COPLEY CONNECT
2022 | BOSTON, MA
ROLE: DESIGN, fabrication, installation, community engagement, documentation, & analysis.
BUDGET: $50,000
PARTNERS: City of Boston, Boston planning + development authority, Boston transportation DEPARTMENT
collaborators: counterform studio, Boston public library, Rhode island school of design
Programming: BPL children’s library, mobile makers, meta movements, cityscapes Boston roaming greenhouse, capoeria boston, bon me truck
Stitching Two Iconic Public Spaces
Goode Landscape Studio led the design, fabrication, and installation of a 10-day pop-up park in a one block portion of Dartmouth Street between St. James Ave. and Boylston St. in Boston. The design took inspiration from the iconic arches of the Boston Public Library and the facade of the historic Trinity Church. The arches were transcribed to scale onto the roadway in colorful yellow paint to symbolize the stitching together of the two spaces. It features a mid-block crossing that connects the BPL plaza to Copley Square.
public engagement & programming
Alongside the BPDA and Boston Public Library Goode helped to program the space with a wide variety of events and activities. The programming is designed to test the popularity and function of diverse activities in the space. We designed a schedule of programming for diverse ages, interests, lifestyles, and cultural groups. The site is designed as three rooms based on differring levels of passive and active programming. The first room at Boylston Street served as the welcome gateway with information, surveys, and lawn games. The middle space is the most activated with dance lessons, reading hours, zoomba, and music concerts. The end at St. James Ave is a more passive space for eating, studying, and gathering with bistro tables and adirondak chairs to enjoy lunch, art, remote working, or reading.
fabrication + install
Goode Landscape Studio had a tall order to design, fabricate, and install furnishings for Copley Connect. They had to fill 9,000 sq ft of outdoor space and ensure the furniture could withstand 10 days of weather and public use. Working within a tight budget of $50k including labor costs, they used a palette of plywood, yellow paint, astroturf, and pool noodles to create this playful pop-up space. They created a series of plywood modular benches in a large arched ‘U’ shape with playful pool noodle cushions. These benches were fabricated using a CNC milling machine to cut the plywood and create kerf cuts to be able to bend the plywood around curves. The benches are designed to be lightweight and reconfigurable for different programmatic uses creating outward curved benches for larger performances, and using the inner curve or individual blocks for more intimate gatherings. Goode chose to use yellow as a key color for the design to impart a sense of play while embracing a common color used in street markings.
video Data analysis + visualization
Goode supported the BPDA with public engagement and documentation using analog and digital technologies. They tabled onsite speaking with the public about their preferences for the future of the street. They helped the BPDA to hand out and collect over 1100 paper surveys about the use of the space. Goode designed and implemented preference voting games to create a visual and tactile way to show quick visual voting preferences each day. Finally, they used anonymized camera footage to show the number of people using the space at different times of day and week. Goode overlaid this information with the programming schedule to reveal which programs and spaces were most used throughout the pilot project.
