2023 Design Grants Final Presentations

Our 2023 Design Grants teams will present their projects, highlighting all the amazing work they’ve done so far and what is next for each project. We hope to see you there!

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0: Reimagining Public Housing with Childcare in Mind

EarlyEducatorSpace 2.0 from the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) 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 BHA development as a site inclusive of care for young children.

Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury

The Survival Guide to Living and Staying in Roxbury from Reclaim 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.

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

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.

Improving Open Space in Chinatown

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

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.