The 2022 BSLA Design Challenge: “Chelsea Cool”
How can the design of neighborhood open spaces engage communities and mitigate urban heat?
The Boston Society of Landscape Architects is excited to announce our 2022 Design Challenge: “Chelsea Cool.”
We invite landscape architects, designers, and students to create concept visions for the short term and long term transformation of a vacant lot into a community open space to help mitigate urban heat in Chelsea, Massachusetts. These visions are one step in an ongoing community engagement process, and part of larger “Cool Block” research, planning, and design initiatives. This design challenge is in collaboration with Chelsea-based environmental justice organization GreenRoots, as well as with the City of Chelsea and the Boston University School of Public Health.
The goals of this Design Challenge are:
To translate community ideas and priorities into creative graphics that illustrate possibility
To create a collection of sketches and drawings that intentionally show a range of ideas. Collectively the drawings generated through the Design Challenge will serve as tools to help advance a community engagement process that aims to lead to the transformation of this site
To mitigate urban heat island impacts through the use of landscape architecture, in coordination with other techniques, tactics, and initiatives
To contribute to a prototype “Cool Block” in Chelsea
To collaborate as a design community, and, in so doing, encourage fun intergenerational/interdisciplinary connections as we advance collective knowledge about urban heat and landscape architecture
GreenRoots hosted a community workshop (October 2021) and has conducted in-person and online interviews with neighborhood residents (November and December 2021 and ongoing) to collect ideas about this site.
This Design Challenge asks designers to start to translate some of the residents’ aspirations into images that describe a future park at this site
AND
to imagine a creative, temporary, short term, “tactical” installation that might be built on site this summer.
The Schedule
Winter 2022 – Design Challenge released
Thursday, March 31, 2022, 5:30pm - 8:30pm ET – CHARRETTE. This will be offered in a hybrid format: Online OR In Person. All designers are encouraged to participate in this or something on your own similar to this.
The intent of this Challenge is to quickly and collaboratively generate a collection of visuals, and the charrette will be a primary means in which we do that.
Friday, April 1, 4pm ET – PRELIMINARY SKETCHES DUE so that they can be printed for….
Saturday, April 2, 1:30-4pm ET — COMMUNITY “PIN UP” on site at 212 Congress Ave, Chelsea. This is a public, community event; all are invited to join. GreenRoots’ teen “Eco Crew,” project partners, and design experts will be invited along with residents and other community leaders.
Following the community event, feedback will be shared with all participants. Revisions informed by that feedback will be welcome.
IF you want to join forces with participants to combine ideas, please do! (We can help facilitate that if you want.) We encourage intergenerational, interdisciplinary teams. All teams will be asked to have one group conversation after the Pin Up, and to revise sketches as they see fit.
April 15, 2022 – REVISED SKETCHES DUE
Late April — GreenRoots team meets with project partners.
May 1, 2022 — Summer Installation direction is announced.
Ongoing: GreenRoots uses materials for community planning.
Register Here
To join the Design Challenge mailing list, receive the online Charrette Zoom link, or just want to make sure you don’t miss anything, sign up here. There is no fee to register.
The site, summer 2021. View from corner of Maverick & Highland Streets. Photo at top (of asphalt parking lot) is the view from corner of Highland & Congress Ave.
Quick Facts
GreenRoots is a community-based organization dedicated to improving and enhancing the urban environment and public health in Chelsea, East Boston and surrounding communities. They do so through deep community engagement and empowerment, youth leadership and implementation of innovative projects and campaigns. For more than 25 years, GreenRoots has worked to restore more than two acres of urban salt marsh, created new parks, advocated and oversaw the development of waterfront walkways, educational signage and public access to the water’s edge. They have also implemented numerous initiatives to improve the surface water quality of the Chelsea Creek; and have ensured businesses and adjacent municipalities implement best management practices to improve water quality and to reduce environmental and public health burdens on the adjacent communities.
GreenRoots is leading many projects and campaigns focusing on climate and environmental justice, including working to address extreme urban heat and air quality issues. This green space design project has evolved from the community’s intention to create additional open, green spaces, while also partnering with Boston University’s School of Public Health on a community-based participatory research project, C-HEAT, and the City of Chelsea’s urban heat mitigation programs.
The “cool block” concept is a pilot initiative focusing on installing a white roof at the Jordan Boys and Girls Club, planting dozens of street trees, transforming this vacant lot into a new green space and implementing other initiatives such as reflective street paint. C-HEAT heat sensor data reveals the area as an urban heat island. Converting the vacant lot is a critical next step in fulfilling the goals of the cool block; with the goal of continuing to mitigate heat while providing the community with more vegetation and community space. Chelsea is an environmental justice community with 2% tree canopy cover, less than 5% public green spaces, and 80% impervious, gray infrastructure. GreenRoots actively engages and empowers the community to transform vacant, underutilized land into new green spaces.
The Site
The site is 212 Congress Avenue, Chelsea. This parcel is an ‘end block,’ bordered by Congress Avenue, Highland Street, and Maverick Street. The parcel is privately owned; however, the owner is supportive of and engaged in these efforts. The landowner also owns property across the street on Congress Ave., which will undergo a full redevelopment in 2022.
Site maps and photos:
See Google map
See additional site photos (taken summer 2021)
The Program for the long term vision
NEED to have:
An easily accessible, neighborhood focused green space
Shade
Trees
Seating
A space that’s multi-functional across seasons – including summer heat and winter too
Hybrid of passive and active uses
Aspirational but attainable; financially feasible
Reasonable to maintain by city staff and neighborhood volunteers
Cool Block features. This is a place to pilot green infrastructure.
Some would like to have:
Water feature
Garden boxes
Pollinators
A community gathering space
Could the entire site be permeable?
Keep in mind:
Everything must contribute to reducing heat
Materials; metal vs. wood vs. composite
Color; black vs. other colors impact surface temperatures
Trees are not created equal. Consider the use of evergreens as well as deciduous trees.
Safety is a frequently expressed concern. The current intent is NOT to lock at night. Only consider fences for protecting small children from running into traffic.
Street parking on perimeter streets will be maintained
Nearest bus stops: Bus 111, SL3
Accessibility: how do people get there? PORT Park is a great park but difficult and dangerous to get there.
The Program for a temporary, short term summer installation
Something inspiring, playful, and fun that temporarily transforms a small piece of this site and serves to demonstrate cool block ideas. Ideally, this is somehow connected to the long term vision.
Assumptions:
Akin to PARK(ing) Day, assume no utility hookups (no on-site power or water) and no permanent foundations. (That will need to be part of a larger site excavation and remediation process in the future.) Consider something that can be built by volunteers in May/June 2022, and be left outdoors, on site for July and August. Assume a $2,500 all-inclusive budget for a summer installation.
Community Input So Far
Ideas collected at the community “Cool Block” event. Interviews, notes and drawings were conducted by BSLA volunteers as part of a neighborhood event on site, October, 2021.
Link to responses from community members when asked about their ideas about a potential green space at this site. Interviews were conducted in-person (door knocking) and as an online survey by GreenRoots, November and December, 2021.
Additional Resources
Existing Parks & Playgrounds in Chelsea
Chelsea Precedents (offered by City of Chelsea):
Voke Park Playground (Shade Pergola and Water Feature); 540 Washington Avenue, Chelsea, MA. Landscape Architects: CBA Landscape Architects
Eden Street Park (Tree Canopy, Water Feature); Eden Street Between Addison Street & Blossom Street. Landscape Architects: CBA Landscape Architects
PORT Park. Marginal Street. Architects: Landing Studio
Process + Deliverables
The intent of this challenge is to help GreenRoots advance a community design process by asking our landscape architecture community to translate the words of community members into preliminary concept graphics that illustrate a variety of ways that the 212 Congress Avenue site might be transformed into an open space that mitigates urban heat and supports community needs.
The intent is to generate ideas and graphics in quick, collaborative way. Instead of the typical “Firm X” or “Individual Y” is the big winner, we aim to use this process as a means to connect and collaborate across our design community. To that end we are asking designers to participate in a 2-3 hour charrette — or to take that spirit of charrette into the sketches that they create for this process.
The charrette will be conducted in a hybrid format. There will be an online (Zoom) option. OR, there will be a group that meets in person in Boston, at Halvorson | Tighe & Bond Studio (25 Kingston Street, Boston). OR, participants are encouraged to gather in small groups in a location near them.
We hope that landscape architects, designers, students and colleagues of different ages, geographies, and firms will work across those typical boundaries in this charrette activity. If you are not able to participate in the group charrette, you are still welcome to participate in the Design Challenge, and we ask that you keep the spirit of the charrette. That is, you limit your own time spent.
Designers are invited to come to the charrette as individuals or as a team. Charrette participants will be divided into small groups to facilitate conversation and work.
Please register here so that we can send you charrette details!
For the “Pin Up” community event, each team is asked to upload a few preliminary concept graphics. Please describe these through labels and/or a 1-2 minute verbal presentation (OK to upload video). If you’re able to be on-site and participate in person on Saturday, April 2, terrific! If you’re unable to be there in person, that’s OK too.
Specifically, these preliminary sketches should be able to be printed on 8 1/2” x 11” or 11” x 17” paper and include:
for the longer term vision
sketch site plan & site section
sketch 3D view
diagram highlighting cooling and green infrastructure elements
photos of precedents or other examples that might be relevant to this site
for a summer 2022 short term installation
sketch plan & section
sketch 3D view
materials list
After the Pin Up, we’ll share feedback with all participants.
All participants will be invited to make one round of revisions based on that community discussion, incorporating questions, comments, and feedback from the community event into a revised set of graphics to the extent that they see fit.
If, at any time in this process, you want to join forces with another individual or team, great! Intergenerational, interdisciplinary teams are especially encouraged. (We can help facilitate matches if you want; let us know.)
For the final submission, teams will be asked to provide the same as for the Pin Up, PLUS a brief (1-2 paragraph) written narrative that explains the approach/idea.
These are not intended to be “finished” nor construction type documents. This Design Challenge is about crowdsourcing concept graphics to use as tools to advance a community visioning process.
Eligibility
This is an open call for entries. Landscape Architects, landscape designers, students; individuals and firms and interdisciplinary teams; engineers, urban planners, community design enthusiasts and climate activists – all are invited to help create graphics that illustrate concepts for how this vacant lot might be transformed into a community space that helps create a Cool Block! While one goal of this Challenge is to engage and connect our regional landscape architecture community, Design Challengers do not need to be BSLA/ASLA members, and may participate from anywhere in the world.
Awards, Recognition, and Promotion
ALL participants will be celebrated in a summary report, in social media, and in a press release. Graphics (with attribution) will be published online, and shared with GreenRoots, the City of Chelsea, Cool Bock and community partners, and with the Barr Foundation. Participants and participating firms are allowed and encouraged to promote their participation in this process.
GreenRoots and the Cool Block partners will determine the direction of the summer installation based upon ideas received. The design team behind the selected summer installation strategy will be recognized and will be invited to lead the summer installation.
In the spirit of this Challenge as a collaborative, cross-firm, cross-school, intergenerational landscape architecture community endeavor, all Design Challengers will be invited to participate in the summer installation.
Upload Sketches + Materials
Use one of the buttons above or upload through this link here.
FAQ
Email questions to gretchen@bslanow.org. Questions and Answers will be posted here on an ongoing basis.
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No. Landscape architects and designers from anywhere in the world are invited to participate.
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Yes! Design students are encouraged to participate.
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Yes! We’re all for celebrating your participation and for advancing our collective discussion about designing to mitigate heat.
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Both! The long term goal is to transform this vacant lot into a green space that helps to cool this neighborhood. The short term goal is to start to use this space to creatively test ideas, and to generate momentum for change. We need the visionary help of our design community in creating graphics that illustrate both of those goals.
Credits
The Design Challenge is already a community endeavor! In addition to GreenRoots, the City of Chelsea, and the Boston University School of Public Health, this Challenge has been developed with the input and guidance of Dan Delongchamp, ASLA as well as Jonathan Cave, Assoc. ASLA and Bob Uhlig, FASLA of Halvorson | Tighe & Bond Studio. THANK YOU, too, to Inmaculada Gil Cerezo; to students Ana Leopold and Clayton Richardson and professor Sara Jensen Carr, ASLA, of Northeastern University, and to students Grace Levin, Samantha Page, and Livesey Pack and professor Pallavi Mande of Harvard Graduate School of Design for leading interactive dialogue with residents during the October on-site workshop.
