The Landscape Architect’s Guide to

Piers Park

Your Guide

Piers Park plays important dual roles as both a significant neighborhood park and a city-wide destination park. The original seawalls were built in 1870 and the current park was completed in 1995. The park marks a significant victory for the community of East Boston: It's a sign of their own successful advocacy for water access and open space. Designed by Pressley Associates, this park also exemplifies a collaborative community-based design process led by a landscape architect.

Impeccably maintained by Massport, the park offers the typical offerings one would expect in a neighborhood park -- playground and splash park, which are appropriately sited at the Marginal Street edge. An amphitheater and picnic areas are well-maintained. Plants expand their use and offer shade and beauty.

The 6.5 acre park expands open toward the water offering far more than the usual fare. The view of Boston’s skyline from this park is second to none.

View Sites Nearby

Peaceful Simplicity

Moving past the play area at the street edge of the park, you are immediately oriented toward the water through the generously spaced allee of Honey Locusts. The expanse of lawn and the peaceful simplicity of this entry path are a delightful contrast to the density of the neighborhood.

Image: Kaki Martin piers2

Picnic Areas Offer Wonderful Views

Moving further into the park, you can better understand the relationship the park has to the water’s edge. The expanding lawn is dotted with well-placed shade trees and picnic areas. Each picnic table is afforded a wonderful view across to Boston’s skyline.

Image: Kaki Martin piers3

Flexible Seating Options

Once you move out on to the actual pier, planted areas are raised off of the ground plane. Simple granite seatwalls edge the raised planters and offer flexible seating options on the promenade very different from the more formal benches.

Image: Kaki Martin pires4

Layering of Old and New

I love how this view reveals the construction of the pier—the layering of old and new wall, the changing tides, and you realize that these trees are planted (and thriving) in the pier. It’s a great layered view through the trees to the sailboats in the harbor and the industrial marine water’s edge of Boston’s seaport beyond.

Image: Kaki Martin piers5

Elegant and Safe

This detail resolving the negative space between the lamp post and the vertical of the steel fence post is elegant and resolves a significant safety issue without calling too much attention to itself.

Image: Kaki Martin piers6

Some of the Best Views

With a view like this, how can you not appreciate this park? The views make this park the popular destination that it is. It’s hard not to plant yourself on one of these benches and spend the day.

Image: Kaki Martin piers7

Pavilion as Gateway

The two large pavilions on the pier expand the programmatic uses of the park, supporting more formal gatherings. This pavilion acts as a gateway or threshold to the outer reaches of the 600-foot-long pier.

Image: Kaki Martin piers8

Patterned Granite

The patterned granite panels on the pavilion piers are hard not to touch. I think they lighten the appearance of the pavilion columns and incorporate many cultural identities from the East Boston neighborhood in a subtle but defined way.

Image: Kaki Martin piers10

Amphitheater

The landside end of the promenade ends in a lawn amphitheater space. The grading of the bowl is beautifully done and I appreciate the restraint in detailing that marks only the toe of the slope and doesn’t make the space look as though it’s only purpose is for performance.

Image: Kaki Martin