On Boston’s Greenway, a garden and education pavilion orient the public to the nature and culture of the Harbor Islands nature and culture.

Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion and Carousel

Boston, Massachusetts

This strategic adaptation of a block of the Rose Fitzgerald Greenway pairs a National Park Service education pavilion with a new carousel inspired by children’s illustrations of regional animals. New plantings and revised circulation strategies shape a new center of activity for a quickly emerging urban corridor.

On a sunny day in mid September 2015, the shade created by the tree canopy and Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion is apparent. Photograph courtesy of Jane Messinger.

0013 N21 — Trees and shrubs frame a plaza that hosts the new Carousel.

0013 N18 — Dimensional-cut granite block seatwalls separate the plaza hosting the Greenway Carousel from the walkway. Salvaged granite block forms an edge to a robust planting buffer.

An Educational and Recreational Landscape

The National Park Service and the Boston Harbor Islands Alliance jointly commissioned this educational and recreational landscape. A raised and slightly crowned lawn parcel frames a series of ultra-thin cast-concrete shell structures designed by Utile. These open-air buildings facilitate the public’s interactions park rangers and ticketing for the Harbor Islands ferry. During rain storms, these shells overflow and cascade into a granite splash block. Rainwater feeds the site’s urban landscape, including a dense and diverse canopy of trees providing shade for pedestrians, and food and cover for birds. Granite block seats shelter visitors from Greenway traffic and focus attention on interpretive signage around the pavilion.

0013 N5 — Fields of paving echo the monolithic lightweight concrete canopy above in composition and tone.

0013 N7 — Where water meets stone - a moment to celebrate water.

0013 N31 — Precision cut granite forms a splash block to accept water cascading from the canopy structure.

0013 N9 — Precision cut granite forms a splash block to accept water cascading from the canopy structure.

The Greenway Carousel

The adjacent Greenway Carousel and Tiffany & Co. Foundation Grove offer a highly desirable destination amenity surrounded by comfortable public seating. The Carousel features fourteen different characters native to the land, sea and sky of Boston Harbor, including a sea turtle, three types of butterflies, a peregrine falcon, a harbor seal, and a whale, created by Newburyport artisan Jeff Briggs. The gardens in the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Grove that surround the Greenway Carousel create a beautiful, welcoming environment with four season plantings, comfortable seating and filtered shade.

The Harbor Islands Pavilion and Carousel Grove project demonstrates that modest, incremental adaptations to the urban fabric at key locations can have enormous impact.

Dimensional-cut granite block seatwalls separate the plaza hosting the Greenway Carousel from the walkway. Salvaged granite block forms an edge to a robust planting buffer.