Jurors
Mahesh Daas DPACSA (CHAIR)
president
Boston Architectural College (BAC)
Karin Brandt
founder & ceo
CoUrbanize
Michael Chavez NOMA, NCARB, LEED AP
project development manager
YouthBuild Boston
Philip Chen FAIA, LEED AP
principal & president
Ann Beha Architects
Aisha Densmore-Bey Assoc. AIA
principal
Aisha Densmore-Bey, Designer
Jason Forney FAIA, LEED AP
partner & principal
Bruner/Cott & Associates
Kelly Haigh AIA
partner
designLAB architects
Amy Longsworth
director
Boston Green Ribbon Commission
Rhiannon Sinclair
senior urban planner
Agency LP
Rose Mary Su
principal consultant
Acentech
Jury Overview
Connection, community, courage, and craft are the themes that unify the quintet of finalists for the 2021 Harleston Parker Medal. While the projects come in different sizes and scales, they actuate our senses and define beauty in amazingly diverse ways. The architects and their teams of professionals have taken creative risks that translate into novel experiences of beauty. They pushed the envelopes of possibility with great subtlety and artistry that fill our city and its people with delight.
The diverse projects include an ethereal and ephemeral cloud canopy that crossed the boundaries between art, performance, architecture, urban design, and engineering to knit a vast swath of urban public space while enthralling and rousing the imaginations of thousands of people; a couplet of concrete canopies formed by the flows of rain water and the larger geography to punctuate people’s journeys to Boston’s islands; a housing project that elevated an entire community to form a constellation of institutions to uplift them and transform them through their life journeys; an academic building that employs design and craft to deftly transform an existing structure in a constrained context into a magical place where the academic community could find inspiration in small as well as big spaces; and a multifaceted art museum that harnesses light and elevates experiences of the public and the professionals to find an elegant solution to a tricky riddle of finding that space between architectural icons, institutional and residential neighbors, an adaptive interior and an historical context, and beauty evidenced in every detail, an architectural experience of timeless delight.
These projects were championed by a cadre of discerning clients who collaborated closely with their architects. The jury commends their passion and commitment to excellence in the way they joined the architects in their respective presentations to the thoughtful and diverse jury.