Boston Design Vision

The Boston design vision seeks to understand how buildings and outdoor spaces can better support Bostonians' sense of belonging and identity citywide.

The BPDA’s Urban Design team understands that a person's sense of self is influenced by the streets, buildings, and outdoor spaces in the City and their neighborhoods. This includes how the city looks, feels, supports movement, and how it builds community.

We are interested in learning how design can help shape the growth in our city to serve our people.

Understanding these physical characteristics for our city will support new ways in which we can support a sense of belonging for communities.

This will inform how future spaces are designed and communicate what is important for communities to thrive, and promote equitable growth and development.

Working with Agency Landscape + Planning and the Boston Planning and Development Agency, we formulated an interactive activity for Boston residents to share their experiences in the City, capturing ephemeral aspects and seasonal activities to household number and housing typology. This is the mad-libs style activity that was available in printed form and also in an online format shared via the BPDA’s project webpage. We hosted one pop-up in each neighborhood, Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Chinatown, where we collected residents’ experiences and desires for Boston’s future via the mad libs activity and a mapping activity led by Agency Landscape + Planning. In total, 77 responses were collected from a variety of ages, races, and neighborhoods to inform the Boston Design Vision and impending policy. The final results of the Boston Design Vision are still pending