On Monday, March 9, Mayor Marty Walsh will kickstart the process for possibly redesigning City Hall Plaza, one of Boston’s most notable architectural works because of its severe Brutalist design. A Request For Ideas will be made publicly available on the City of Boston website here for people to submit their own proposals.
In his inaugural State of the City address back in January, Mayor Walsh acknowledged that City Hall inadequately reflects the kind of next-generation creativity and innovation teeming among its residents and businesses.
“City Hall has to set the standard,” said Mayor Walsh in his address. “So we will put out a call to re-imagine City Hall Plaza as the thriving.”
The RFI, as seen below, is asking for Bostonians, urban planners, designers, architects, public-private partnerships and anyone willing to submit an idea for transforming the 200,000 square-foot open space plaza into an epicenter of “cultural, civic, athletic and commercial activities.”
As Haril Pandya, a Principal at the firm CBT Architects, posited in a BostInno editorial, “we have an opportunity to unlock [City Hall’s] full potential by giving meaning to that space by adding more art attractions, hosting more seasonal events and creating more pop-up shops, like Boston Brewin Coffee that recently opened up on the first floor of City Hall.”
Boston Brewin Coffee is City Hall’s first coffee cart to set up shop in the building’s third floor mezzanine. That space in particular has become a sort of blank canvas for civic tinkerers like the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics to experiment with engaging projects such as the temporary #WickedCoolTree installment.
The mezzanine stairs have also been bedazzled with bright colors as part of Liz LaManche’s vibrant Stairs of Fabulousness project.
Outside, the functionality of the plaza has changed significantly. No longer is it simply a public transit hub courtesy of Government Center Station (currently closed until 2016 due to extensive renovations).
Now it’s a venue; a destination for massive music festivals like Boston Calling, roller disco parties and sporting event viewing parties to name just a few.
The RFI is just the beginning of the process to re-imagine City Hall Plaza. It’s more of an informal means of gauging potential interest in the project and gathering information from a bevy of sources on how best to go about it.
Interested parties are encouraged to either submit their ideas using the City of Boston website, or to tweet them at @marty_walsh and @notifyboston using the hashtag #CityHallPlaza. Thoughts, comments and ideas submitted via Twitter could help inform Requests For Proposals should the city garner enough attention.
An informational meeting will take place in City Hall concerning the plaza’s redesign on March 25 at 1 p.m. in Room 608 to discuss more specific and in-depth items.
