Modeling Heat Impacts of a New Neighborhood: Beacon Park Yards Framework Plan

Project Partner:  City of Boston Planning Department, Summer 2024

Project Summary:  The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is planning to undertake a major highway infrastructure project that will re-align a segment of the I-90 highway in Allston, steps away from the Boston University Charles River Campus. This realignment will open a new area of currently underutilized land for new development. To prepare for this new development, the City of Boston Planning and Development Agency is undergoing a planning initiative, called the Beacon Park Yards Framework Plan to envision various design and planning scenarios.

Through this internship, Jonathan worked with the planners and designers to understand the planning process, participate in various community engagement and informational sessions, and identify where potential academic research could help fill in knowledge gaps. Ultimately, Jonathan will simulate and model three different neighborhood development scenarios to identify their impacts on the microclimate of the area, bridging the gap between academic research and on-the-ground planning.

Typically, as part of a planning process, wind and solar patterns are modeled, but not temperature. Therefore, this project will answer how the design scenarios differ on their impact on surrounding temperatures and which design decisions, such as tree canopy, building materials, and so on, have the greatest impact on mitigating extreme heat.

Project Deliverables:  Internal report on simulation results of ambient temperature changes due to highway realignment and neighborhood construction.

Watch Jonathan’s URBAN Internship lightning talk here.