JESS MONTGOMERY
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
UNSTRUCTURING THE LANDSCAPE,
Jess Montgomery is a 3rd year Landscape Architecture student at Northeastern University. They are interested in ecology-based solutions to urban sustainability issues like urban heat, contaminated city soil, and insufficient and inequitable access to public green space. montgomery.je@northeastern.edu 404-966-5138
CHINATOWN COOL
Chinatown Cool converts a parking lot to a pocket park in one of Boston’s neighborhoods with the fewest trees, least access to green space, and highest risk of exposure to extreme heat. Nearby highways contribute air and noise pollution to an area with high densities of nonwhite, low income, and linguistically isolated residents, creating conditions of environmental injustice in the neighborhood.
Reimagining this half-acre site, I sought to create spaces mitigating urban heat centered around interactive microclimatic cooling water features like a steppingstoned reflection pool, water sculpture path, and stream channel plazas. The design mitigates urban heat through an integrated network of shade, evapotranspiration, and water features. The visitor is enveloped by thickly vegetated buffers framing the site and program. This sense of cool enclosure is mediated by a bank of steep constructed topography supporting a Miyawaki forest on the north side of the site.
EXISTING: PARKING LOT HEAT MAPS
PROPOSED: PARK
STREAM CHANNEL PLAZA
MIYAWAKI FOREST BATHROOMS/MAINTENANCE
WATER SCULPTURE PATH
REFLECTION POOL PLAZA
FLOODABLE ZONE
SLOPED LAWN
PLANTING SCHEME
Symphyotrichum cordifolium
Eurybia divaricata
Polystichum acrostichoides
Rhus aromatica
Maianthemum racemosum
Maianthemum canadense
Symphyotrichum novae-angliae
Symphyotrichum novi-belgii
Geranium maculatum
Sporobolus heterolepis
Maianthemum canadense
Rhus aromatica
Rubus hispidus
Carex pensylvanica
Betula nigra
Sassafras albidum
Amelanchier canadensis
Betula populifolia ‘Whitespire’
Clethra alnifolia
Aronia melanocarpa
Pinus rigida
WATER FLOW
Primary flow
Secondary flow
Tertiary flow
Permanent water body
Ephemeral water body
Restrooms and a maintenance shed tuck into the park’s constructed topography. Here, along the retaining wall, the forest floor can be explored at eye level.
Just off the coast of San Juan lies La Reserva Marina Arrecife de la Isla Verde (RMAIV). Reefs at Play proposes a modular assemblage 3D-printed from calcium carbonate deployed for marine habitat restoration at RMAIV. Across the world, coral reefs are nearing unprecedented tipping points due to climate change, pollution, and human activities. Collecting data from 119 species documented within the RMAIV site, I developed three modules each supporting the habitat needs of different trophic groupings of fish and invertebrates. The habitat needs of larger predators, like nurse sharks and manta rays, are accounted for in the space between assemblages, mimicking the dynamics of naturally occuring coral reefs.
The modules’ fundamental structure of a modified pyramid lends inherent stability. Coupled with aperture schemes that allow for viable circulation regardless of which of the four main sides the module rests on, these assemblages are resilient to an increasing frequency of storm events due to climate change and require minimal maintenance once deployed.
The system incorporates an interactive virtual monitoring system whose feed can be viewed from a parallel assemblage playground on Carolina beach.
REEFS AT PLAY
SMALL
6-12cm apertures
MEDIUM
15-20cm apertures
LARGE
30-40cm apertures
APERTURE CONFIGURATION
SMALL APERTURES RESEARCH
SCIENTIFIC NAME
Alpheus spp.
Cyphoma gibbosum
Cinetorhynchus manningi
Mytrax sculptus
Spirobranchus giganteus
Bispira brunnea
Octopus briareus
Acanthopleura granulata
Stenophus hispidus
Hermodice carunculata
Sepioteuthis sepioidea
Carpilius corallinus
Atherinomorus stipes
Grama loreto
Anchoa lyolepis
Chaetodon capistratus
Opistognathus aurifrons
Stegastes leucostictus
Apogon maculatus
Canthigaster rostrata
COMMON NAME
Snapping shrimp
Flamingo tongue
Red night shrimp
Green clinging crab
Christmas tree worm
Social feather duster
Caribbean reef octopus
Fuzzy chiton
Banded coral shrimp
Bearded fireworm
Caribbean reef squid
Batwing coral crab
Hardhead silverside
Fairy basslet
Dusky anchovy
Foureye butterflyfish
Yellowhead jawfish
Beaugregory
With research compiled on the average and maximum sizes of 81 fish and 38 invertabrates documented in the RMAIV site, species were classified into three groups along natural breaks in the data. These breaks informed diameter ranges for apertures in the trophic modules. Listed above is the data set for the small apertures module.
SMALL
6-12cm apertures
MEDIUM
15-20cm apertures
MODULE PLANS & AXONS
LARGE
30-40cm apertures
ASSEMBLAGE CONFIGURATION
1. RUBBLE
+ Efficient installation
+ Organic compostion
+ Low maintenance
+ Topographic flexibility
+ Current/storm adaptability
- Lower stability
- Inconsistent monitoring
2. STACKED
+ Structural stability
+ Consistent monitoring
- Precise installation
- Higher maintenance
- Needs flat site
- Low adaptability
PATHS
ASSEMBLAGE HOLISTIC ECOLOGY
Module surface texture invites interaction from smaller organisms, algae, and sessile invertebrates.
TROPHIC RATIOS
Primary consumers interact most directly with coral and are the most populous trophic level in marine ecosystems, so the assemblage provides more habitat down the trophic pyramid.
SUCCESSION
INSTALLATION LATENCY ALGAL COLONIZATION
PLAYGROUND INTERACTIVE MONITORING SYSTEM
ALGAL COLONIZATION
CLIMAX COMMUNITY
FORSYTH COMMUNITY CORRIDOR
Northeastern University is a nexus of Boston neighborhoods: the South End, Roxbury, Fenway, and Mission Hill. As the university transforms and expands, increasingly focusing on sustainability in accordance with its Climate Justice Action Plan, a more thoughtful approach to campus design is critical to developing true reciprocity with our neighbors.
Recognizing the quasi-colonial spatial practice Northeastern has perpetuated within its adjacent communities, Forsyth Community Corridor explores a supplanted dynamic of bi-directional diffusion of influence between the campus and community. Representing this new dynamic through materiality, the project employs a paver pattern gradient that transitions from 90% impermeable to total permeability.
From pedestrian studies, I mapped gradients of the existing campus-community dynamic, finding Forsyth St to be a potential corridor to bridge the separated community spheres of Huntington Avenue and Ruggles/Southwest Corridor. Halving the horizontal massing of the Forsyth building and stacking it vertically, I propose a new plaza adjacent to Forsyth St for community installations: a permanent neighborhood-oriented node to draw and welcome our neighbors into campus.
EXISTING
PROPOSED
CAMPUS/COMMUNITY GRADIENTS
COMMUNITY
CAMPUS
Campus amenity: study circles
Community amenity: installation space
UNSTRUCTURING THE LANDSCAPE
Reflecting on my July 2023 study abroad, Understanding Design in Paris, I developed an experiential mapping comic that chronicles the establishment of core tenents within my value system for landscape architecture early in my education. Unstructuring the landscape explores the necessity of dynamism and capacity for movement within the landscape.
The comic contrasts the rigidity of traditional French formal gardens with contemporary philosophies of French landscape architecture like Gilles Clément’s “Moving Garden.”
