At the end of June, the Boston Society of Landscape Architects announced the winners of the 2020 BSLA Design Awards via a virtual ceremony. We are pleased to announce that Halvorson | Tighe & Bond Studio received three awards: the Analysis & Planning Merit Award for Climate Ready South Boston, a Design Merit Award for Quincy’s Hancock Adams Common, and a Design Honor Award for the MBTA Government Center Station Plaza.
Image from Climate Ready South Boston Report
Climate Ready South Boston—the district-wide coastal resilience plan developed in collaboration with the City of Boston by Arcadis, Halvorson, the Woods Hole Group, CivicMoxie, and Noble Wickersham—was recognized for its extensive data collection, rigorous exploration of resiliency options, and easy to comprehend graphics that “give a good view into the complexities involved in decision making.”
Covering a broad swath of land that includes the Fort Point Channel, Seaport, Marine Industrial Park, Reserve Channel, Castle Island and the South Boston neighborhood, Climate Ready South Boston identifies vulnerable resources and offers a variety of solutions to protect the residents, homes, and infrastructure while creating benefits that enhance the beauty of this heavily populated area. The landscape plan envisions an enhanced network of parks, pathways, and docks providing options for pedestrian, bicycle, and water transportation, paired with complete streets that connect to these networks to provide access to the waterfront, public transit, schools, parks, jobs, local businesses, and social services.
Hancock Adams Common (Photo by Ed Wonsek)
The transformative Hancock Adams Common, a multi-phase, multi-disciplinary effort that realigned Hancock Street in downtown Quincy to create a new promenade, park, and civic plaza honoring two of the city’s most famous inhabitants, John Adams and John Hancock, received the BSLA Design Merit Award. Commending the project’s “well-crafted, well-lit, nicely scaled spaces,” the BSLA jury called Hancock Adams Common “handsome and very nicely detailed.”
This complex, multi-phased public realm project involved extensive collaboration between the design team and several City departments as well as robust communication with the community, who supported and endured disruption to their downtown while the new Common was being built. The result is a celebratory, unified landscape that honors Quincy’s history and restores the connections between Old City Hall, United First Parish Church, and Hancock Cemetery.
MBTA Government Center Station Plaza (Photo by Ed Wonsek)
Lauded as a “well detailed and technically impressive solution to a very challenging site,” the plaza at MBTA’s Government Center achieved a BSLA Design Honor Award for bringing “trees and life into an otherwise empty plaza.” The jury commended the design’s ability to accommodate large groups while still being “appropriately scaled to create comfortable spaces.”
Halvorson’s design for the plaza works in conjunction with HDR’s new Government Center Station headhouse to respect the existing Brutalist aesthetic of City Hall Plaza while addressing the needs of 21st century pedestrians. New gathering spaces and a variety of seating opportunities welcome visitors to soak up the sun or enjoy lunch at bistro tables under the dappled shade of large canopy trees.
It is a huge honor to have our work recognized, and we appreciate the BSLA’s continuing dedication to celebrating projects that embody “careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environment.”