Spectacle Island: a ‘natural’ looking park constructed with discarded fill from the ‘Big Dig’

Spectacle Island Park in Boston Harbor was designed by Brown, Richardson + Rowe Landscape Architects + Planners and today represents an enjoyable destination. The island used to host several types of activities that usually tend to be “moved away,” including a dump site for the city of Boston. In the 1990s a significant amount of excavated materials from the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (also known as the “Big Dig”) were used to reclaim the island and make it into a public park. Spectacle Island constitutes an example of tunnel spoil disposal on a quite visible site, which acquired more visibility and became a destination thanks to the project. This chapter describes the problematics related to the management of the Big Dig excavated materials and the main receiving sites of the fill, in order to transmit to readers the complexity and the technical aspects that characterize discarded fill management, as well as to suggest that there is potential for designers to intervene in the process. It then illustrates the history of Spectacle Island, which was marked by marginality and by its early designation as a site for garbage disposal. Considering the island’s prominent position in the Boston Harbor, this chapter reflects on the visibility of the site chosen for fill placement and engages in a discussion on the choice to conceal the ‘constructedness’ of the intervention under a ‘natural’ looking landscape. The role of the landscape architects in the process, which was crucial to make Spectacle a place of interest, is finally dealt with.