Binney Park is one of 3 small public open spaces Stoss has designed within the rapidly growing Kendall Square neighborhood. The design for these parks began with a collaborative programming stage where Stoss worked with the City to study program options for the site. As part of this process, Stoss coordinated public engagement activities to further refine the program and site design.

Sitting at a crossroads, Binney supports several critical pedestrian and bicycle connections within the Kendall Square open space network. At the surface, Binney Park connects nearby workers, residents, and dog owners through the blending of a playful blue fenced-in dog area and intimate gathering spaces. At each of the dog park entrances, social gathering spaces are framed around a variety of customized wood benches, including wood-backed benches for a greater sense of enclosure and screening of roadway traffic, as well as a custom wood terrace that sits below a mature cottonwood tree. Inside the dog park, four mature trees cast shade on the synthetic turf and yellow painted logs for dogs to scramble or owners to rest. The synthetic turf provides ease of maintenance for the City, while additionally allowing for quick percolation of stormwater.

Below grade, the park addresses the site’s historic urban soils and provides stormwater management exceeding regulatory standards. In collaboration with Nitsch Engineering, a combination of best practices have been developed for a sustainable stormwater system through a combination of porous asphalt along the multi-use trail, a series of rain gardens to collect stormwater runoff, and an underground detention system to clean and slow down the flow of water leaving the site.

client

City of Cambridge

location

Cambridge, MA

TEAM

Stoss
Nitsch Engineering