Under New Management Cultural Landscape Conservation for Coastal Adaptation
Quincy, MA
Landscape Architecture Core IV Spring 2019 | the Near Future City Urban Assemblages Encoded for Change | Jill Desimini, instructor
Current modes of landscape conservation, historic preservation, and city maintenance practices prescribe a future that problematically resembles the present. The preservation of Quincy Shore Drive, a parkway designed by Charles Eliot on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts, represents how the current paradigm of cultural landscape conservation is in direct opposition to necessary climate adaptations for it’s urban, waterfront context. To maintain its historic landmark status, Quincy Shore Drive must be consistently managed so that the materials of construction, placement of historic structures, and tree plantings remain faithful to the “original” and are continually restored to the periods of historical significance (roughly 1890-1950). This paradigm of preservation causes the artificial line separating land and water to also be maintained, and reinforcing this edge makes it increasingly risky for people to live North Quincy.
This project transforms Quincy Shore Drive from a four lane roadway to a landscape managed as part of the DCR reservation system: maintaining values of public access, but altering how this historic beach community relates to the changing coastline. It expands the Quincy Shores Reservation from the beach into North Quincy through a trail network, a parkway system, and new land classifications: reservation adjacent, conservation easement, and beach house in the woods. It also introduces alternative means of valuing private property as a way of redistributing density to reflect the gradient of wateriness in Quincy. Together, Mass DCR, the City of Quincy, and private homeowners transform and expand the reservation through a collaborative, adaptive maintenance strategy.
with Hannah Chako and Sydney Conaway
