CENTRAL ARTERY / TUNNEL PROJECT, BOSTON 1989-97

The Central Artery Tunnel project was conceived in the Boston Transportation Planning Review of 1972. Detailed planning began in 1982, construction started in 1991 and the project was completed in 2004. A joint venture of Bechtel and Parsons Brinckerhoff was responsible for engineering and construction management. Wallace Floyd Associates was the lead sub-consultant responsible for planning, urban design, architecture and landscape architecture. Wallace Floyd was joined by Stull and Lee (for urban design and architecture) and Carol R. Johnson (for landscape architecture). From 1989 to1997 I was employed by Wallace Floyd as Chief Architect on the project and later as our firm's principal-in-charge.

The main idea was to remove the congested elevated highway (I-93) that separated the city from its waterfront and replace it with a tunnel that would also have greater capacity. In addition, the project would extend the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) from its current termination in Chinatown, connect to the hitherto undeveloped wasteland of the South Boston seaport, continuing under the harbor to Logan Airport in East Boston. The project consisted of 7.8 miles of highway consisting of viaducts and tunnels, ventilation buildings, an operations control center and numerous emergency vehicle stations and a central maintenance building.

The design and construction process was in three phases. Our team was responsible for Preliminary Design, establishing program, siting, architectural massing and establishing standard details and specifications throughout the project. Final Design was distributed to companies who, following the preliminary design, standard details and specifications, became the engineers or architects of record. In the construction phase, responsibility came back to the construction management team (including the architects) for site administration. At its peak there were about 1,000 people employed on the design and construction management teams. The core team of architects, planners, urban designers and landscape architects amounted to about 45 people.

Ventilation Buildings

The function of the ventilation buildings is simply to funnel fresh air into the tunnels and to exhaust stale air out to the atmosphere. These were very large buildings to be inserted into the urban fabric and they had no resident workers. The architectural challenge was therefore to fit the building into its immediately surrounding context, to create an architecture that would mutely explain their function, and at the same time establish a family relationship so that they could be recognised for what they were in diverse locations throughout central Boston. A major technical innovation was achieved by adopting rainscreen panels as the primary cladding method.