Would you like to get outside this summer? Have you wanted to meet others with an interest in art and architecture? Why not do both together at City Sketch? Sketch-artist extraordinaire Andrew Guild will be your guide at this hands-on outdoor sketching session as you explore architectural sketching processes and techniques. Try your hand at sketching building facades and gain a better understanding of the basics of perspective drawing. Together you’ll venture out into the city to capture your own views of Boston’s landmarks.
This 90-minute tour, co-sponsored by the BSA Foundation, hosted by Charles Riverboat Company, and led by Boston By Foot guides offers spectacular views of historic and contemporary Boston architecture while providing fascinating information about many renowned architectural landmarks, including the Hancock Tower, Marriott’s Custom House, and Rowes Wharf, as well as cutting-edge contemporary buildings by today’s top architects.
Courtesy of the City of Boston and the Boston Society of Architects
The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) has announced the winners of the Northern Avenue Bridge Ideas Competition. Launched in March, the competition sought to gather ideas for the future of the bridge that center around improving mobility, honoring history, and creating destination. The bridge, which opened in 1908, was closed in December 2014 due to structural integrity concerns.
As it was open to the public, the competition received ideas from architects, designers, historians and community members, overall resulting in 133 submissions, including 99 graphic designs and 34 essays.
Image: The Pulse Park, Denmark, CEBRA. Photo by Mikkel Frost.
Playgrounds are spaces where children and adults can have fun together. They also play an important role in the development of social and problem-solving skills. Explore the way playground design can improve the quality of life for children and families through a tour of the exhibition Extraordinary Playscapes and then design and build the perfect playscape for your neighborhood.
This program is in partnership with Design Museum Boston.
Join the Mattapan Cultural Arts Development (MCAD), Powerful Pathways Consulting, and the BSA Foundation for an interactive community conversation on arts, design, and placemaking. Through presentations, breakout discussions, and a mini-charrette, attendees will explore how design thinking can be applied in making inclusive communities and demonstrate how one of MCAD’s current projects engages the neighborhood in creative civic activity and advocacy.
This is a program of the Mattapan Cultural Arts Development, Powerful Pathways Consulting, and the BSA Foundation, and part of Boston Design Week 2016.
Image: Rendering courtesy of Add Inc/Stantec, modified.
Explore architecture and interior design through a three-day hands-on design workshop in which you will create your own micro-housing unit—the new trend in innovative housing.
In this Learning By Design workshop you will have the opportunity to work with professional architects, tour an architecture firm, design and create a 3D model, and present your work to a panel of professionals. This workshop is for teenagers aged 13 to 16; no experience is necessary, but register now, as space is limited.
To celebrate the upcoming Extraordinary Playscapes exhibition in June, BSA Space is teaming up with co-curator Design Museum Boston for an event exploring how to make the urban environment more accessible to play. As part of the ongoing series Design Museum Mornings, this session will feature Maggie Cooper, City Initiatives manager at KaBOOM!, a nonprofit focused on bringing balanced and active play into the daily lives of all children. Join Cooper for a candid conversation as she shares how to bring communities together through initiatives like group playground builds and playability walks, especially for children growing up in poverty. Free
As part of the Cambridge Science Festival, discover the art and science of architecture and city planning. Find out what Boston might look like in 2030, and imagine new modes of transportation and vibrant places for “live, work, and play”! Explore how architects and urban planners apply notions of sustainability, transportation, housing, parks, and open space in their work, and share your thoughts on how to make the city more beautiful, resilient, and equitable. Lastly, bring your own fantastic ideas to life using LEGO® bricks, and present them to your design buddies.
KidsBuild! will be held at BSA Space on Saturday, April 9 and Sunday April 10. Guided by professional architects, families will choose a construction site from a fictional city grid, design and build a building, and be awarded a certificate of occupancy from the city building inspectors.
Iñaki Ábalos, chair of the department of architecture at Harvard University, is a founding member of Ábalos + Sentkiewicz, an accomplished architecture practice with offices in Madrid, Boston, and Shanghai. Ábalos will discuss issues of architecture and the environment in his recent award-winning work.
Common Boston is teaming up with the BSA Foundation to produce a re-imagined and reinvigorated festival. Based in part on “open house” weekends in cities like New York and Chicago, the 2016 Common Boston festival will offer you unique access to dozens of architecturally and culturally significant spaces and places—many not open to the public, and all for free!
BSA Space, Boston’s only center for architecture and design, seeks curatorial proposals for its 2018—2019 exhibition season. The deadline to submit is Friday, April 15, 2016. Major exhibitions run 4-6 months, and are intended to utilize all of the second floor gallery space. Guest curators will be given a budget of $30K-$70K, depending upon the size, scale and preparation, which will include all exhibition expenses, including materials, fabrication, installation, curator fees, and fees for any portion of this work contracted out.
The Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA) has announced the winners of the 2015 BSA Design Awards. Awards were presented in eight categories for accomplishments in interior design, campus and urban panning, and unbuilt projects, among others.
Explore the unique challenges faced by Brooklyn Grange, a group of urban farmers determined to run a commercially viable farm in New York City. The film Brooklyn Farmer follows the team as they set out to build the world’s largest rooftop farm within the constraints of the Big Apple.
The Suffolk Downs Urban Design Workshop is the third in an ongoing series of Urban Design Workshops organized by the BSA Foundation. The workshops’ overall goal is to open up dialogue and stimulate thinking about the design potential of places with particularly significant and compelling opportunities.
The Suffolk Downs Urban Design Workshop is the third in an ongoing series of Urban Design Workshops organized by the BSA Foundation. The workshops’ overall goal is to open up dialogue and stimulate thinking about the design potential of places with particularly significant and compelling opportunities.
The evening will include an introduction to the scope of and goals for the workshop, followed by a lively panel discussion moderated by Renée Loth, editor of ArchitectureBoston magazine. Suffolk Downs represents an opportunity to create a forward-looking 21st-century neighborhood that is equitable, diverse, environmentally aware, and in tune with shifting development trends.
