Triangle Park reshapes a forgotten and empty traffic island into an urban forest demonstration
project–a first of its kind– bringing needed shade, biodiversity, and open space to an underserved
area of Cambridge, MA. Guided by the city’s Urban Forest Master Plan, this one-acre site hosts
four hundred new trees across a rolling landscape, offering a pocket of relief amidst an
increasingly warming climate.
The park is composed of three distinct habitat types—an upper, middle, and lower forest—which
act in tandem to buffer traffic, capture stormwater, and allow for social gathering.The design
approach involves a combination of maintaining existing trees, planting new trees in a variety of
species and sizes, and supplementing with intensive bare root plantings. The latter are intended
to encourage natural competition, allowing individual trees to outcompete one another as some
become more adapted to the urban context, increasing temperatures, and the increasing
intensity of storms. This requires a partnership with the City, who is devoting additional long-term
monitoring and care: they will cull out less successful trees over time, allowing for the
development of a healthy and well-adapted mature forest to emerge.
Importantly, the park is also designed for people–offering various habitat types and clearings
intended for quiet gathering, relaxation and informal play. The intent is to offer people the health
and benefits of exposure to verdant greenery via a site that is seamlessly embedded within its
urban context. The park is thus an oasis amidst an area of high traffic and commercial
development; its design response to such a unique circumstance renders it a model for urban
forests of the future.
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