Seaport Memorial Park | Parcel F @ Seaport Square | Seaport

[Equilibria]

I'd expect the desired effect would be to have something similar to Post Office Square, though this obviously lacks the warmth.

Agreed. Needs more plants.

 

[datadyne007]

I'd expect the desired effect would be to have something similar to Post Office Square, though this obviously lacks the warmth.

Right. It's just barren hardscape.

Note that the design language of Post Office Square incorporates thick vegetation, fluid paths leading to common points & a pergola for shade, while this park in the Seaport is just cold with rigid angles leading nowhere.

Post Office Square is a place to stop & enjoy. This park is just a place to pass through. Placemaking is something that the Seaport has really struggled with.

 

[FK4]

^I agree as well. It needs more trees to add some warmth. I actually really appreciate monumental, stark plazas, but they have to be big enough that the starkness can really create a sense of awe... This parcel is too small for that. Also, given that it's hemmed in by buildings, the obelisk is way too tiny - it's just a speck against Vertex, etc. The central monument ought to be much larger... that plus more trees would make this park a much more intimate experience. As it is, it feels like superficial lip service is being paid to a humanitarian monument, only as an afterthought. It doesnt help that all the buildings in Post Office Square have a softer architecture to them, while this park is surrounded by pure, 21st century capitalist boxes.

 

[Equilibria]

Right. It's just barren hardscape.

Note that the design language of Post Office Square incorporates thick vegetation, fluid paths leading to common points & a pergola for shade, while this park in the Seaport is just cold with rigid angles leading nowhere.

Post Office Square is a place to stop & enjoy. This park is just a place to pass through. Placemaking is something that the Seaport has really struggled with.

But now we're really back where we were 5 years ago with the Greenway. There's nothing on this list of wants that can't be provided later as the space is programmed and the neighborhood evolves. You'll never succeed at placemaking when you're surrounded by construction sites and vacant lots.

Remember, this park will ultimately have cafes on both sides, with seating and shade. Other than that, the biggest difference between PO Square and this is the lack of shade trees and the lack of the Financial District as a context and source of people.

 

[shmessy]

Right. It's just barren hardscape.

Note that the design language of Post Office Square incorporates thick vegetation, fluid paths leading to common points & a pergola for shade, while this park in the Seaport is just cold with rigid angles leading nowhere.

Post Office Square is a place to stop & enjoy. This park is just a place to pass through. Placemaking is something that the Seaport has really struggled with.

+1.

I hear the folks saying "Yes, but trees will grow in" or "Once people know it's there...", etc." They, however, are not countenancing the simple fact that "trees growing in" or "Once people know it's there" will not overcome the hard right angular DESIGN of this Seaport park that devotes the majority of its surface footprint to concrete and/or pavers whose sole purpose is to persuade people NOT to stay and enjoy but to, as you well pointed out, keep moving along.

Unless there is a fundamental design change to this park/memorial (not just "trees growing in") I cannot imagine this being anything other than a relatively barren spot (humanoid-wise).

 

[datadyne007]

+1.

I hear the folks saying "Yes, but trees will grow in, etc." They, however, are not countenancing the simple fact that "trees growing in" will not overcome the hard right angular DESIGN of this Seaport park that devotes the majority of its surface footprint to concrete and/or pavers whose sole purpose is to persuade people NOT to stay and enjoy but to keep moving along.

Unless there is a fundamental design change to this park/memorial (not just "trees growing in") I cannot imagine this being anything other than a relatively barren spot (humanoid-wise).

It CAN'T even grow in. It's not even designed to grow in. Look at these squat planter trees along the grass... My grandmother has these in front of her house.

 

[Equilibria]

It CAN'T even grow in. It's not even designed to grow in. Look at these squat planter trees along the grass... My grandmother has these in front of her house.

I look at that picture and see trees that will get bigger over time and planting areas that can push out into the grass with bigger and fuller plants. The desert benches in the middle are more problematic.

In any case, this stuff can all be messed with over time. This isn't a skyscraper, where you can never change the appearance. Not one thing is stopping you from planting a whole bunch of new trees in the middle of those lawns if that's what needs to happen.

 

[citylover94]

Contrary to what seems to be a common belief angular paths and spaces like in the Memorial Park don't actually bother people. Just like how straight streets that meet at right angles can be just as nice to walk along as curving streets. Angularity has less to do with how welcoming the park feels than other features like how the benches are laid out and there design or if there is a reason that someone would feel a need or want to hang out in a park.

For example Copley Square has angular paths and lots of paved space with just a relatively small patch of grass and yet what can be seen in this satellite image? People.

 

[davem]

Copley has also been torn up and redone a half dozen times at least.

 

[shmessy]

Copley has also been torn up and redone a half dozen times at least.

Hopefully, this one will too. It needs it.

Unfortunately, someone did try very hard and spent a good deal of money on it with what seems to be very nice materials. It's a lovely canvas. Too bad they didn't take the human factor into account.

 

[shmessy]

Contrary to what seems to be a common belief angular paths and spaces like in the Memorial Park don't actually bother people. Just like how straight streets that meet at right angles can be just as nice to walk along as curving streets. Angularity has less to do with how welcoming the park feels than other features like how the benches are laid out and there design or if there is a reason that someone would feel a need or want to hang out in a park.

For example Copley Square has angular paths and lots of paved space with just a relatively small patch of grass and yet what can be seen in this satellite image? People.

Good points about angularity and well taken. However, the largest single section of that image you reference is a lawn area. Are there folks here who pine for the days when Copley Square didn't have the trees and the lawn and was a mini City Hall Plaza?

 

[datadyne007]

Contrary to what seems to be a common belief angular paths and spaces like in the Memorial Park don't actually bother people. Just like how straight streets that meet at right angles can be just as nice to walk along as curving streets. Angularity has less to do with how welcoming the park feels than other features like how the benches are laid out and there design or if there is a reason that someone would feel a need or want to hang out in a park.

For example Copley Square has angular paths and lots of paved space with just a relatively small patch of grass and yet what can be seen in this satellite image? People.

Notice something about where those angular paths lead in Copley Square? To a common point.

From my post:

fluid paths leading to common points

Also, note that the grass is uninterrupted unlike both parks in the Seaport now.

 

[citylover94]

My main point was just that angular paths and paved spaces with benches can work if they are balanced correctly. I haven't been to the new park in the seaport so it is hard to say but it does seem as though the grassy part might not be as successful as it could be but that has nothing to do with whether or no the paths are angular or curved. That was my main point.

On a side not a small enough version of City Hall plaza could work if it is surrounded by retail and small enough streets so it doesn't feel cut off. Think of most piazzas in Italian cities for example.

 

[datadyne007]

Copley Square is also a destination/"place" because of the landmarks around it. Yes, a number of people sit and eat lunch/meet friends there (I have many times), but a lot of people in that photo you posted are there to take pictures of/admire the landmarks around it: the BPL, Trinity Church, the Hancock, etc. There's nothing in the Seaport that makes this park a destination like Copley Square. A park with hard right angles and wide paved areas could work if this location in the Seaport had landmarks, but it doesn't. It's all cold, sterile mid-rise boxes that lack the human scale of the buildings that are around Copley Square.

Numerous factors contribute to the message a park/plaza gives & influence how people how use it.

 

[stellarfun]

Memorials to the fallen in war are not intended as recreational space.

The design variables typically center on the relative proportion of stone and 'greenery'.


Pershing WWI. to be redesigned

Navy Memorial

Marine Corps Memorial

Air Force Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam (being added to)

Japanese American internees

1st Infantry Division Memorial

Beirut

and lastly,

Piskaryovskoye, St. Petersburg (Siege of Leningrad)

 

[kingofsheeba]

Memorials to the fallen in war are not intended as recreational space.

The design variables typically center on the relative proportion of stone and 'greenery'.


Pershing WWI. to be redesigned

Navy Memorial

Marine Corps Memorial

Air Force Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam (being added to)

Japanese American internees

1st Infantry Division Memorial

Beirut

and lastly,

Piskaryovskoye, St. Petersburg (Siege of Leningrad)

Man, we're really into wars. Sorry, not sorry for the political statement.

 

[fattony]

Man, we're really into wars. Sorry, not sorry for the political statement.

Cheer up - there has never been a time in human history with less war than now. There are entirely too many still dying, but in the context of history it is amazingly few.

 

[tobyjug]

For the folks who really like this park, I respectfully ask: Why do all those pictures show such a dearth of humanoids actually IN the park? Is it not yet open to the public? Is it just a piece of modern art to appreciate from afar?

I see those pictures and think 'Neutron Bomb'.

If not neutron bomb, then "placeholder" park.

 

[shmessy]

Man, we're really into wars. Sorry, not sorry for the political statement.

Yup.

That, prisons and casinos.

Subway systems? Not so much.

 

[BeeLine]

https://flic.kr/p/KEdk8K

https://flic.kr/p/JQE76a