Project Statement

Climate risk and adaptation extend far beyond coastal alignments and sea level rise. Addressing compound risks by leveraging existing assets and coordinating with other adaptation strategies at local and regional scales will be critical as landscape architects continue to position themselves as climate adaptation professionals. The Inner Coast operates regionally and locally to address the water not always included in adaptation efforts, precipitation and groundwater, to complement and enhance the efforts of Climate Ready Boston. It argues for holistic adaptation that addresses multiple forms of climate risk and social vulnerability.

Project Narrative

The Northeast has experienced the greatest rise in precipitation from 20^th ce averages in the country. This trend is expected to continue, with Boston receiving roughly 10% more precipitation a year during more frequent storm events interspersed by droughts. But the water is not just coming from above, but receding from below, with groundwater depletion contributing to up to 2” of subsidence by 2070. Stormwater, below ground just as much as it is above, is presently disconnected. 

In this context, Boston’s network of open spaces has been rethought. Working with the BWSC and MWRA, the Emerald Necklace is enhanced for stormwater management with Charlestown as the critical connector.

This regional system presents a chance for Charlestown to rethink its own fraught relationship with water. The peninsula’s landfilling erased its third coast—the Miller River. Taking this wet footprint as the site, this project situates itself between Charlestown’s wet past and wet future.

Looking ahead, this landfilling is reclaimed again, with coastal and stormwater flooding tracing the former coastline. Working with Climate Ready Boston, we see that coastal alignments do not account for the water coming from above or moving underground. Informed by this history of fill and future of water, the industrial land over the former Miller River is transformed into internal ring of water management.

This system leverages what is already there, building on the open space network, social infrastructure, and existing bike paths and subways. Trails weave the formerly isolated corridor into the neighbourhood, connecting people to the new waterfront to reimagine what it means to live with water—beyond coastal risk—in a climate adaptive future.  

Near Sullivan Square, bioswales feed in between new housing, mimicking the grain of the neighborhood and offset from the highway with an air pollution buffer, which allows the creation of plazas. These shaded plazas at bioswale inflows invite residents across Rutherford Ave to the cooler corridor where contaminants are also treated with riparian birch thickets deflecting air pollution, deep cottonwood taproots intercepting groundwater, and flowering eastern redbuds breaking down petroleum.  

In cloudburst events, the river adjusts its meander, the floodplain fills, and willow roots stabilize banks. In the floodplain, stepped lawns transition to a high point with a plant palette that is performative just as much as it celebrates the site’s coastal character. This infrastructure also limits air and water pollution. Flood berms dampen the noise of the rail and highway, and stormwater undergoes treatment before being released.

In wet years, the marsh migrates into meadow in the southern wetlands, which treat and slow water to replenish groundwater levels and buffer saltwater intrusion. In former parking lots, human occupation is elevated as the ground plane is devoted to water and non-human habitat. A gradient of ecological communities from maritime forest to dry then wet meadows to emergent and submergent wetlands re-negotiate with each moisture and salinity change. This concentration of plant diversity supports a range of species, from American black ducks to Osprey, pollinators, and the residents of Charlestown commuting along and enjoying this landscape.

The inner coast reimagines Charlestown’s connection to water and the city for a near-future urbanism informed by the past and defined by water above and below.