Click here to read our 2020 Year in Review.
A few thoughts about 2020 and 2021.
The People/Team
At the beginning of this new year, I would like to take a brief moment to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to the team here at Landworks Studio for their commitment to taking on with enthusiasm and optimism the myriad of challenges that 2020 presented to all of us. Despite those challenges, their contributions to the work, to the studio, to their local communities and to each other made this one of the most educational, memorable and inspirational years in the history of this small Studio.
And as dreadful as 2020 was from almost any perspective, it would be a mistake to too quickly put it all behind us, as it was the uniqueness of the situation(s) of 2020 that spawned an unmistakably unique spirit of innovation, discovery and adaptability, underscored by an enhanced and warming guiding spirit of empathy. It’s my hunch that these discoveries, adaptations and lessons learned will follow us into 2021 and beyond, enriching and enhancing our process of design in general and office culture in particular. As many others have done, we collaborated not only from our homes but from several different time zones, showcasing a commitment to the production of excellent work and to one another during the most unstable times. Though we continue to work across globe, we look forward to the time when we’re able to gather and celebrate this year’s accomplishments in person.
Interestingly, we owe to 2020 a big “thank you” for having instigated a renewed and intensified focus on the importance of communication and support of one another as a community. Clearly, the approach to the design of our shared landscapes will forever be altered by the events of 2020. Moving forward, how might what we’ve seen in our cities and towns over the past several months inform our approach to the design of public space and publicly accessible spaces as it relates to greater issues of social equity and access?
Design Context
Our decision to both purchase and then renovate the Quad here in downtown Salem, MA, is in part an extension of the trajectory of the work of our firm that has been evolving over the past several years: the focus upon the in-between zones, adjacencies and overlaps between public and private interests, where cogent dialogue between the two so often determines the quality and sustainability of the resulting public realm. The rationale behind our work here in the Quad is to test in the context of realtime urban experiences the interactions between the program of the Quad and our neighbors while facilitating unprecedented access through our site and between the Northfields Neighborhood and Downtown Salem and Salem Station. Whether through sharing of veggies produced in our garden, providing hang-out opportunities for neighboring families, projecting outdoor movies, or by just making the passage as interesting as possible, we have become familiar with our community and they with us. In turn, we all have grown to support one another over the course of this difficult year (smile, wave and visit) – a much needed expansion of the sense of community. As a group, we’ve been learning a lot and applying these lessons learned to our recent collaborations.
A Promising Year Ahead
In 2021, our team looks forward to continuing ongoing commissions and new projects throughout the United States and Internationally.
On the International front, we have several large-scale mixed-use and residential projects with Pao Huei Construction in Taichung, Taiwan, who throughout the years has put forth a tremendous effort in improving the public realm and streetscapes of the Seventh District, which continues to enliven the historic arts district as well as other neighborhoods in their great City. Along with Adele Santos and her team at Santos Prescott and Associates, we have been working with Shenzhen City Planning and other Agencies and Departments to hone ecologically principled strategies for urban growth. Our recent Mountain to Bay Framework Plan for the City of Shenzhen, China, is one of our most unique and dynamic collaborations, establishing ecological fabric and connectivity north to south through the city, providing habitat for the region’s local and migratory bird life, including reorganizing a section of the waterfront to create necessary ecological conditions to ensure the expansion of the wonderful Mangrove Preserve adjacent to our site. The final Framework Plan and Report will be published in the coming weeks. In Shanghai, the design process for our competition winning proposal ‘Crystal’ will begin shortly, a mixed-use project by CR Land and architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
Regionally, our work with highly creative developers in the DC area has yielded a series of high-rise building conversions from underperforming office buildings into innovative Live/Work communities. The latest in this series is presently on the boards: the renovation of 3 office towers into a mix of residential, work, and commercial spaces along with the conversion of an expansive parking lot into a public park continues into 2021 with construction to follow shortly thereafter.
On a more local scale, we are enjoying a new partnership with Kuth Ranieri Architects as together we address the complicated issues of sea level rise and coastal resiliency facing Rock Harbor in Eastham, MA, as a location for a new harbormaster’s house is determined. We’ll also be resuming work on the Provincetown Waterfront as well as on a large-scale project on the East Boston waterfront, where we completed the Master Plan this past Fall. Just yesterday, our work for a large-scale, mixed-use project in Waltham kicked off with our friends at CBT. We’re excited about the role this new project will have in completing an ecologically principled approach to linking a new development with an adjacent park and naturalized forest conditions, which otherwise wrap the perimeter of the site, engaging public access and integrating public programs and amenities.
From evolving the Framework of a large-scale Ecological Corridor in Shenzhen to a unique, mixed-use development in Waltham and many scales and places in between, Landworks Studio has been blessed with an exciting repertoire of projects on the books for 2021. For this we are extremely thankful. We are hopeful that the invaluable lessons provided to us in 2020 that informed the approach to our design process will continue going forward, and that these lessons with also continue to inform an enhanced focus upon the importance of place and community and upon a highly calibrated dialogue between proposal and context that will continue to provide the underlying ethos of our collective vision here at Landworks Studio. We look forward to our strengthening our ongoing collaborations with friends and embrace many new partnerships to come. Though we know that the tough times have followed us into the New Year and that many questions about the future still persist, we carry forward this momentum in the new year as together we face whatever may come.
Michael Blier, FASLA, RLA, Hon BSA