Urban Reprogramming in Roxbury

Location: Roxbury, MA

Status: Completed Studio Work, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Roxbury, in Boston, has long been treated as a testing ground for other people’s plans. Racially discriminatory zoning, aborted renewal schemes, and speculative proposals have left a landscape marked by hardened boundaries and interrupted intentions. Yet those same edges and thresholds are where this project begins. It asks what happens when the seams of the neighborhood are reprogrammed—when spaces that once blocked movement or signaled exclusion are recast as shared grounds that invite circulation, gathering, and a sense of ownership.

The core claim is simple: when people can move freely, meet one another, and occupy space with confidence, the social networks that form do not stop at the block or district line. Instead, they grow outward, linking residents to institutions, services, and allies beyond the neighborhood. In Roxbury, this means treating the community not as a passive recipient of development but as a coordinating node—pooling knowledge and resources, shaping how projects land, and negotiating pressures without defaulting to either acceptance or refusal. By stitching together networks of spaces and institutions, the project imagines Roxbury as part of a larger urban coalition, able to direct development rather than merely endure it.

Strategic Map of Washington Park North

Community Building Implementation Process

Site Analyses

Issues Identified

Washington Mall + Charlame Park Illustrated Programming

Washington Mall Lot Illustrated Programming

Warren Gardens South Illustrated Programming

Warren Gardens North Illustrated Programming