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Harvard‚Äö?Ñ????ë?????´?¬¨‚Ä¢s Sustainable Library Park 10-02-09 | News

Harvard’s Sustainable Library Park

Harvard and city officials are touting the so-called Library Park (plans seen here), which is expected to be finished in 2011, as a place that will help educate visitors about environmental stewardship.

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Harvard University planners, Boston redevelopment officials, and a Cambridge landscape design firm are working together to reincarnate the 1.74-acre space, behind the Honan-Allston branch of the public library, into a “sustainable’’ park. The park will recycle rainwater runoff for irrigation, help clean the air and soil, and provide residents and library patrons with a green oasis in the library’s backyard.

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Michael Van Valkenburgh, head of the landscape architecture firm designing the park, said Library Park?EUR??,,????'?????< green features would not be obvious to most people. ?EUR??,,????'?????<

The park is being built on "recycled" land, seeing as it will be constructed on the former site of McNamara Concrete Company. Preliminary designs of the park from Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc. also show that trees, which help clean the atmosphere and cool surrounding buildings, will line the rear of the library.

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Designers also plan to build up the flat park lot using microtopography in the garden and by constructing a hill, using fill from Harvard excavations.

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Solano said the park will also make use of special soils meant to encourage plant growth while keeping the park low-maintenance.

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Added Gerald Autler, the authority?EUR??,,????'?????<

Source: boston.com