To examine the future for Boston’s historic modern design, the National Trust, in collaboration with several other organizations including DOCOMOMO-New England, Boston Preservation Alliance, Historic New England, and the Boston Society of Architects are presenting “Boston Modern – Spirit of Reinvention: Challenges & Opportunities for Preserving Boston’s Modernist and Recent Past Architecture”

CommonBoston Week 2010 has been receiving positive coverage in the press recently.  In the Globe, Renee Loth wrote:

“Common Boston challenges two stereotypes about this city: that it is too square to host such a creative party; and that it is too balkanized to cross various social lines. The theme of this year’s festival is “Where We Connect,’’ an examination of the barriers and bridges among neighborhoods.”

Meanwhile, Sam Allis attended CommonBoston’s Pecha Kucha event and wrote that “it was designed to inspire:”

“Last Tuesday evening at the Elks lodge, we saw presentations from, among others, the two founders of a nascent Design Museum Boston that will exist online and in empty retail and public space, and the executive director of Boston Fashion Week about his design plans for this year’s event in September…”

And finally, Dwell Magazine had coverage of the event in an interview with co-founder and co-chair Justin Crane:

A Common Boston

If you’re in the Northeast this upcoming week, you might want to swing by Common Boston, Boston’s fourth annual week of celebrating architecture and urban spaces. Focusing all the city’s design energy at a number of “common points” on the neighborhood level, Common Boston is a little bit different from all the other Salones and ICFFs around the world. I wanted to find out why, so over two cups of tea at Toscanini’s, I caught up with Justin Crane, budding architect and co-founder/co-chair of New England’s biggest design festival.

Read the full story here.

Thursday, June 24th, 2010
6:30 pm
Cloud Place, 647 Boylston Street

During last year’s Common Boston Weekend, the lack of social, intellectual, and physical connections between neighborhoods was repeatedly cited as an impediment to the sharing of ideas and experiences that could improve the city’s quality of life. Yet Boston’s physical environment has also been shaped by inspired efforts to connect the diversity of its residents. We’ll explore this Week’s theme of Where We Connect by talking about physical barriers that have become points of connection, ultimately considering how to turn corridors and boundaries into places at which people can share their neighborhood and city. Through this forum, and the rest of Common Boston Week, we hope to imagine how to transform traditionally-understood boundaries in Boston into new and unusual opportunities for the city.

The Forum panelists are:

• David Dixon, FAIA, Moderator – Principal at Goody Clancy
• Jesus Gerena, Director at Family Independence Initiative
• Ken Kruckemeyer, AIA, ACSA, Research Associate at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
• Tim Love, AIA, Principal at Utile, Inc.
• Jeanne Lukenda, ASLA, Principal at Carol R Johnson Associates Landscape Architects

The CommonBoston 09 Forum was entitled “Cities For Families: Designing Boston for Every Generation”

The Pecha Kucha phenomena comes to CommonBoston week tonight at 7pm at the Elks Lodge in Cambridge near Central Sq.  Pecha Kucha Boston #18, in partnership with CommonBoston, brings together a design-focused panel in the usual 20 slides/20 seconds per slide format.  Full information here and for details on previous and upcoming PK events in Boston, check out the Pecha Kucha Boston blog.

CommonBoston 2010 continues throughout this week and into next weekend under the theme “Where We Connect”, with a full roster of scheduled events, talks, lectures, a forum, media displays and open building and neighborhood tours.  Urbanist has been volunteering with CommonBoston for three years now and this year’s events are the most comprehensive and wide-ranging yet! Check out the CommonBoston website for full schedule, registration and event information…

On June 16th Joshua Simoneau gave the final BSA Design Lecture of the 2009/10 series on his Rotch travel scholarship work on the civic squares and centers of Western Europe.  Compiled into a new book “Civic Intimacy” his research on 26 urban spaces “builds upon Louis Kahn’s notion that ‘the center is the cathedral of the city’ and “focuses on how the city center should not only be accessible, allowing expression and an equal sense of belonging to all participants, but also socially relevant, transcendental, and concerned with everyday life… [the] book illustrates Joshua’s investigation of European civic spaces and how lessons learned from these places might be applied to improve Boston’s civic realm.”

As another academic year concludes, two annual commencement exhibitions, at the BAC and Harvard GSD, provide an insight into two graduating classes of new design professionals educated here in Boston – both well worth a visit.

Winning Rotch proposal by Christopher Shusta

The annual Rotch Travel Scholarship design competition took as its brief this year the creation of a new Boston city history museum within City Hall facing the Congress Street facade and Quincy Market across the street.

The six finalists all produced interesting design proposals, with Christopher Shusta’s design (above and below) winning the competition and travel scholarship.

The Boston Globe had the story and an image gallery here.

The Christian Science Plaza today

The Christian Science Church in Boston recently revealed plans for the revision and development of the headquarters complex and plaza in downtown Boston.  The famed Modernist landscape and buildings are now showing their age, and new development is needed to bring in increased revenues for the Church.

The story, a video and further information are here:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/05/19/church_pursues_redesign_of_plaza/

Vision of a future NYC by HOK

As part of the “Future of Work” series, Newsweek asked three well-known firms in Richard Meier & Partners, Cooper Robertson & Partners and HOK to envision the future of the city.  Included are predictable elements like mixed-use districts, green roofs and energy-producing building designs.  But together they provide a needed vision of holistic thinking concerning our urban future.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237660