Honor Award

Aqua Delta

Stephanie Hsia, Student ASLA, Graduate, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Faculty Advisors: Zaneta Hong and Gary Hilderbrand, FASLA

Aqua Delta reorganizes a residual space formed by roadway intersections in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Through the exploration of the various phenomenological qualities of water, Aqua Delta creates a spatially stimulating place that engages and responds to the art community along Quincy Street while allowing for social and surface permeability. As the only city-owned parcel along Quincy Street, the site becomes a place where the city and university can gather and intersect.

Aqua Delta reorganizes a residual space formed by roadway intersections in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Surrounded by Harvard University buildings and art museums, the only city-owned parcel along Quincy Street is currently marginalized and characterized by a lack of pedestrian access. Through the exploration of the various phenomenological qualities of water, Aqua Delta creates a spatially stimulating space that engages and responds to the art community along Quincy Street while allowing for social and surface permeability.

The landscape has a pre-cast concrete surface that peels to reveal the collection of water from the surrounding area. Water trickles, washes, splashes, flows, fogs, and reflects in a field of curved surfaces. Surfaces that peel upwards become benches, screens, or projection surfaces. Surfaces that peel downwards reveal water. Water becomes the performer in the landscape. The level of water contained by the site fluctuates with rainfall. The many qualities of water can be explored throughout the seasons. Water forms ice in the winter and fogs or mists during spring and fall. Depending on the density of occupation, it can be place of reflection or a place of fun.

As a public parcel, the site is a space where the city and university overlap. Located in the interior of the park is a stage available to the Sackler Museum, Carpenter Center, and the Graduate School of Design for film screenings, talks, and performances. The seating leads to an elevated platform, which provides views of the park itself, the Sackler Museum, and a filtered view of Harvard University’s Memorial Hall and Science Center Plaza. Water that is beneath most of the park is revealed as a large pool under the elevated platform. Visitors standing in the stage area and facing westward will see the pool, bordered by thick plantings of paper birch, red maple, sweet gum, and eastern red cedar. The stage and upper platform are destinations with programmed events, while more intimate spaces that allow visitors to interact with water in various ways, are located throughout the remainder of the park. River birch and yew are planted in a directional manner throughout the park to direct movement towards the stage. The park is envisioned to be active during all seasons and times of day. Evergreens located on the northern side of the park serve as windbreaks during the winter and shelter the stage area. Lighting will be important in creating a place that is safe, visible, and fun at night.

The organizing pattern of the park strongly references Quincy Street, where most users will access the park. The park addresses accessibility challenges by enforcing connections between the campus, park, and other buildings along Quincy with new crosswalks along the three access points to the park and a wide sidewalk on Quincy Street. A clear path through the park will allow visitors traveling between the campus and Quincy to use the park as a way of getting from one place to another quickly.

The site’s location at a low topographic point of several major roadways allows the opportunity to collect, clean, through artificial system, and program storm water from these roadways. An urban analysis revealed the site boundary to be mainly impermeable with low canopy cover, and the park responds with high canopy cover. While not permeable in the traditional sense, the park functionally acts in a similar manner by removing storm water from the existing system.

Aqua Delta creates spaces for people to gather around the art activities of the university, and to interact and have different experiences with water: to reflect, to play, and to observe. It is a landscape about drama and revelation that can be experienced through the seasons.

American Society of Landscape Architects