mass Audubon: MAGAZINE BEACH

Situated in Cambridge along the Charles River, Mass Audubon’s Magazine Beach Park is uniquely positioned to highlight how indigenous land use, local ecosystems, regional waterways, and the impacts of colonial industrialization have shaped the urban area we know today.

In collaboration with Urban Risk Lab, Mass Audubon is activating the Magazine Beach Park Nature Center, a former gunpowder storage building, into an adaptable learning space to connect children and adults with both the rich history and the modern-day systems of the area. To do so, Urban Risk Lab is creating a series of modular, mobile structures that can be used for educational exhibits, community programming, storage, and even as a snack bar. These interactive modules, designed to be especially engaging for kids, allow Mass Audubon to make the Nature Center a hub for events and teaching. Furthermore, the designs’ aesthetic beauty and cultural significance extend to people of all ages, fostering a sense of local identity.

In collaboration with experienced fabricators Christi Byrd and Jess Osserman, the Urban Risk Lab completed and tested a prototype structure that illustrates the ecosystem and life cycle of an oak tree. With the success of this prototype, Mass Audubon hopes to expand on this project with even more modules. Through a partnership with Thomas Green, an indigenous artist and educator of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, these new modules could explore mapping, lessons from indigenous land use practices, and the impacts of damming the Charles River on local watershed ecosystems.

Pictured above, prototypes of the designs were featured in the Nature in the City Festival. This process allowed community members to start engaging with the project and allowed the designers to learn from how people used the modules.

MIT Urban Risk Lab: Larisa Ovalles, Miho Mazereeuw, Justin Brazier, Amanda Adaku Ugorji, James Vincent Brice, Inez Ow, Daniel Griffin, Sacha Moreau, Chris Hanes

Mass Audubon: Paul Kelley, Norah Mazar, Alexander Goldowsky, Renata Pomponi

Fabricators: Christi Bryd, Jess Osserman, Andreus Ridley