Unity Park
First local playground project.
Closer to home, local educators were inspired by the playgrounds in Lebanon and asked for help in securing a grant for a playground for an environmental justice community in Boston. GDIRC developed the design concept and engagement process for a successful grant submission allowing for the design to be further developed and the park to be built in collaboration with a local design firm.
Timeline: 2018.06 - 2021.10 (Completed)
Location: 756 Blue Hill Avenue, Dorchester, MA
Landscape Architect: G2 Collaborative
Partner: Lena Park CDC
Size: 5,000 SF
Cost: $600,000 for all design, construction, engineering and artist fees for the mural
Key team members:
GDIRC: Mitch Ryerson, Patricia Seitz, Taylor Johnson, Mariya Lupandina, Dana Arazi Levine, Jonathan Kuhr, Elena Saporta, Anthony Crisafulli.
G2 Collaborative Landscape Architects (Lisa Giersbach, Gigi Saltenstall, Sara Brunelle) and Lena Park CDC. This included Katherine Martinez, former Executive Director, and the Youth Council teens who were active during the design and came back to visit construction once complete. They attended and led meetings, observed construction and were honored at the opening of the park.
Site
Lena Park CDC is located in Dorchester, MA. Lena Park CDC www.lenaparkcdc.org represents a neighborhood within Dorchester primarily in the surrounding areas of Blue Hill Avenue. As the teens explained to us, they comprise a large number of immigrant families from Haiti and other black and Hispanic countries. They provide youth programs, a community center for events, meetings, after school programs, and preserve and expand local affordable housing. The CDC also assists families with acquiring and maintaining housing through homeownership education and financial guidance. The extensive youth program includes spaces for making, learning, computing and other activities. The teens in this community acted as clients and supported community engagement throughout the entire process.
Community Engagement
In an initial meeting, Youth Council members, supported by their then Executive Director Katherine Martinez, developed the project brief: A park to unify their mixed cultural neighborhood. They especially made note to include children who are neurologically and physically challenged. At this meeting, the name Unity Park was coined by the teens through an engagement process that highlighted their goals of including everyone, that highlighted their intention that the park be a place to come together for all ages, abilities and differences.
The design was developed through many community engagement workshops led with an initial design charrette with local architects, landscape architects, and faculty and students from local university architecture departments. The teens were asked to participate as designer-clients, and took to this leadership role with strong support from the Executive Director, Katherine Martinez, a champion for all of the work these teens supported. The group remained active participants and an inspiration to all of us throughout the project:
June 2018 BSA Charrette at the BSA with Architects, Landscape Architects, local architecture school students, GSD, MassArt, MIT, Northeastern, BAC, with the Youth Council as the client voice. They developed design sketches and quickly became central to the process.
July 2018 Lena Park CDC Community Cookout. Teens and GDIRC interviewed members of the community and received drawings and comments from all ages from preschool children to elders.
We recorded the words and drawings from the initial meeting with the Youth Council, used as our initial framing for the design brief.
2018 BSA Charrette with the Youth Council as the client voice
Community Cookout
People leaving comments
The youngest children actively participating
Design Process
Summer 2018 GDIRC developed three community designs responding to CDC comments: “Plaza and Play”, “Secret Garden”, “Flexible Plaza”
Summer 2018, a final scheme was developed and presented to Lena Park members.
September 2018, GDIRC applied for a CPA Grant including this scheme and developed the budget for the project
Summer 2019, Lena Park was awarded the grant!
September-October 2019 GDIRC and the CDC invited landscape architects (LAs) to respond to an RFP to design the project. As the cost was fixed, the respondents presented qualifications during an interview with the CDC. GDI built into the RFP requirements for further community engagement involving GDI and the Youth Council specifically, as well as requirements for the successful LA to invite the Youth Council to their offices, and engage them in the events surrounding design and construction ongoing thereby introducing them to design offices and the work of designers.
G2 Collaborative, owned by Lisa Giersbach and Gigi Saltonstall, was selected by Lena Park for their high level and expertise in community processes, behavioral studies they had applied to other playgrounds, and a stated goal to continue working in the same way with the CDC and youth. Their work and the final project is notable in the creation of spaces that are play-filled and playful without expensive traditional play equipment.
February 2020 G2 developed their concept of “the SITE as PLAY”, with the CDC Youth Council leading the discussions and playing the roles of each age group and user in their community. Studioful, a public engagement consultant to G2 supported these interactions. The project continued to evolve with detailed nuances by the teens who tagged drawings with notes.
Construction
The general contractor for the project: Cambridge Landscape, Co. Inc. GDIRC assisted in reviewing the bids with G2 Collaborative, Met with G2 and their selected GC, provided typical Small Project AIA examples for the Contract for Construction and Applications for Payment and reviewed and simplified the initial payment requests.
The groundbreaking of construction was in October of 2020. The construction and planting continued through the following spring, summer and fall. The Youth Council completed working with muralists they selected. Artists: Wiso+Gio (Luis Taforo and Gio Hinato), the home stretch!
Before
After
The GDIRC Team would like to acknowledge the support Lena Park CDC received from the Boston Community Preservation Act.
Adopted in 2016 when a vast majority of residents approved its adoption, it is funded by a 1% surcharge on property tax within the City of Boston. Thank you to current Director and then Deputy Director Thadine Brown, and former director Christine Poff,and current Director (then Deputy Director) Thadine Brown, who proposed to GDIRC that this might be a good fit! The funding went to a great program and wonderful addition to this neighborhood.