The MarchMellow project is a sequence of urban interventions that revolve around Somerville Street. This initiative has been taken with respect to the city’s many qualities that we would like to preserve and emphasize as much as possible. For instance, the name of the project not only holds it for the fact that Somerville is known to be the inventor of the marshmallow cream but also represents the fact that we would like to emphasize on walkability and flexibility of the main street. With our intervention, we are hoping to transform Somerville into a destination instead of a transitional city.

We have identified the different users in Somerville, in order for us to better understand and respond to the needs of those citizens.

We have therefore developed a series of solutions solving the very important issue of traffic on this street by removing the on street parking and installing pick pods to divert the vehicles during peak times. We think that transforming this street to a commercial one will not only boost the city’s economy, but also help enhance the idea of pedestrianism in the city. Other than a main commercial street with an app diverting unnecessary traffic, we have also placed two different concentrated parking areas on each side of the road in order for the cars to park away from the center and thus enhancing walkability again to the very busy commercial center. The T- Line will be transformed into a parking/ mixed use building.

Each of those interventions are purposed to have different results in the future to what we think are the most important factors in Somerville.

Somerville’s street will not only become commercial and pedestrian, but we also want it to be transformed according to the citizen’s needs. For instance, during traffic peak times, instead of one vehicular lane of each side, we can have two lanes after cancellation of the on-street parking. But during weekends at night time, we are proposing for the street to go to another extreme and become an all pedestrian road with pop up shops to enhance the idea of the “commercial street” where citizens could also test their ideas and products.

We are proposing connected modules as new means of transportation and activities inside the city that could become a new layer added to future cities.

The combination of those ideas will help us not only solve the issue of extreme vehicular traffic, but also convert Somerville to a destination and boost it to its full potential.