Site & Master Planning
Some places deserve special planning attention, such as roadway corridors, campuses, parks, commercial districts, or entire neighborhoods. After building consensus around a common vision, the process typically draws from a palette of plan elements—such as landform, buildings, gathering areas, paths and vegetation—to realize that vision, often enhancing a site’s unique qualities, such as history or relationship to water.
Neponset River Reservation Master Plan and Trail Design
State of Massachusetts
The Collaborative completed a Master Plan and Park Design for a four-mile long recreation corridor along the Neponset River in the Boston, MA for the former Metropolitan District Commission. The project included a market study to determine the area’s “recreational footprint,” community participation, park planning and design, and the creation of a river corridor brand. The brand identity, which celebrated the river’s history as a rich fishery Native Americans called “Neponset” or “Harvest River,” was used in communication materials and throughout the reservation. The Collaborative organized and lead more than 35 meetings and community-design events during the course of the project. Public acceptance of the plan led to the passage of a $40 million bond bill to implement the master plan recommendations. A key element was the design of a multiuse trail design that linked numerous new active and passive park areas. The plan received the Master Planning and Landscape Architecture Award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architecture.
The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. The Neponset River forms the southern boundary of the city of Boston, passing through the neighborhoods of Readville, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Dorchester, and forming with the northern border of the city of Quincy. The Neponset River is fed by a drainage basin of approximately 130 square miles, a watershed that includes numerous aquifers, wetlands, streams and surrounding upland areas. Some 250,000 people live in the Neponset River watershed.
Online information about the Neponset River Reservation:
- This Picturesque Park is an Undiscovered Oasis Just Outside Boston, Massachusetts
- Neponset River Reservation
i View, download, and/or print this project summary.
