August 20, 2021

In spring 2021, the Sasaki Foundation hosted a panel discussion titled Feminist Practices in Design and Data, with Lori Brown, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Professor at Syracuse University and Co-Founder at ArchiteXX; Danielle Wood, Assistant Professor in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT; Katlyn Turner, Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab; and Catherine D’Ignazio, Director of the Data and Feminism Lab and Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Planning at MIT. The discussion was moderated by Sasaki senior planner Elaine Limmer.

December 10, 2020

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Sasaki Foundation, we hosted a virtual event on October 22, sponsored by Landscape Forms, with Chief Karilyn Crockett, Chief of Equity for the City of Boston, and Mary Anne Ocampo, Sasaki Foundation board chair and principal at Sasaki.

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November 6, 2020

In October, the Sasaki Foundation hosted a virtual panel discussion entitled Redlining, Housing Policies, and More, with a panel of housing experts from the Greater Boston area and moderated by Elizabeth Christoforetti from Supernormal and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Panelists included Amy Dain from Dain Research, Jarred Johnson from TransitMatters, Jesse Kanson-Benanav from Abundant Housing MA, and Allentza Michel from Powerful Pathways.

March 12, 2020

In light of and in response to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak as well as increased action by both the public and private sectors, we want to share with you the steps the Sasaki Foundation is taking to protect the health of our attendees and employees.

February 14, 2020

The public realm is composed of streets, plazas, parks, green spaces, and other outdoor spaces that belong to everyone. It should be accessible to all, provide opportunities to engage in activities, and should be a space where people want to be. People of all backgrounds who have different perspectives and experiences can come together and have a shared experience, which has the potential to further activate these spaces going forward. Earlier this week, the Sasaki Foundation hosted a conversation in the Incubator at Sasaki on activating the public realm. The panel explored how different components of a public space—art installations, programming, the natural environment, and more—can shape positive experiences.

February 27, 2019

For their first speaker series of 2019, The Sasaki Foundation hosted a conversation on the future of transportation in Massachusetts. Panelists from both private and public sectors discussed a variety of topics, including equity issues and how different options impact businesses and communities across the state. Central to this discussion was the recent report from Governor Baker’s Commission on the Future of Transportation in the Commonwealth.

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May 18, 2023

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Sasaki Foundation Announces 2023 Design Grants Finalists

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May 18, 2023

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Sasaki Foundation Announces 2023 Design Grants Pitch Night Finalists

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Anna Scherling

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The Sasaki Foundation announced today the finalists for its fifth annual Sasaki Foundation Design Grants program. These eight teams will pitch to a panel of judges on Thursday, June 1, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at 110 Chauncy, the Sasaki Foundation's new home in downtown Boston. The Design Grants are an annual competition to showcase projects that support and drive interdisciplinary innovation and empower our local communities.

Each year, the Sasaki Foundation announces research topics that address current trends and inequities in design. In 2023, the Sasaki Foundation focused on Creative Community Building, New Models for Housing, Innovation in Transit and Access to Mobility Choices, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing, and Proactive Approaches to Climate Adaptation, under the theme of Shared Voices: Charting a Course for Community Action. This theme recognizes that multiple futures are at stake, and we can make a difference by acting now.

“We were thrilled with the response to this year's call for proposals,” says Jennifer Lawrence, Executive Director. “The Sasaki Foundation is excited to consider proposals that address some of the most challenging issues facing local communities, including food resilience, spaces for healing, access to childcare, gentrification, environmental justice, community infrastructure, and economic empowerment."

Applicants proposed projects to win cash awards and dedicated time with Sasaki designers. In the program’s fifth year, the Sasaki Foundation received 19 applications from multi-member teams competing for the opportunity to take advantage of this unique relationship with Sasaki, a global design firm. The projects represented 30 organizations and institutions, 5 Boston communities, 4 Greater Boston cities, 1 Gateway City, and multiple proposals focusing on Greater Boston.

“We have a fantastic jury, representing a wide range of life experiences and Boston area organizations: Lyft, Northeastern University, Sasaki, Toole Design Group, and Tufts University, who will evaluate the teams on the design, equity, inclusion, innovation, and impact of their ideas,” says Elaine Limmer, Jury Chair and Vice-chair of the Sasaki Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “We're excited to hear from the incredible teams that proposed ideas for this year's Design Grants at Pitch Night. We welcome all to join us at 110 Chauncy on June 1!”

 

The 2023 Design Grant finalists are as follows:

 

Building Food Resilience through Urban Container Gardening from the Comfort of Home

Community: East Boston

Focus Area: Innovation in Health and Wellbeing

The Harborkeepers proposes Building Food Resilience through Urban Container Gardening from the Comfort of Home, addressing food waste and food resiliency challenges in East Boston through a series of educational and problem-solving workshops and activities focused on growing food in limited urban housing spaces, such as people's homes, terraces, or even inside from their window sills, as a way to address that people in densely populated urban communities may not have access to local community urban gardens or yards to grow their own fresh and healthy produce.

1975: a Healing Memorial

Community: Fields Corner, Dorchester

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

2025 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war in Việt Nam and the beginning of a significant Vietnamese diaspora. 1975: a Healing Memorial aims to reclaim narratives often told about the war in Việt Nam and pay homage to the families of the Vietnamese diaspora. The project will result in the installation of a permanent memorial in Boston's Little Saigon Cultural District as a site of recognition, the celebration of the Vietnamese diaspora, and the offering of a shared space for the healing of traumas from the war and the long journeys away from the homeland.

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0: Reimagining Public Housing with Childcare in Mind

Community: Boston

Focus Area: Creative Community Building, New Models for Housing, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0 is a unique opportunity to bring together family childcare providers, families, neighbors, and affordable housing property managers in a way that expands access to childcare, creates opportunities for economic mobility for public housing residents, and enhances affordable housing spaces. In three design sessions, participants will reimagine and codesign common green space in one Boston Housing Authority development as a site inclusive of care for young children.

A Memorial Garden to Remember the Unhoused Community

Community: Cambridge

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

A Memorial Garden to Remember the Unhoused Community is a collaborative process to design and install a memorial garden for people in the On The Rise community — current and formerly unhoused women, trans, and nonbinary people — who have passed away.

Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury

Community: Roxbury

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury is both a storytelling and practical information project on the current and past fights for community land development, how to develop land, and how to apply for rental and homeownership opportunities. Roxbury is a rapidly gentrifying, predominantly Black, working-class community in Boston. The multimodal document will serve as a conversation starter within the community, to help connect people to advocacy resources and share their own stories. The guide will help with creative community building, using art and storytelling to enhance community planning.

Improving Open Space in Chinatown

Community: Chinatown

Focus Area: Creative Community Building, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing, Proactive Approaches to Climate Adaptation, Environmental Justice

Chinatown Community Land Trust (CLT) seeks to improve and expand open space in Chinatown, Boston's densest and hottest neighborhood. Chinatown CLT will engage designers in supporting community planning efforts to secure community governance and improvements for Reggie Wong Park, to advocate for a new community-oriented park in Parcel 25 development, and, longer term, to advance the vision for a green space next to the future Chinatown Library. Chinatown CLT is also part of the Chinatown HOPE initiative, which is focused on moving the Phillips Square public space into a second phase community design process.

Movement Training and Cultural Center: Envisioning Hope

Community: Revere and beyond

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Ayni Institute is an organization rooted in the working class, immigrant, BIPOC communities and Indigenous wisdom. Boston's rapid gentrification and the pandemic have displaced the organization and impacted its ability to train leaders in social change. To address this, the Ayni Institute committed to jointly buy a building with Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE). Recently, the partnership raised funds to purchase a 4,500 square foot building in Revere with the capacity to house trainings and a cultural center, and serve as a regional movement hub, providing inclusive and strategic meeting space for movement leaders.

The Roxbury DIF: Centering Community Voice through the Lens of Arts and Culture

Community: Roxbury

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Roxbury DIF (district increment financing) project focuses on a neighborhood that has borne the brunt of longstanding strategic disinvestment. Roxbury is currently seen as an important part of the city's rapid growth plan. Located in the geographic center of Boston, Roxbury plays a critical role in all aspects of the city. With the most buildable lots, Roxbury has become the stage for a rapidly shifting landscape. Establishing the Roxbury DIF will provide key stakeholders with a mechanism to channel city funds back into the district and will put decision making power in the hands of residents.

 

If you would like to attend Pitch Night on June 1, please register. We hope to see you there!

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Sasaki Foundation Releases 2022 Annual Report

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May 18, 2023

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Sasaki Foundation Announces 2023 Design Grants Finalists

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May 18, 2023

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Sasaki Foundation Announces 2023 Design Grants Pitch Night Finalists

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Anna Scherling

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The Sasaki Foundation announced today the finalists for its fifth annual Sasaki Foundation Design Grants program. These eight teams will pitch to a panel of judges on Thursday, June 1, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at 110 Chauncy, the Sasaki Foundation's new home in downtown Boston. The Design Grants are an annual competition to showcase projects that support and drive interdisciplinary innovation and empower our local communities.

Each year, the Sasaki Foundation announces research topics that address current trends and inequities in design. In 2023, the Sasaki Foundation focused on Creative Community Building, New Models for Housing, Innovation in Transit and Access to Mobility Choices, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing, and Proactive Approaches to Climate Adaptation, under the theme of Shared Voices: Charting a Course for Community Action. This theme recognizes that multiple futures are at stake, and we can make a difference by acting now.

“We were thrilled with the response to this year's call for proposals,” says Jennifer Lawrence, Executive Director. “The Sasaki Foundation is excited to consider proposals that address some of the most challenging issues facing local communities, including food resilience, spaces for healing, access to childcare, gentrification, environmental justice, community infrastructure, and economic empowerment."

Applicants proposed projects to win cash awards and dedicated time with Sasaki designers. In the program’s fifth year, the Sasaki Foundation received 19 applications from multi-member teams competing for the opportunity to take advantage of this unique relationship with Sasaki, a global design firm. The projects represented 30 organizations and institutions, 5 Boston communities, 4 Greater Boston cities, 1 Gateway City, and multiple proposals focusing on Greater Boston.

“We have a fantastic jury, representing a wide range of life experiences and Boston area organizations: Lyft, Northeastern University, Sasaki, Toole Design Group, and Tufts University, who will evaluate the teams on the design, equity, inclusion, innovation, and impact of their ideas,” says Elaine Limmer, Jury Chair and Vice-chair of the Sasaki Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “We're excited to hear from the incredible teams that proposed ideas for this year's Design Grants at Pitch Night. We welcome all to join us at 110 Chauncy on June 1!”

 

The 2023 Design Grant finalists are as follows:

 

Building Food Resilience through Urban Container Gardening from the Comfort of Home

Community: East Boston

Focus Area: Innovation in Health and Wellbeing

The Harborkeepers proposes Building Food Resilience through Urban Container Gardening from the Comfort of Home, addressing food waste and food resiliency challenges in East Boston through a series of educational and problem-solving workshops and activities focused on growing food in limited urban housing spaces, such as people's homes, terraces, or even inside from their window sills, as a way to address that people in densely populated urban communities may not have access to local community urban gardens or yards to grow their own fresh and healthy produce.

1975: a Healing Memorial

Community: Fields Corner, Dorchester

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

2025 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war in Việt Nam and the beginning of a significant Vietnamese diaspora. 1975: a Healing Memorial aims to reclaim narratives often told about the war in Việt Nam and pay homage to the families of the Vietnamese diaspora. The project will result in the installation of a permanent memorial in Boston's Little Saigon Cultural District as a site of recognition, the celebration of the Vietnamese diaspora, and the offering of a shared space for the healing of traumas from the war and the long journeys away from the homeland.

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0: Reimagining Public Housing with Childcare in Mind

Community: Boston

Focus Area: Creative Community Building, New Models for Housing, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0 is a unique opportunity to bring together family childcare providers, families, neighbors, and affordable housing property managers in a way that expands access to childcare, creates opportunities for economic mobility for public housing residents, and enhances affordable housing spaces. In three design sessions, participants will reimagine and codesign common green space in one Boston Housing Authority development as a site inclusive of care for young children.

A Memorial Garden to Remember the Unhoused Community

Community: Cambridge

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

A Memorial Garden to Remember the Unhoused Community is a collaborative process to design and install a memorial garden for people in the On The Rise community — current and formerly unhoused women, trans, and nonbinary people — who have passed away.

Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury

Community: Roxbury

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury is both a storytelling and practical information project on the current and past fights for community land development, how to develop land, and how to apply for rental and homeownership opportunities. Roxbury is a rapidly gentrifying, predominantly Black, working-class community in Boston. The multimodal document will serve as a conversation starter within the community, to help connect people to advocacy resources and share their own stories. The guide will help with creative community building, using art and storytelling to enhance community planning.

Improving Open Space in Chinatown

Community: Chinatown

Focus Area: Creative Community Building, Innovation in Health and Wellbeing, Proactive Approaches to Climate Adaptation, Environmental Justice

Chinatown Community Land Trust (CLT) seeks to improve and expand open space in Chinatown, Boston's densest and hottest neighborhood. Chinatown CLT will engage designers in supporting community planning efforts to secure community governance and improvements for Reggie Wong Park, to advocate for a new community-oriented park in Parcel 25 development, and, longer term, to advance the vision for a green space next to the future Chinatown Library. Chinatown CLT is also part of the Chinatown HOPE initiative, which is focused on moving the Phillips Square public space into a second phase community design process.

Movement Training and Cultural Center: Envisioning Hope

Community: Revere and beyond

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Ayni Institute is an organization rooted in the working class, immigrant, BIPOC communities and Indigenous wisdom. Boston's rapid gentrification and the pandemic have displaced the organization and impacted its ability to train leaders in social change. To address this, the Ayni Institute committed to jointly buy a building with Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE). Recently, the partnership raised funds to purchase a 4,500 square foot building in Revere with the capacity to house trainings and a cultural center, and serve as a regional movement hub, providing inclusive and strategic meeting space for movement leaders.

The Roxbury DIF: Centering Community Voice through the Lens of Arts and Culture

Community: Roxbury

Focus Area: Creative Community Building

The Roxbury DIF (district increment financing) project focuses on a neighborhood that has borne the brunt of longstanding strategic disinvestment. Roxbury is currently seen as an important part of the city's rapid growth plan. Located in the geographic center of Boston, Roxbury plays a critical role in all aspects of the city. With the most buildable lots, Roxbury has become the stage for a rapidly shifting landscape. Establishing the Roxbury DIF will provide key stakeholders with a mechanism to channel city funds back into the district and will put decision making power in the hands of residents.

 

If you would like to attend Pitch Night on June 1, please register. We hope to see you there!

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Sasaki Foundation Releases 2022 Annual Report

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the power of design
belongs to all of us
2019 SEED high school internship
Incubator at Sasaki | Watertown, Massachusetts
the power of design
belongs to all of us
Team at the Incubator at Sasaki
Watertown, Massachusetts
the power of design
belongs to all of us
Team at the Incubator at Sasaki
Watertown, Massachusetts
the power of design
belongs to all of us
Patron touching art in the Please Touch the Art exhibit
Mosesian Center for the Arts | Watertown, Massachusetts | photo courtesy Matt Jatkola

The Sasaki Foundation fosters equity and inclusivity by engaging diverse groups and individuals in the design of the environment. We sponsor research and programs that empower communities and strengthen education in design.

Events

Erasure of Indigenous Culture by Design

July 26, 2023

Join the Sasaki Foundation for a panel discussion with Indigenous community leaders on the historical erasure of Indigenous peoples through planning and design. We are honored to welcome Jean-Luc Pierite, President of North American Indian Center of Boston; Erin Genia, Artist-in-Residence at the City of Boston; and Amira Madison, the Supporting Indigenous Communities Fellow at the City of Boston to talk about the effects of urban planning and architecture on the natural environment and how design has helped to shape society’s awareness and understanding of Indigenous people in our city. Reflect on how actions to decolonize architecture and planning processes can restore the landscape of Boston.

What we do

The Sasaki Foundation is committed to empowering communities by tackling the issue of inequity in design. The Foundation works with communities, civic leaders, practitioners, educators, and others to support research and programs that diversify the voices involved in shaping the built environment.

1

Research & Experimentation

Complex challenges—such as climate change adaptation, affordable housing, mobility and transit access, and community building—require interdisciplinary approaches by a diverse set of stakeholders.

2

Community Learning & Engagement

Meaningfully engaging the public in the design process offers the greatest opportunity for success in sustaining communities.

3

Professional Practice & Growth

Industries that have a diverse talent pool and an inclusive creative process are the most successful. A thriving design industry needs a pipeline of diverse, talented, and passionate practitioners.

History

In 2000, the Hideo Sasaki Foundation was established by Sasaki, a multidisciplinary design firm, and included a bequest from the family of Hideo Sasaki, an internationally renowned landscape architect who was admired for his teaching, critical abilities, and multidisciplinary approach to design. Today, the Sasaki Foundation carries forward Hideo Sasaki’s legacy by blurring the boundaries that separate practice and research, academia and industry, the profession and the public to co-create change to shape the built environment.

 

Hideo Sasaki

1970s