Orchestrating Harmony at Symphony Park
KAREN EULER
Boston ’ s Symphony Park is a neighborhood park infused with public art , expressing its musical theme in a modern way . Residents and visitors have enjoyed it since it opened June 2015 . Like many successful city parks , its reimagined state came to be through community and neighborhood advocacy and artistic collaboration . Here is the story told through four individuals who made highly impactful contributions to the project : a civic advocate / organizer , a sculptor , and two landscape architects .
Civic Advocate : Marie Fukuda
Abutters to the park had been acting as the unofficial ‘ Friends ’ group for decades and residents of the three neighboring buildings maintained the park as best they could . Marie had been part of this loose coalition for many years . At the park opening last June , Marie said , “ We ( the Friends ) are so happy about the larger expanse of green space and the experience of going through the park . It is a real break from the surrounding urban landscape — it ’ s markedly different .”
When the group started their process , they looked mainly at deficits — at what was wrong . They knew about rusted fencing , trip hazards , and health hazards , so they asked for help for these issues . And at the same time , they picked out another problem , overgrown plantings , and applied for a matching grant for planting restoration . In order to get even these small improvements accomplished , approval from
Boston Parks was required . The small-scale project exposed the stakeholders to the process of landscape architecture .
By coincidence , just before the group started working directly with Boston Parks , they applied to COGDesign ( the community outreach group for landscape design ) who matched them with the pro bono services of Jon Pate , ASLA . Through working with Jon , they got an overall vision plan and useful conceptual iterations , and the entire project moved from a remediation model to a forwardthinking , visionary exercise .
The conceptual design resulting from working with Jon was approved by the chief landscape architect of the Boston Parks and Recreation Department , and the plan was endorsed by the parks commissioner . Marie notes , “ The owner could endorse a visioning process because they knew that having a landscape architect on board helped establish a plan that was both community-conceived and owner-approved .” This milestone in 2011 also served to formalize the Friends of Symphony Park and enable them to seek funding .
While working with Boston Parks , Marie and other members of the Friends group took great care to organize and communicate the project properly . Before each meeting , they publicized the event through direct communication with local businesses and institutions , publications , and community groups . They contacted the Mayor ’ s Office of Neighborhood Services and their city councilor to further publicize the meetings through those channels .
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