URBAN LOWELL
Our project for Lowell focuses on the historical area at the head of the four major canals that go through downtown Lowell. More specifically, it focuses on a dense concentration of infrastructure just west of the National Historical Park Site that comes together to form a “bundle” of roads, limited access highways, railroads, and, of course, canals. Our proposal is a two-part scheme for converting this dense and unpopulated agglomeration of infrastructure into a new urban feature of Lowell. The first strategy redevelops a series of corridors that lead into this bundle which tactically substitute vehicular traffic for pedestrian traffic and selectively remove and rebuild certain parts of the infrastructure. The second strategy proposes a concentration of civic destinations that create a new gateway district directly at the heart of the bundle. The result of our design is a series of interconnected, public spaces, anchored around the bundle at the ends of the corridors, defined by public, pedestrian pathways and gathering spaces and vertical elements that claim slivers of the city’s skyline.