Cambridge, MA
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
This new mixed-use community in Cambridge, Massachusetts is located on 43-acres in a former rail yard and industrial site. The site required a three-foot remedial cap over contaminated soils. Completed construction includes eleven acres of the site as a public park and open space. For The Common, a 6-acre park, Pine & Swallow assisted with hydrologic design, including a system of bio-treatment swales and a naturalized pond, provided soils design and construction observation. Pine & Swallow developed strategies to utilize less expensive, available soils and amend them on-site to create horticultural subsoil, over which thinner layers of planting soils were placed. For each of the other parcels at Cambridge Crossing, Pine & Swallow provided targeted horticultural soils design; everything from planting beds and planters to street tree plantings, trees in plaza areas, and over-structure plantings that required lightweight soils. Additionally, Pine & Swallow provided construction administration services for each of the individual parcels.
