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I was the state's manager for urban design and architecture with the CA/T from the fall 1988 to fall 1991, a period during which the project as a whole evolved from a planning concept to a preliminary design, gaining much in specificity and detail. As the first person to hold this position, I was responsible for developing the scope for, and approach to, applying architectural and urban design for the Project. When I arrived, the Project was using architectural, urban, and landscape design to address issues raised in the environmental review process - i.e., to consider the way alternative solutions would look and their impact on the environment. However, architects and urban designers were still considered to be largely extraneous to the actual project design process, which was considered by the Management Consultant and by the FHWA and MHD (the principal funding agencies) to be mainly an engineering and construction project rather than a citybuilding project. That the CA/T hired an urban designer at all demonstrated that the Project leadership perceived the project also as a community development or citybuilding project. Certainly, Fred Salvucci's career at the BRA influenced his hiring of two former BRA staffers, for the Transportation Undersecretary and Planning Manager positions (Matt Coogan and Martha Bailey), both of whom recognized that urban design issues would have to be solved to the satisfaction of the city's sophisticated urban design and community planning players. Fred himself was a native urban designer, having personally experienced the blighting influence of the Artery viaduct on the North End neighborhood and legendarily dedicating himself to replacing it with community rather than highway uses. Architects and highway engineers bring significantly different training to their approaches to design. Architects (and urban designers and landscape architects) are trained to solve for human factors in the design of the environment, and to create environments that people experience in a certain way, whereas engineers are trained to solve for physical criteria, and create structures and systems that function adequately. For example, an architect might be concerned with how a ventilation structure looks and fits within the urban context: how it makes people feel and think about it, the system of which it is a part, and its immediate environs - including its scale, materials, mass, location and configuration, and so on. A highway engineer might focus on the performance of the structure in venting a road tunnel. I found these different - but potentially complementary - orientations manifested in many ways when I started at the CA/T. One way, which has received a surprising amount of public attention, was the absence of three-dimensional representations of the highway plans. Architects routinely build scale models as aids to design, out of the need to see their three-dimensional characteristics. At the CA/T, however, I found two-dimensional drawings, most in plan; even section drawings were rare, as were drawings showing the highways structures in their neighborhood contexts. No model existed of the state's preferred plan for crossing the Charles River, Scheme Z. I recognized, as did many project designers and planners, that the bridges over the Charles would be important additions to the Boston landscape. After attending a conference on the aesthetics of engineering and hearing a paper about several bridges in several states, and public reaction to them, I realized that something needed to be done and could be done to improve the bridge design from a public acceptability standpoint. Designing the Crossing as a gateway to Boston from the north could also achieve an important urban design goal. I directed the architectural staff to develop beautiful, gateway bridge designs and requested these be modeled in three dimensions, in the context of the total Scheme Z design (and eventually had models made of the entire CA/T project). More than drawings could, this model showed what the planned bridge would look like: a huge, flat deck held up by seventeen piers. The piers crowded a large area of the river front - a precious asset in a built-up city like Boston - making it unusable for pedestrians and making navigation in this part of the Charles difficult, if not impossible. The navigation issue engaged the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers as allies in pushing for alternative bridge designs. The bridge and its impacts on the city's entry, on the use of the riverbanks, and on the use of the river itself, could be improved, and this became my focus with respect to Scheme Z. On the matter of the viaducts on the north side of the river, I perceived that Fred Salvucci was immovably committed to the Scheme Z plan and accepted the general ramping of Scheme Z was a done deal. The Management Consultant was opposed to this investigation because of their certainty that FHWA would never approve the unusual bridge design, even if it could be built. The Scheme Z model proved to be more than a design tool. As a representation of the plan, it was eye-opening for the staff and, ultimately, the public. Once they could visualize it and its consequences, many more people became opposed to it. The model confirmed people's fears about the likely impacts of the Scheme Z proposal. It appeared simultaneously with a broader public communications program regarding the evolving project design and when public opposition to Scheme Z galvanized. This did not alarm me, since I believe that whenever urban design comes under public scrutiny, the outcome is an improved environment for all. In fact, the parts of the CA/T project that did not attract much public attention may suffer (visually) as a result. Apart from Scheme Z, I worked to make architects "partners in design:" the CA/T became a laboratory to see if architects and engineers could work together. I saw to it that architects were on the final design teams for all of the highway segments. I worked to introduce 3-dimensional means to visualize the project, so that designers could anticipate how people would experience the road and improve the design accordingly, working to achieve community development goals and a quality pedestrian environment as well as a functional transportation facility. The arts program I began put artists on the design teams, to try to create more visually appealing and human-scale designs in selected location. Another accomplishment was to reduce the street-level chaos and confusion during the construction process through coordinated and attractive uniform fencing of the building sites and informational posters. The urban design staff focused analysis and public discussion concerning the ultimate use of the joint development parcels in order to plan the underlying tunnel structures so that they could support the desired use. I put architects in the lead of the design of the giant ventilation buildings, treating these building as urban design projects as well as engineering products. I worked with colleagues in planning and community relations to create an integrated program in the environmental planning, design and construction phases that reflected the citybuilding issues important to community folks, city staff, and businesspeople alike. To handle this broad scope, I developed and organized a substantial consultant staff of nearly 100 professionals, and successfully structured the final design and construction phase staffing to carry out the urban design and architectural goals within the engineering project environment. Within this huge organization - perhaps within any organization - access to and influence with the leadership are key determinants of what a staff person can achieve. With the change in administration (from Dukakis to Weld in 1991), my effectiveness drastically diminished after the people I worked with and for left the Project. At this time I was solicited for a position in Seattle, WA, and I left to undertake the development of Seattle's first growth management-oriented comprehensive plan. |