Edward Mitchell, Aniket Shahane, critics.
Fall 2015
Yale School of Architecture
Matthew Bohne and Jamie Edindjiklian
The towns along the Merrimack River cannot develop independently. Our ambition is to rethink the river and reorient the region towards a revitalized resource. The project proposes a regional park system to create a regional identity in order to share, manage, and leverage resources. With a combined population approaching that of Boston, the new Merrimack River City has the potential to challenge how the scale and scope of a successful New England city performs. The Merrimack River, which runs 118 miles from New Hampshire to Massachusetts has been navigated and productively used since the seventeenth century. In the current economy, the towns along the Merrimack River are struggling; and most of these towns are at the end of rail lines, serving as bedroom communities whereas they were once cottage industries or large manufacturing centers. The river that once defined these towns now separates them. The project remedies some of these issues with the agency to propose future, more extensive development for the purposes of linking the towns along the Merrimack River. After analyzing the existing infrastructure in this region, the proposal includes the following scales of operations: a recreational and ecological corridor, large and small scale aquatic spaces, and a regional governing body. The strategy addresses the fragmentation of these towns environmentally, culturally, and financially. As a result, the regional identity designed around the river will be used as leverage to share and balance resources, and to protect and improve the ecological and economic future of the entire region.