Activating Columbia Road: Reframing a Missing Link

Fulfilling the Promise:
Community Building & the Emerald Necklace
Boston Society of Architects, March-May 2017
In 2017, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA)
hosted a four-part community education
series with the goal of identifying community
building opportunities and an action plan for the
improvement of Columbia Road. 44 Events were
hosted at the BSA and open to the public. The first
event focused on the community context and
background, while the second and third events
brought in representatives from other domestic and
international greenway examples. The final event
focused on implementation strategies. The BSA
livestreamed these events and provided full videos
of these four events on their website for those
unable to attend.
After working on the 2024 Olympic Games bid
for Boston and mapping city-wide assets, CBT
Architects recognized the incomplete nature of
the Emerald Necklace, especially the connection
between Franklin Park and Moakley Park. They
decided to explore existing conditions along
Columbia Road and the meaning of completing
Olmsted’s great vision. Acknowledging that the
context of Columbia Road is very different from 100
years ago, they sought to reconstruct these ideas in
a contemporary way.
Kishore Varanasi, Director of Urban Design at CBT
Architects and the host of this event series, joined
our field project team for an interview. He thought
44 Boston Society of Architects, “Fulfilling the Promise:
Community Building and the Emerald Necklace.”
that the series was a well-run initiative, from the
selection of panelists to the timing of events. He
mentioned that the BSA was “looking for projects
that create engagement with the community.” 45 In
his view, the focus of this series was not to create a
design but to “create a conversation and define
the problem a little more.” 46 He also pointed out this
topic was worth researching, especially given the
fact that both Go Boston 2030 and Imagine Boston
2030 included the Columbia Road Greenway as a
priority.
Varanasi also discussed what he saw as obstacles
preventing the city from completing the Emerald
Necklace. He discussed the lack of funding as a big
problem and indicated that there is no consistent,
strong idea about what needs to happen to
Columbia Road. What’s more, communities
with distinct contexts may have completely
different concerns, so a comprehensive way of
understanding nearby neighborhoods is needed.
“Unless and until there is a more concrete way
of thinking about what needs to happen with
the corridor, there is really no concrete way
for the communities to engage.”
- Kishore Varanasi
As for public participation, on the one
hand, Varanasi thought they did have some
representation and attendance from surrounding
neighborhoods; on the other hand, he mentioned
that since this series was not a serious project, many
communities were not involved. Furthermore, he
admitted that if these events had been held in
the Columbia Road neighborhood, perhaps they
would have had better responses. He expressed
concern with resident perception of the project
and the difficulty of involving the community
without getting their hopes up.
Overall, Varanasi believed that the attendees
gained a great deal of knowledge and experience
from these events, which they could then bring
back to and incorporate into their professional
practice.
Figure 52: Outreach Image Used for Fulfilling
the Promise
45 Varanasi, interview.
46 Ibid.
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