2020 Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize, Honorable Mention: Oasi Plaza
By Zehui Gong (MAUD ’20), Jing Hai (MAUD ’20), Daisha Martin (MUP ’20), and Sidharth Somana (MDes REBE ’21) — Recipients of the 2020 Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize, Honorable Mention.
Designed as a new destination district, Oasi Plaza is a 35-acre mixed-use development in Medford, MA. Situated near the MBTA Wellington Station and the Mystic River, the Master Plan envisions a 160-key hotel, 640 unit residential apartments, two Class A office buildings coalesced around a dynamic outdoor retail plaza. A marshland park with wildlife observatory deck provides walking and biking trails that link the site to the broader open space network. Enabled by a public/private partnership model, the strategy forms an urban destination out of an underutilized and auto-centric property largely severed from its surroundings. Wellington Circle Plaza is a transit-oriented plan that posits working, living, shopping and entertainment within a unique pedestrian experience as an antidote to the auto-centric and big-box retail environment it is today.