Congratulations to Agustina Woodgate who is featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Agustina was a team member of the Kulturpark Berlin team just a couple of years ago. Kudos also go to Anthony Spinello of Spinello Projects in Miami, the master mind behind our outreach and grassroots fundraising campaign. We overcame great challenges along the way but prevailed thanks to the incredible support of an amazing community of creatives on both sides of the Atlantic.

Agustina ran the Kulturpark radio station during our Kulturpark project at the Spreepark, the abandoned theme park in Berlin's east. The newly developed master plan for the park envisions the first culture park in Europe––a vision we initially developed. She has been continuing to broadcast worldwide via her radioee.net.
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Download the 2019 Whitney Biennial Press Release.

Save the Harbor / Save the Bay bestowed its annual Boston Harbor Heroes awards at a gala evening held in the grand ballroom of the Seaport Hotel on March 29, 2018. Among others, the South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition was honored for its "vision, tenacity and commitment to connecting Boston's neighborhoods to Boston Harbor and each other." Under the leadership of coalition founder, Michael Tyrrell, the team of David Giangrande, Christina Lanzl, Ann McQueen, Tom Parks, the late Bill Pressley and his wife Marion, Candelaria Silva and Bob Wells envisioned the South Bay Harbor Trail (SBHT) ​as part of a larger trail network that connects the Southwest Corridor Park from Jamaica Plain to the Boston Harborwalk downtown and in South Boston. Buoys salvaged and reconditioned by the US Coast Guard serve as markers and a playful reminder of Boston's rich maritime history. Main goal is to reconnect communities divided by major traffic arteries via an easily accessible, multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path. The first of a series of SBHT Buoys was dedicated along the Harborwalk in Fort Point Channel in November 2008. Funding for public art planning along the trail was provided by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund of the City of Boston. Other funders include the ISTEA program, MassDOT, the New England Foundation for the Arts as well as private donors. Overall construction of the SBHT is underway as of spring 2018.

About the South Bay Harbor Trail
The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition, in partnership with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay, municipal and state agencies, partnered to plan and build the 3.5 mile-long, multi-use South Bay Harbor Trail which, when completed, will connect Roxbury, the South End, Chinatown, Fort Point Channel and South Boston to each other and to Boston Harbor.

The South Bay Harbor Trail is one of the most important and exciting initiatives in the city connecting our inland neighborhoods to Boston Harbor. The Trail will link people to the recreational resources of a revitalized Boston Harbor and to the economic opportunities of a prospering waterfront. Residents from Boston’s diverse neighborhoods will have the opportunity to share in a cultural exchange.
 
The South Bay Harbor Trail will provide an important link in the larger transportation network by connecting with existing streets and trails such as the Southwest Corridor and Melnea Cass Boulevard. It will also serve as a critical link in a citywide greenway, connecting trails from Fenway, the Southwest Corridor, Charles River Park, Broadway Bridge, Fort Point Channel and the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
 
The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition includes community groups, environmental organizations, the City of Boston, property owners, developers, and residents. It is governed by a steering committee which is comprised of coalition members representing every neighborhood through which the Trail will pass. The Coalition receives organizational, fundraising, and technical assistance from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. 
 
The Coalition worked together with Pressley Associates, a Cambridge-based landscape architecture firm, and Design Consultants Inc., a Somerville-based engineering firm, to develop the engineering and design master plans that will link various completed segments of the trail into a contiguous, single trail system/experience.

Wentworth Institute of Technology | Spring 2018 Faculty Showcase
Watson Hall | March 15, 2018

Wentworth Institute of Technology organizes the annual Faculty Showcase to celebrate and recognize the accomplishments of  faculty. Fifty faculty showcased 34 examples of excellence and creativity with teaching, scholarship, EPIC, grants, sabbaticals, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Organized by the Provost Office and Learning Innovation & Technology, participants hosted information tables to illuminate services and resources.

Dr. Christina Lanzl, Adjunct Professor of the Department of Architecture and Director of the Urban Culture Institute presented Placemaking in Action: EPIC Making in the Classroom. The exhibit offers documentation, outcomes and insights in the power of interdisciplinary, collaborative learning. Surveyed are three seminars from the past two years that focus on placemaking and art-in-architecture, an investigation of urban placemaking within a hands-on learning platform that combines theory with the making of successful places on and off campus. Focus and outcomes are cultural mapping, idea competition and exhibition projects developed by Wentworth senior and graduate students (two funded by EPIC Mini Grants).

Architecture student Shuxin Huang, Dr. Lanzl's spring 2018 co-op student, assisted. Thank you to Don Tracia, Tes Zakrzewski and the entire Provost Office and Learning Innovation & Technology team for incredible support.

Christina Lanzl and Anne-Catrin Schultz presented a faculty lecture on placemaking, which introduced the Placemaking Manifesto, which they co-authored and issued together with Robert Tullis and members of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA Placemaking Network in fall 2017. Lanzl and Schultz highlighted placemaking principles outlined in the Manifesto by discussing a series of case studies from their professional practice.​

The Lunchtime Conversation faculty lecture series is coordinated by Associate Professor Antonio Furgiuele, Department of Architecture within the College of Architecture, Design & Construction Management at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts. 

The World Metrorail Congress Americas took place at The Inn at Penn Station in Philadelphia on June 28 and 28, 2017. The conference surveyed strategic discussions related to light rail planning and management in metropolitan areas. Sandra Bloodworth, Director, MTA Arts & Design, Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City chaired the roundtable, Ridership Engagement: The essential role of art and design in engaging your ridership and communities. Presenters included Katherine Dirga, Program Manager Arts Administration of MARTA in Atlanta GA, Elizabeth Mintz, SEPTA Director of Communications, Philadelphia artist Ray King as well as Caitlin Martin, Media Communications Manager of the Association for Public Art in the conference city. Christina Lanzl of the Urban Culture Institute’s contribution to the conversation focused on questions related to placemaking in transportation planning:

• How can public transportation agencies work towards better services and policies in the U.S. that support placemaking and a high quality public transportation environment?
• What is the future of digital applications in public transportation art and placemaking projects? Can an overload of visual and sound/noise stimulation deteriorate the ridership experience?

Lanzl laid out the benefits of an integral, holistic perspective and multi-disciplinary approach that leverages placemaking, the arts and culture to enhance abutting communities through collaboration. The goal is to improve quality of life and to create opportunities for neighborhoods, businesses, organizations and individuals/residents.