It has been planned for the Fens to be dredged from Gatehouse 1 to Ipswich Street in order to increase the flow of water through the Fens to prevent flooding. My project embraces the dredging of the Fens. Dredging is the next act of displacing the land on a site that has a past rooted in the process of cutting, moving, and filling land. It is my intention to use the process of dredging to question time in the history of the Fens Park, by deciding which elements of the dredging remain permanently, which ones remain temporarily, which ones disappear and leave some trace, and which ones disappear without a trace.

My goal is to use design to enhance the potential of the process of dredging without sacrificing its efficeincy as an engineering project. For example, weirs are a necessary component for diverting, dewatering, and dredging segments of the Fens. Weirs could be designed in a way that pieces of the weir remain after the construction/dredging has been completed. Walkways across the top of the weirs used to cross the dredging site during construction could remain as bridges - new elements in the future park. Other elements of the dredging process, such as staging areas for construction, could remain taking on new functions. Another product of the dredging process is the dirt itself. By keeping the dredged dirt on the site, I will be addressing the fact that the earth of the Back Bay Fens historically has been manipulated throughout time.