2007 Preliminary Competition

Sheila Kennedy

The 2007 preliminary Rotch competition program was entitled “Seaport ferry terminal: An Architecture of Wind, Light and Air”. Developed by Rotch committee member Sheila Kennedy in consultation with Nader Tehrani (Rotch Main Competition author) the program brief asked candidates to make a site analysis and preliminary design of a sustainable ferry terminal to serve the South Boston Sea Port District. Mayor Menino's recent proposal to move the City Hall to the Seaport has increased the pressure to establish a new means of public transportation and access to South Boston Waterfront. Without innovative design thinking about a siting public transportation facility, the Seaport runs the risk of becoming a single occupancy vehicle based environment with excessive surface parking, traffic congestion, noise heat gain and poor air quality.

Candidates were encouraged to engage digital design and fabrication strategies in their development of design proposals for a new commuter ferryboat terminal that would house several simple program amenities such as benches, ticketing facility and restrooms. The design brief ask candidates to create designs that:

1. Explored innovative preliminary design concepts that demonstrate how distributed energy may be integrated into the building design and harvested from on site renewable sources including as wind, tide and solar power.
2. Considered alternative building systems such as natural ventilation and day-lighting, passive solar and/or localized radiant heating sources, and energy efficient lighting technologies.
3. Provided localized “comfort zones” inside/outside for protection from wind, rain or snow. These localized “comfort zones” offer design opportunities to rethink the conventional relation-ships between infrastructure, furniture and building form and should not be considered as conventional fully enclosed building structures.

Approximately 65 entries were received and the Preliminary Competition was juried by Rotch Chairman Steven Foote and Committee Members Sheila Kennedy and Tim Love with Andrew Hargens representing MassPort, Michael Stein, sustainable specialist and engineer from SBP in New York, Meejin Yoon of MIT and Nader Tehrani of the GSD. The jury were excited about the potentials of many of the schemes and wished that more entries had been received. The jury selected seven candidates to proceed onto the 2007 Rotch Competition Jury.