Join us Inside/Out!
This fall, landscape architects and designers; clients, advocates, and activists; municipal officials and others met for small, outdoor, socially distant site tours of landscapes throughout our region.
Prioritizing issues of climate and health, equity and resilience, each tour will discuss ideas and implementation as we explore these landscapes together. Each tour will also be recorded and shared online. Later this winter, we’ll “gather” again indoors, electronically, in a Zoom-type format to share highlights and reflect on larger themes, lessons learned, and advocacy agendas ahead.
These tours will continue in 2022. Where would you like to go?
The site tours are FREE to participants; registration is requested. All are welcome. Please register for a ticket for each tour that you want to attend. If you're NOT attending a tour in person, no need to register. The videos will be posted here when they're available.
Your health is essential. On-site tour group size will be small (~20). We are concerned about the Delta variant and mindful of evolving guidance. Social distancing will be practiced. Extra masks and hand sanitizer will be provided on-site. If you don't feel well, please stay home.
All activities will be held outdoors. Please dress appropriately. In case of inclement weather, we will email all ticket holders to address any weather issues. It’s one reason we ask for registration.
BSLA is pursuing LA CES accreditation for each tour (in-person and online recordings).
Here’s the growing lineup. We look forward to seeing you outside!
EVOLVING RESILIENCE AT THE WATERFRONT: EAST BOSTON
Piers Parks I, II, and III
Saturday, September 18 at 10am (East Boston, MA)
This tour will take a close up view of this dramatically changing waterfront. Piers Park I, built two decades ago, was catalytic in reintroducing people and nature at the water’s edge. Piers Park II (in construction) and Piers Park III (in design) each embody big shifts in awareness and approaches toward climate resilience, equity, and inclusion. We also will visit the Navy Fuel Pier and other nearby sites as we explore this evolving neighborhood.
Navy Fuel Pier + Eastie Farm, Environment + Community
Saturday, September 18 at Noon (East Boston, MA)
Part Two of Saturday’s East Boston tour begins in the Navy Fuel Pier park (a short walk along the harbor from Piers Park). We’ll walk around Jeffries Point to Eastie Farm’s original gardens and their new geothermal urban greenhouse, with stops at the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway, Bremen Street Park, and a few Sea Walls murals. Along the way we’ll talk climate resilience and food, community and environmental justice — a movement with roots in this neighborhood for over 50 years.
NEW APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT: SOUTHERN MAINE
The Ecology School
Saturday, September 25 at 10am (Saco, ME)
The Ecology School’s new River Bend Farm is a historic 105-acre farm located on the Saco River, designed to bring people and nature together. The school offers “live what you learn” opportunities through hands-on exploration of Maine’s ecosystems, sustainable living practices, direct connection to food systems and farming along with modeling conservation-in-action.
Scarborough Downs
Saturday, September 25 at 1pm (Scarborough, ME)
The Downs is a mixed-use, master planned new town center currently being implemented at the site of the former Scarborough Downs harness racing facility in Southern Maine. At more than 500 acres, the new community will reinvigorate the previously developed site with a broad mix of uses and open space system which will serve as a new ‘live, work, and play’ hub for Southern Maine and New England.
ADAPTING FOR THE FUTURE CITY: BOSTON
Boston City Hall Plaza
Thursday, September 30 at 3pm (Boston, MA)
This construction site tour will examine the changes underway for this iconic civic landscape, including strategies to make the Plaza more climate resilient, more attuned to our 21st century city, and more fun.
Langone Park & Puopolo Playground
Thursday, September 30 at 5pm (Boston, MA)
Located on Boston Harbor, Langone Park & Puopolo Playground are a critical component of Climate Ready Boston, the City’s initiative to build climate resilience to flooding, stormwater, and extreme heat. This pair of newly renovated neighborhood parks is the first project within the Boston park system to integrate the standards set forth by the City of Boston’s Climate Resilient Design Standards and Guidelines.
ADAPTING FOR THE FUTURE CITY: PORTLAND
BirdSafe Portland
Saturday, October 2 at 1:30pm (Portland, ME)
BSLA’s 2021 Inside/Out series continues with a walking tour of downtown Portland through a birds’ eye-view. Led by BirdSafe Maine partners, we’ll see first hand the dangers birds face and discuss ways that buildings and landscapes would better support these essential characters in our global ecosystem.
Photo: Brianna Soukup, Portland Press-Herald
Portland Foreside
Saturday, October 2. at 3pm. (Portland, ME)
This new mixed-use neighborhood now being planned for Portland’s historic waterfront prioritizes open space. Portland Foreside charts a new course for urban infill and resilience at the former industrial edge of a New England harbor. Join us on a construction site tour.
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: BROOKLINE
Note: tickets for this event are being managed by Mass ECAN. This tour will not be recorded.
The Muddy River Restoration
Thursday, October 14 at 1pm (Brookline, MA)
Come learn about Brookline's climate adaptation efforts, including a multi-year partnership to restore the Muddy River to reduce flooding and reconnect habitat. This field trip is co-hosted by Mass ECAN, the Town of Brookline, and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.
photo: muddywaterinitiative.org
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: BOSTON
Audubon Circle
Thursday, October 21 at 4:30pm
Reasserting the role of Audubon Circle within the context of the Emerald Necklace, the design of this bustling intersection of Beacon Street and Park Avenue in Boston’s Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood integrates the contemporary needs of sustainable, multi-modal infrastructure with a landscape design that reclaims the identity of the circle as a node within the city’s celebrated open space network. By reimagining the intersection as a landscape, the project forms a meaningful anchor for the Audubon Circle “pocket” neighborhood — a close-knit residential community surrounding a central open space.
BSLA Design Award of Merit, 2021
401 Park
Thursday, October 21 at 5:15pm
The renovation of Landmark Center was a unique opportunity to transform surface parking lots into a pedestrian-oriented park. The new, grassy lawns and planting beds drain water back into the Muddy River, restoring part of the flood control/park system of Frederick Law Olmsted and reconnecting this site to the public spaces of the Emerald Necklace, while creating new outdoor places to enjoy 21st century urban life.
BSLA Design Award of Honor, 2020
LEARNING LANDSCAPES: AMHERST
R.W. Kern Center
Saturday, October 23 at 9am (Amherst, MA)
The R. W. Kern Center at Hampshire College was the 17th certified Living Building in the world, and one of the first on an academic campus. It generates its own power, treats its own water, and serves as a living laboratory. The AIA COTE Top Ten Jury writes that "A collaborative and integrated team approach resulted in this being one of the highest performing projects in the country, with a ripple effect across other higher education campuses in the Northeast. Its "campus portal" creates a new front door for Hampshire College that welcomes current and prospective students and expresses the mission of the college through the design and performance of the building”…and landscape!
Bobbie’s Meadow
Saturday, October 23. at 11am (Amherst, MA)
On the grounds of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Bobbie’s Meadow is garden nestled in a historic apple orchard, named in honor of Eric Carle’s wife, Barbara, and advancing her commitment to art, children and the environment. The garden is composed of four simple, yet strong, elements: a story path, sculptural seat walls, an orchard park, and a new wildflower meadow that transforms former lawn. Kids, students, families — we hope that you’ll join us too.
The Eric Carle Museum is offering free museum passes for Inside/Out participants who want to visit the museum that day.
Photo credit: c2021 Christian Phillips Photography.
A Picnic Lunch
Saturday, October 23 at approximately 12:30pm
Immediately following the Bobbie’s Meadow tour, please linger with us outdoors for a picnic! With food from Atkins Farm nearby, Landscape Forms is providing lunch for Inside/Out participants. Please register for a (free) ticket so that we prepare accordingly. All ages welcome.
INTERSECTIONS: EQUITY, ENVIRONMENT, + THE CITY
These two walks are also part of the Boston Society for Architecture, BSA Women in Design, and BosNOMA hybrid conference: Intersections: Equity, Environment, + the City.
The Charles River Waterfront
Saturday, November 6, 10am (Central Square/Allston)
After advocating with dozens of local partners for six years, MassDOT announced that it will advance the modified at-grade option for the Allston I-90 Multi-Modal Project. We are incredibly excited to see the highway lowered to ground level, increasing and improving pedestrian and bicycle access to the Charles River. There is plenty of work ahead and details to sort out, but it is promising to be working together with MassDOT toward a collective vision that will prioritize walking, biking, and rich transit options for the region!
For more context for what this win means for the region, please join Livable Streets and BSLA for a short walk near the project area around the river’s edge, streets and greenways in Cambridge/Boston.
Image: rendering by Gautam Sundaram, ASLA, Perkins & Will. Completed under the guidance of the Charles River Conservancy and various stakeholder groups, and winner of a 2021 BSLA Design Award in analysis & planning.
Moakley Park
Saturday, November 6, 1pm (Dorchester)
The Moakley Park Vision Plan will transform one of Boston’s largest waterfront open spaces from a largely single-use recreational facility into a resilient and multi-functional 21st century community park. Within 15 minutes of South Boston, Chinatown, South End, Roxbury, and Dorchester, Moakley is poised to be an unprecedented park for these adjacent communities and for all of Boston. The plan also addresses the city’s most pressing climate justice issues, including stormwater management, urban heat island effect, and coastal flooding.
Join us for a walk in the park to learn more about this vision and experience firsthand WHY it’s urgent: we’ll be there during high tide of the annual King Tide — the highest high tide of the year. Wear boots!
Image: Stoss Landscape Urbanism
FOREGROUNDING EQUITY: BOSTON
Postponed to Spring 2022.
Unity Park
Date: TBD (Dorchester, MA)
As designers, often outsiders, what is our role in the conception and framing of local, community parks and open spaces?
Is there a new model for engagement and development that is more socially equitable than past models?
Unity Park provides an example of a direct ongoing engagement strategy with a community to realize a small, community park — currently finishing construction.
More tours are in the works! This series is ongoing…
Is there a site you’d like to visit? A tour you’d like to offer? Please be in touch! Whether for this season or sometime in the future, we’d love to hear from you. Please share your suggestions here.