TWO SOMERVILLE PARKS WIN AWARDS

TWO SOMERVILLE PARKS WIN AWARDS

Chuckie Harris Park, Quincy Street Open Space and Mayor Curtatone honored by Boston Society of Landscape Architects

SOMERVILLE – Two of Somerville’s newest parks, Chuckie Harris Park and Quincy Street Open Space, won recognition at the annual awards gala of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects
(BSLA), the oldest and one of the largest landscape architecture
society chapters in the U.S., which also presented Mayor Joseph A.
Curtatone with its highest award for his leadership in design,
transportation and sustainability.

Landscape architects Eden and Will Martin of GroundView LLC won the
prestigious HONOR Award at the awards gala held on May 1 for the design
of  Chuckie Harris Park
in East Somerville, which opened in July 2013. Called “a quiet
revolution in playground design” by WBUR, the park is centered around a
‘Mountain’ design concept, as chosen by the community, that recalls East
Somerville’s historic Mount Benedict. The ‘mountain’ has a giant slide,
climbing equipment and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant
paths. Chuckie Harris Park also has a rain-style water-play feature that
doubles as a movie screen; riding toys in the play area designed to
look like Ford Edsels, which were built around the corner at Assembly
Square; seven new community garden plots; and a bocce court that
celebrates the new Americans who immigrated to East Somerville.

In addition to being a unique playground, the park incorporates
innovative sustainability features, capturing rainwater that flows into a
rain garden filled with plants, and water from the water-wall play
structure goes into underground pipes that passively water the street
trees. Chuckie Harris Park was funded through the federal Housing and
Urban Development, Community Development Block Grant Funds and a
Massachusetts Division of Conservation Services PARC grant.

Quincy Street Open Space,
which opened in January 2013, earned a Merit Award for landscape
analysis and planning for architects Weston Sampson and Cheri Ruane of
Spurr Design Studios and Wanted LLC. Located outside of Union Square
between Somerville Avenue and Summer Street, this project transformed a
city-owned “urban wild” created in 1989 through the Somerville
Conservation Commission, and tended to by neighbors, into a 5,000 square
foot sustainable woodland park. Quincy Street Open Space features three
terraced levels of plantings, including plants that were part of the
original park and replanted after the renovation, and two ADA accessible
boardwalks.

The park also features, in lieu of the common park benches,
Adirondack-style chairs made from recycled milk jugs. Curbstone
originally stockpiled during renovations of Somerville Avenue were
reused to create terraces across the site, and despite intensive
plantings, no new irrigation system was installed. Instead, an existing
water spigot allows caretakers to water Quincy Street Open Space’s
plantings, and the park features a sustainable drainage system so that
no water runs off into the sewer system, but stays within the park.
Quincy Street Open Space was funded through Community Development Block
Grants.

At the awards gala, BSLA President Tim Nickerson also presented Mayor
Curtatone with the BSLA’s highest award, the Award of Excellence. In
presenting the award, Nickerson cited Mayor Curtatone’s “exemplary
support of landscape architecture through his visionary leadership in
community-based design, revitalization of public parks and open spaces,
extensive expansion of alternate modes of transportation, and growing
sustainable practices throughout Somerville, Massachusetts.”