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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation

The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) is committed to professional development for its members, advocacy on behalf of great design, and sharing an appreciation for the built environment with the public at large. Established in 1867, the BSA today consists of more than 3,500 members and produces a diverse array of programs and publications, including the annual tradeshow and conference, ArchitectureBoston Expo (ABX) and ArchitectureBoston magazine. A chapter of the American Institute of Architects, The BSA is a nonprofit, professional-service organization. ~ The BSA Foundation seeks to enhance public understanding of the built environment and the processes that shape it. With understanding, our communities will be better equipped to enrich and preserve our physical and natural surroundings. Established in 1984, the BSA Foundation supports activities that illuminate the ways that design improves the quality of our lives. Foundation programs reach Boston’s children and families, residents and community groups, as well as policy makers, urban planners, students, and visitors. The BSA Foundation’s vision is to build a better Boston by engaging communities, inspiring vision, and provoking positive change. >>Watch this video to learn more. ~ Both organizations are located at BSA Space at 290 Congress Street at Boston's Ft. Point Channel. BSA Space, which is free and open to the public, features more than 5,000 square feet of gallery space for creative explorations of the potential of design to inspire, create community and transform the world we inhabit.

http://www.architects.org/

  • In the Spring and Summer of 2015, as Boston shaped its bid to host the 2024 Olympic games, the MIT School of Architecture and Planning hosted a discussion addressing the city’s transportation future, upgrades to the Green and Red Lines, and conversations about transportation alternatives. Panelists discuss how Boston 2024’s efforts can continue the city’s path towards identifying and implementing new transport solutions for the future. **Boston Futures: 2024 and Beyond** Boston Futures is a community discussion series about the future of Boston and how Boston’s Olympic and Paralympic bid might help us achieve a shared vision for that future. Free and open to the public, these conversations will explore how hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024 could help catalyze progress on key initiatives and ideas that will define Boston in the year 2030, the city’s 400th anniversary, and beyond. Boston Futures is co-organized by Boston 2024, Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation, Boston Society of Landscape Architects, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Northeastern University School of Architecture, ULI Boston, and The Venture Café. To learn more, visit the [Boston Futures: 2024 and Beyond](http://www.architects.org/programs-and-events/boston-futures-2024-and-beyond "") series page.
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • In the spring of 2015, when Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced the launch of Boston’s first citywide planning process in 50 years, he began a two-year public engagement process to create a roadmap for success leading up to Boston’s 400th birthday. He called it _Imagine Boston 2030_. The Mayor encouraged residents to visit Imagine.Boston.gov and get involved in the conversation. The Mayor made the announcement at the [Innovative Design Alternatives Summit (IDeAS)](http://www.architects.org/programs-and-events/ideas-innovative-design-alternatives-summit-%E2%80%93-day-1 "") at Faneuil Hall. Through Imagine Boston, the City hopes to take a more dynamic approach to community engagement than has been done with planning efforts in the past. As a first step to inform the process, Mayor Walsh is asking community members to share their preferences for how they want to be engaged by completing a short online survey on the website, and to join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #ImagineBos. Imagine Boston 2030 will be a multi-phase initiative over the next two years. Starting with an evaluation of baseline conditions, Boston expects to begin a more robust public visioning process in the fall of 2015, where community members will be able to contribute ideas to shape Boston’s future. A final plan is expected to be adopted in Summer 2017. While design and architecture is the focus of IDeAS, the summit also serves as an opportunity to discuss planning the future of Boston more broadly. In this video, a panel drills down on planning as part of a day-long series of discussions at BSA Space on Congress Street. _IDeAS is sponsored by The Boston Foundation, Boston Society of Architects Foundation, and Autodesk. _
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • One hundred and thirty years after Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace re-shaped our city, Boston 2024 has taken a fresh look at Boston’s public spaces—proposing new athletic facilities in several public parks and the completion of the Emerald Necklace as a part of the Olympic legacy. What are the possibilities for Boston’s public realm beyond 2024? What roles can landscape play in defining and activating the Boston of tomorrow? How can new environmental challenges, new forms of recreation and leisure, new technologies, and new ideas about public space and the public realm shape the contemporary city and the social spaces that make it work?
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • The boundary between Boston’s public and private spaces is not a bright line but a negotiable realm of partnerships and special arrangements. Private and commercial interests are increasingly responsible for nominally “public” areas and benefits that may be unknown to the average citizen—especially along the waterfront. In association with the publication of "Public/Private," in the latest issue of [ArchitectureBoston](https://www.architects.org/architectureboston/publicprivate "") the BSA/AIA hosted this public forum to further discuss some of the issues raised in the magazine. (Photo: [Soe Lin/Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/soelin/6347554553/ ""))
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • The Boston Society of Architects challenged four interdisciplinary design teams, led by Brian Healy FAIA, Eric Höweler AIA, Beth Whittaker AIA, and the BSA Emerging Professionals Network, to suggest new housing plans for a parcel in Dorchester, MA. The idea was to answer Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's call to create 53,000 new workforce housing units by 2030. The site, on Dorchester Avenue (between the Broadway and Andrew MBTA Red Line stops), is uninhabited, convenient to two T stations and large enough for fourt distinct projects. The designs each team presented answered a mulititude of questions, from how many parking spaces to work with, to lving in your work space, to community gardening programs that would provide extra elbow room to micro-unit dwellers. **See Part One**: [Urban Design in Dorchester](http://forum-network.org/lectures/housing-urban-design-discussion/ "")
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • Mayor Martin Walsh has outlined a vision of a Boston that is “thriving, healthy, and innovative,” charging that our built environment should reflect “a culture of imagination.” What does innovative design mean for Boston architecture and for its architects? Attorney Michael Ross moderates a diverse panel that includes a developer, an architect, a landscape architect, and a Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) board member to discuss opportunities for innovative design in a 21st-century city and how new thinking about municipal processes, private development, and design practice will get us there. (Photo: [werkunz/Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz/4608613719/ ""))
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • A new BSA Urban Design Workshop took place on March 30, exploring solutions to Mayor Walsh’s housing initiative. The evening included an introduction to the scope of and goals for the 3-day workshop, followed by a diverse panel discussion moderated by Renée Loth, editor of ArchitectureBoston magazine. The panel tackled issues of housing, the redevelopment of brownfield districts that still contain vital businesses, and other issues germane to the design challenge. The Housing Urban Design Workshop is the second in an ongoing series of urban design workshops that follow a similar format of a public panel discussion, closed-door professional team charrettes, and a public presentation of the teams’ ideas. This workshop applies the housing topic to sites along Dorchester Avenue (between the Broadway and Andrew MBTA Red Line stops). Four interdisciplinary design teams, led by Brian Healy FAIA, Eric Höweler AIA, Beth Whittaker AIA, and the BSA Emerging Professionals Network, will create innovative site proposals. Forthcoming workshop topics include the future of the workplace and the urban realm. **Part Two**: [Rethinking Boston's Housing Stock](http://forum-network.org/lectures/rethinking-bostons-housing-stock/ "")
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • From Kuwait City to Singapore, US architecture firms are realizing an increasing share of their commissions from projects abroad. This raises immediate, sometimes delicate questions: What is the responsibility of US architects to sustainability, to the local workforce, to a country’s design aesthetic? What can we learn from the developing world? Join 2015 AIA Gold Medal winner Moshe Safdie FAIA and other Boston-area architects for a wide-ranging discussion. Read Renée Loth's interview with Moshe Safdie in [Architecture Boston](http://www.architects.org/architectureboston/articles/conversation-citizen-world "AB Magazine"). Photo: [Safdie Architects](http://www.msafdie.com/# "")
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • The Designing Boston conversation hosted by the Boston Society of Architects focused on the U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision to back Boston as the host for the 2024 Olympics. As former Boston city councilor Mike Ross said during a recent interview, “[The Big Dig] changed the shape and face of Boston and... the Olympics will do the same thing.” Focusing on the role that architecture has (or has not) played in making previous Olympics successful, Ross moderated the panel discussion and dived into lessons learned by architects and planners with past Olympic experience in such cities as Seoul, Beijing, Sydney, and London. This event launches a series of conversations and debates related to potential roles, responsibilities, and opportunities available to architects, planners, and developers as this huge and exciting undertaking unfolds. The BSA Urban Design Committee co-hosted this event. Image: [Boston à lheure bleue, Emmanuel Huybrechts, Creative Commons License, modified.](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boston_à_lheure_bleue_(4769294947).jpg "")
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation
  • Architects, designers, politicians, city planners, advocates, students and Boston-area citizens convened at the **Boston Society of Architects/AIA** space on Congress Street to discuss how the city and state will cope with inevitable sea level rise and future flood events. Learn about the history of Boston's sea walls, the natural barriers that protect Boston Harbor and see some futuristic plans for how to manage living in a part of town that could someday flood during high tide. **Boston City Council member Mike Ross** emceed the event, designed to explore Boston’s evolving relationship with the ocean—both in how we built up the shorelines over the past three centuries and what that means as we face present-day sea-level rise. Issues addressed include which low-lying areas we need to start thinking about now, what we can learn from neighborhoods such as the Back Bay that were created from historic wetlands, and when designing new sites, what mu​st be considered.
    Partner:
    Boston Society of Architects/AIA and the BSA Foundation