Parcel 24 Community Design
Chinatown, MA

Parcel 24 is a Central Artery surface parcel, originally part of a vibrant residential neighborhood of Chinatown. For the past 50 years, it was used as an on-ramp to the Mass Pike. Its development creates an opportunity to heal a neighborhood by creating desperately needed new affordable housing and acting as a new link to important resources now cut off by the highway. ACDC's community process consisted of extensive public outreach and political action leading to public commitments for affordable housing. Financial modeling workshops and public meetings led to a one day design charrette. We worked with the developer to organize and facilitate the charrette. The charrette included several innovative features: simultaneous multi-lingual translation; a user-friendly modeling process; and "real time" financial modeling. The resulting design work was refined by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and formed the design parameters for the RFP that was released.

Client: Asian Community Development Corporation
Digital rendering: Boston Redevelopment Authority