BSA Foundation presents Common Boston 2017, a free architecture and design festival - June 3 and 4

Boston, MA The BSA Foundation will present the 2017 edition of the free open-house architecture and design festival Common Boston (CB17). Held during the weekend of June 3 and 4, CB17 will invite the public to discover, explore, and experience more than 50 buildings and places in and around Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline.

From innovative wood shops and rooftop gardens to 300 year old houses and Tiffany stained-glass adorned sacred spaces, CB17’s diverse range of festival sites will shed light on the great and hidden architecture of the city. The annual festival, free and open to everyone, will encourage residents and tourists to consider why design matters, while tapping into unique stories that illuminate the region’s vibrant communities. The festival attracts a huge public audience: in 2016,12,000 people attended the first open-house version of the 11-year-old festival.

The dParty, the kickoff event for CB17, has been scheduled for June 2, 6-9 p.m.

Hosted at BSA Space alongside The New Inflatable Moment exhibition, the launch event will feature utopian dreamscapes, an inflatable lounge, and tours by exhibition curator and past Common Boston chair, Mary Hale AIA. For more details and tickets please visit, architects.org/programs-and-events/common-boston-2017-dparty-utopian-visions.

This year’s festival partners represent a diverse variety of cultural and architectural spaces.

List of the 58 festival sites throughout Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline include the following:

Arnold Arboretum, Ayer Mansion, BNN Charles J. Beard II Media Center, Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building, Boston Architectural College, Boston Harbor Distillery, Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, Boston Public Market, BPL: Central Library in Copley Square, BPL: East Boston, BPL: Honan Allston, BPL: Hyde Park, BPL: Jamaica Plain, BPL: Mattapan Branch, Cambridge City Hall, Capt. Lemuel Clap House, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Church of the Covenant, Community Boat Building, Cooper Frost Austin House, District Hall, Eliot Burying Ground, Eliot School of Fine Arts, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, Ether Dome and the Bulfinch Building, Eustis Street Firehouse, Fenway Victory Gardens, First Baptist Church of Boston, First Church of Roxbury Meetinghouse, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Girard, Grain Wood Shop, Hibernian Hall, Hostelling International Boston, James Blake House, Kendall Square Roof Garden, L Street Power Station, Loring-Greenough House, Lunder Arts Center (Lesley University), Metropolitan Waterworks Museum, Museum of African American History, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (Northeastern University), Old North Church, Otis House (Historic New England), Shrine of Our Lady of Good Voyage, Paul S. Russell MD Museum of Medical History & Innovation, Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, South Street Farm (Groundwork Somerville), Trinity Church, Union Press, Vilna Shul, William Clapp House, YMCA of Greater Boston, Y2Y Harvard Square, ZUMIX.

#CB17 Instagram Photo Contest
?The #CB17 Instagram Photo Contest will launch at the dParty on Friday, June 2 and continue through Wednesday, June 7 at 11:59 pm. To enter, participants should take Instagram photos of the dParty and #CB17 festival sites and tag them using @BSAAIA, #IGBoston, and #CB17. Two winning photos will be selected guest judges from the BSA Foundation and IGBoston. A selection of entries will also be promoted on BSA Foundation’s Facebook page.

Common Boston is a program of the BSA Foundation. The open-house festival promotes appreciation of the built environment, inspires discussion about excellence in design, planning, and preservation, and broadens awareness of the rich architectural and cultural traditions present in diverse communities throughout Greater Boston. Common Boston connects designers and the public for more vibrant, sustainable, and equitable communities.

The goal of the BSA Foundation is to enhance public understanding of the built environment and the processes that shape it. With understanding, communities may be better equipped to enrich and preserve our physical and natural surroundings. The Foundation’s vision is to build a better Boston by engaging communities, inspiring vision, and provoking positive change. The Boston Society of Architects/AIA established the Foundation in 1971 with a goal of engendering in current and future generations informed commitment to sensitive, well-designed, humanistic environments. For more information, visit architects.org/foundation.

The Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA) reaches its sesquicentennial anniversary in 2017. That’s 150 years of design professionals working together to build often inventive and creative buildings for this city and for the people who live in it. For more information, visit architects.org.