilities in the United States.
Despite being surrounded by relatively bland parking facilities, business parks, and shopping malls, Westwood presents an attractive combination of easy commute and quiet neighborhoods for the suburbanites, resulting in its persistently high property prices.
However, given the uncertain future of suburbs amidst long term demographic shifts away from the nuclear family, and broader concerns for social, economic, and environmental sustainability, it would be pertinent for Westwood to explore new models of development that could widen its appeal to a wider range of people and programs. An obvious hub for this exploration is the area around the Route 128 Station, which had previously been conceived as a relatively autonomous transportation hub, disconnected from the neighboring towns, residential areas, and natural systems.
Considering several issues, how can development in the suburbs facilitate senses of communities and places, in the plural, and accommodate the despecialization of programs over time?
