The Carriage House
for the Arts
Roxbury/Dorchester, Boston MAThe Carriage House for the Arts is a living artwork, driven by the priorities of historical education, environmental justice, and community-led development in Boston’s Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods. The project is led by a coalition whose training and expertise span architecture, ethics, aesthetics, and history. As a coalition, we hold that a relation to time as extended duration is imperative for encouraging recognition of the ravages of climate change and inspiring practical mitigation of its impact, including its disparate impact on communities already ravaged by histories of racial discrimination and social marginalization. In the interest of crystalizing historical and ecological change, the project’s design and construction prioritizes the adaptive re-use of the Joseph Hubbard Carriage House, which has weathered the social and environmental change of Roxbury, Boston since its construction in 1893.
Located in the historic Gaston-Otisfield area in Roxbury, Boston, the Joseph Hubbard Carriage House was first represented on fire maps in 1890. While Dr. Joseph Hubbard clearly used the space to house the carriage and horses necessary for house calls, later residents included Blue Hill Avenue shopkeepers who used the building for storing extra goods, and a mid-century innovator who replaced the building’s original sliding barn door with the more modern motorized rolling garage door. This seemingly innocuous update, as we now know, destabilized the then approximately 70-year-old structure. Despite that structural modification and the strong roots of an American elm and Ailanthus (aka ‘ghetto palm’), the building still stands.
Upon completion, the Carriage House for the Arts site will serve as an artists’ residency for environmentally- and socially-driven projects, including a greenhouse and community gathering space for historical, cultural, and environmental education. The development and production of the Carriage House is also an experiment in ethics as a necessarily practical activity, bounded by social history, regulatory systems, and the immediate needs of the community. As such, the ultimate site of the Carriage House for the Arts will be determined in collaboration with community residents and the City of Boston, in addition to community-led cultural and environmental organizations. Though we will approach community members with feasibility assessments and preliminary designs, the ultimate design will be site-specific and adapted to community needs.