During my 8 month co-op at Utile Design, I was an integral member on the team of a proposed project in Somerville's Winter Hill neighborhood. The project at 299 Broadway will transform a long-neglected stretch of Broadway in the Winter Hill neighborhood into a vibrant block providing residential housing units, retail space, a community room, and significant improvements to the public realm. The project is anchored by two mixed-use buildings that repair a gap in the existing Broadway streetscape and define a new civic plaza along Broadway that artfully combines built-in seating, retail café zones, and trees and plantings that define circulation and gathering spaces, provide shade, contribute to storm water management, and promote habitat.
Neighborhood Plan
The site is currently comprised of a Walgreens, an abandoned Star Market, and an expansive parking lot.
Nearly the entire site is impervious.
Site Axon
Broadway Elevation
Along Sewall Street, the project will transform a decrepit parking lot into a welcoming neighborhood pocket park that provides opportunities for multi-generational programming. The park will include informal seating areas, sustainable trees and plantings, and intuitive play areas. Like the civic plaza along Broadway, the park along Sewall Street will contribute to the site-wide storm water management system and will be designed to promote native habitat, including birds and pollinators.
Sewall Elevation - Building B
Sewall Elevation - Building A
Plaza Perspective
Sewall Park Perspective
The civic plaza on Broadway and the neighborhood pocket park on Sewall will be connected by a landscaped pedestrian mews that will be publicly accessible 24/7. Together, the plaza, mews, and park have been configured to provide a fully-accessible, stair-free path between Broadway and Sewall Street, which is currently used as an informal pedestrian cut-through containing stairs. This mid-block connection improves the functionality and quality of experience of an existing pedestrian desire line between the bus stop and pedestrian destinations on Sewall and Temple Streets. In addition to being anchored by a complementary plaza and park, the new connection will be activated by spill out from retail spaces, building lobbies that provide access to upper floor residential units, front doors to the residential units that face the mews, and the entrance to a community space that faces the Sewall Street park.
Mews Elevation - Building A
Mews Elevation - Building B
Mews Perspective
Landscape Plan: illustrates how the Mews connects the public park and public plaza
The two buildings that define the public realm have been designed to look like a collection of eight buildings of different sizes and architectural expressions. The existing apartment buildings on Broadway inspired their scale and character, while the overall sculptural composition of the project is meant to complement the diverse buildings that border the site. The buildings transition from six stories along Broadway and Temple Street to four stories adjacent to the abutting residential neighborhood. The four story building components have been thoughtfully arranged in order to create a variegated condition along this edge.
Building A Axon - View from Broadway
Building A Axon - View from Sewall
Building B Axon - View from Broadway
Building B Axon - View from Sewall
Temple / Broadway Perspective
Grant / Broadway Perspective
Underpinning the team’s commitment to low-carbon, healthy buildings, the project will target Passive House certification and will meet the city’s requirements for a ‘net-zero ready’ development.
Sustainability Analysis