Superstudio! The Youth Landscape Architecture Studios

BSLA is excited to announce that our “Superstudio” pilots are underway. The long term goal is to create a constellation of in-school and after-school design studios for high school students in collaboration with educational and nonprofit partners in communities across our chapter. Unique to our approach, each high school studio is coached by landscape architecture college/grad student teaching assistants, with a landscape architecture firm serving as mentor. Each studio focuses on local sites and issues.

This year, the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s nationwide “Superstudio” effort served as catalyst to get us going, and we’re proud to say that our BSLA Superstudios are, to the best of our knowledge, the only high school Superstudios in the country. That said, this is a BSLA initiative that we’re dedicated to growing over time, even after the official LAF Superstudios end.

This spring, two BSLA pilots took place: one, an in-school model, with The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts, in partnership with science teacher Jamie Brandt and his environmental science class. Northeastern University graduate students Evan Bradley, Sabrina Dengler, Mia Kania, and Xueyang Zhou coached the Govs students, with Northeastern faculty Scott Bishop, ASLA, and Bishop Land Design serving as advisor. Together, in both The Governor's Academy and in Northeastern University courses, this intergenerational student cohort considered wetland restoration, stormwater management, and larger climate resilience issues related to the Great Marsh as they reimagined campus athletic fields nearby. The Northeastern students presented some of these Great Marsh Resiliency ideas to an international audience at the 9th Annual Massachusetts Water Youth Summit in March, and then to the chairs of the Joint Committee of Natural Resources and Agriculture of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in April. Conducted by Zoom during our pandemic year, this pilot wrapped up in May.

*Transformation over time of athletic fields to restored marsh. Illustration by Cameron Stetson ‘22, a Govs student as part of their work in the landscape architecture studio.*

The other BSLA pilot is an after-school model, in partnership with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy in Boston. Starting in April, 2021, the “Youth Landscape Architecture Studio” (YLAS) is employing ten Boston high school students three days/week in a 12-week landscape architecture studio program, in the same way that ENC employs teenagers after school and during the summer on other issues related to the Emerald Necklace. Through a series of professional presentations, site walks, independent exercises and design sessions, ten teenagers have the opportunity to step into leadership roles in the fields of public space and environmental justice, enhance leadership and communication skills, participate in professional development and hone their observation and understanding of public space – how it is created, how it serves our society and how it can be improved. The program is shaped around two critical questions, How can our parks serve as spaces for all, and who gets to shape them?

YLAS brings Boston High School students into an inter-generational collaboration with teaching assistants from the Boston Architectural College — MLA students Heather Forde, Student ASLA, Huyen (Quinn) Nguyen and Shaun Wu, Student ASLA — and the Franklin Park design team to directly contribute to the Franklin Park Action Plan. Reed Hilderbrand is serving as mentor to this studio, with many staff participating throughout the three months, plus studio visits by landscape architects and planners from Agency, along with studio conversations with public health expert Julia Africa and Tali Robbins, policy advisor to Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu. Conducted mostly by Zoom with occasional site visits, the studio runs through June 29.

Join us online in the LAF "Superstudio Spotlight" July 20!

In this after school pilot, all students are being paid. The landscape architecture student instructors’ stipends are funded by the Chris Moyles Fund of the BSLA Fund. The high school student wages are being funded through a collaborative, ongoing fundraising effort, supported (so far) by the Massachusetts Energy Marketers Association, the Nebraska Soybean Board, the Sasaki Foundation, Stoss, Agency, OJB, and Reed Hilderbrand, as well as individuals Joe James ASLA and Jessalyn Jarest ASLA. Thank you all!

Learning and growing from these pilots, we will build this over time with these partners AND hope to collaborate with additional schools and firms and nonprofits in a variety of locations in Massachusetts and Maine. Young people play a crucial role in shaping our future, and they’re immersed in landscape architecture yet rarely have the vocabulary. Let’s change that. If this is something you’d like to get involved with — OR something you’re already doing — please be in touch!

Get Involved

BSLA’s high school Superstudios are one of several initiatives underway by the BSLA K-12 Outreach Committee, co-chaired by Daniela Coray, Assoc. ASLA, and Joe James, ASLA. We offer an extra big THANK YOU to Daniela for her energy, detail, and countless volunteer hours organizing this pair of high school studio pilots this spring, along with enormous thanks to Tess O’Day at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and Jamie Brandt at Governors’ Academy. There’s an exceptional team working behind the scenes making this happen and we are grateful.

Photos: at top of page and top row above: the high school students of the BSLA/ENC Youth Landscape Architecture Studio on site in Franklin Park, May 2021, along with the studio instructors (masters of landscape architecture students from the Boston Architectural college) and landscape architects from Reed Hilderbrand.

Immediately above (bottom row): The Governors Academy students on site, at the intersection of the marsh and current athletic fields.

Though both studios were primarily conducted on Zoom during this pandemic semester, limited site visits were possible. We look forward to lots more in the studios to come.