This month, Family Design Day is all about skyscrapers! Boston, home to the Hancock and Prudential towers, is taking steps to elevate the city’s skyline. But how tall can architects and engineers actually build? Learn more about the architecture, science, and art behind what keeps the world’s tallest buildings standing and then, using a kit of parts, design and build your own skyscraper.
The Suffolk Downs Urban Design Workshop is the third in an ongoing series of Urban Design Workshops organized by the BSA Foundation. The workshops’ overall goal is to open up dialogue and stimulate thinking about the design potential of places with particularly significant and compelling opportunities.
The evening will include an introduction to the scope of and goals for the workshop, followed by a lively panel discussion moderated by Renée Loth, editor of ArchitectureBoston magazine. Suffolk Downs represents an opportunity to create a forward-looking 21st-century neighborhood that is equitable, diverse, environmentally aware, and in tune with shifting development trends.
Let your inner designer out and explore the playful side of architecture at this hands-on program for adults. Join other kids at heart and build amazing structures with BSA Space’s LEGO® collection, while enjoying beer, wine, snacks, and conversation.
Explore the creative universe of Lella and Massimo Vignelli, two of the most influential and well-known designers of all times. With interviews from luminaries in the world of design—from architects Richard Meier and Peter Eisenman to graphic designers Milton Glaser, Michael Bierut, and Jessica Helfand—this film takes the viewer into the Vignellis’ world, capturing their intelligence and creativity as well as their humanity, warmth, and humor.
Join us for another portrayal of one of America’s greatest architects: Richard Neutra. The Oyler House: Richard Neutra’s Desert Retreat explores how Neutra, considered the “father of California Modern architecture,” came to befriend this modest small-town family and how he was inspired by the site’s stunning desert setting, which Neutra compared with the grandness of the mystical Gobi Desert.
To most people, tarmac markings are hieroglyphics writ large: an obscure language that greets us as we glide down toward the earth. It is a code both intimately familiar and radically alien. On the Tarmac reconceives this code. Designer Dennis Pieprz Assoc. AIA and his photos, by freeing the tarmac from utility, allow new meanings to emerge, exploring poetry of line work and the ballet of human activity. This collection is about slowing pace and paying attention, but most important about seeking sublime moments in the everyday. The exhibition, presented by BSA Space in partnership with Sasaki Associates, features more
Don't miss the opening reception for White on White. This special event is the first opportunity to explore the exhibition while enjoying complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres.
This exhibition, by photographer Steve Rosenthaland in partnership with Historic New England, showcases rural New England churches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the early meetinghouses through the changing patterns of Greek and Gothic revivals, Rosenthal's black and white images capture what remains of the architectural gems around the region.
To most people, tarmac markings are hieroglyphics writ large: an obscure language that greets us as we glide down toward the earth. It is a code both intimately familiar and radically alien.
On the Tarmac reconceives this code. By freeing the tarmac from utility, designer Dennis Pieprz Assoc. AIA and his photos allow new meanings to emerge, exploring poetry of line work and the ballet of human activity. This collection is about slowing pace and paying attention, but most important about seeking sublime moments in the everyday.
Let your inner designer out and explore the playful side of architecture at this hands-on program for adults. Join other kids at heart and build amazing structures with BSA Space’s LEGO® collection, while enjoying beer, wine, snacks, and conversation. This month’s session is inspired by Canstruction’s 2015 theme: get inspired by Boston!
Image: Screenshot from EAMES: The Architect and The Painter
Watch an intimate film celebrating the creative genius of husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames, a couple widely regarded as America’s most influential designers. Best remembered for their Mid-Century Modern furniture, this documentary shows the influence that Charles and Ray had on other significant events and movements in American life, from the development of Modernism to the rise of the computer age.
Image: Stannard-Greensboro Methodist Church, Stannard-Greensboro Bend Methodist Church, Stannard, Vermont, 1888. Photographed 1972, Steve Rosenthal, cropped.
Presenting 40 images by Boston photographer and trained architect, Steve Rosenthal, this exhibition showcases rural New England churches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the early meetinghouse through the changing patterns of Greek and Gothic revivals, Rosenthal’s black and white depictions will trace the evolution of church styles in New England and capture what remains of these architecture gems around the region. The exhibition is organized by Historic New England.
2015 marks the 20th Anniversary of Canstruction Boston. The 2015 theme is "Celebrate 20 years in Boston!" Canstruction Boston is a charity event and exhibition in which teams of Boston-area architects, engineers, contractors, designers and students compete to display colossal sculptures made out of canned goods. After the sculptures are dismantled, all the canned goods will be donated to the Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell, Massachusetts.
From Trinity Church to Boston’s “high spine” of skyscrapers, explore how architectural photographers see the cityscape in this dynamic session suitable for beginner and intermediate photographers alike. During this intimate exploration of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, you will learn to produce memorable images that convey a sense of place and a connection to landscape and surroundings. Professional photographer Emily O’Brien will help you and other enthusiastic photographers see Boston in a whole new way.
Launching the 2015–2016 BSA Space Film Series: Keeping it Reel is Sukkah City. Go behind the scenes of a national design competition that challenged contemporary architects to design a radical sukkah, a small Jewish hut used for the holiday of Sukkot, using new and inventive materials and forms. Inspirational and compelling, Sukkah City is an in-depth chronicle of how architects approach design challenges and creative processes. Arrive early and engage your senses in Bigger than a Breadbox, Smaller than a Building, an exhibition that explores art installations and architecture. The exhibition closes October 4.
Hear the story of Gather restaurant and how it became the seaport’s most inventive eatery in the heart of the Innovation District. Designed with dual functions in mind, Gather is the resident full-service restaurant and bar at District Hall and supports the flexibility of the building by connecting to The Brew Café and the larger assembly space for public or private events. Operator Tom Shea of The Briar Group, and architect David Hacin FAIA and project designer Matthew Arnold Assoc. AIA of Hacin + Associates will discuss the unique challenge of designing a restaurant inside the nation’s first public innovation
The 2015 Design Biennial Boston, now in its 4th edition, is a program that foregrounds emerging architects, landscape architects, and designers who have created inspiring and innovative practices in Massachusetts. Following an open call for entries, four firms—Cristina Parreño Architecture, GLD, Landing Studio, and MASS Design Group—were selected in March 2015 by a jury of distinguished professionals and academics. In the months since, the firms have been preparing installations that are on view on the Rose Kennedy Greenway through September 25.
