Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design
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COGdesign is a non-profit service organization
offering:
- quality
landscape design for community-based groups;
- meaningful
professional experience for student and practicing
landscape designers;
- volunteer
opportunities for those interested in strengthening
communities by creating and improving neighborhood green
spaces.
COGdesign clients include affordable housing, public and private schools,
neighborhood parks, Friends groups, churches, municipal
agencies, historic sites, and community gardens. (see
Map)
COG designers are trained landscape design
professionals and students who work pro bono on these
projects.
COGdesign serves as a facilitator between the
community organizations seeking landscape design
services and the landscape designers looking for
professional development opportunities and
community-based field experience. Projects may be undertaken by individual
designers, as studio projects at the Landscape Institute
of the Arnold Arboretum, by design students as thesis
projects, or as community events. Design services are available to community groups
which satisfy COGdesign’s eligibility requirements (client
FAQs) and at minimal cost to the client.
Our clients, the community organizations, benefit
from the innovative and creative work of COG’s
designers. The designers are engaged with projects that offer them
challenging field experience, portfolio material, and
the satisfaction that comes from improving the community
landscape. |
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NEWS
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SPRING GARDEN FEST and Plant Sale
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Celebrate the season with COGdesign in the Nursery Garden! Enjoy music, dance, and performance in the garden! Garden-centered activities for families, how-to demos in the garden, and talks for home gardeners of all levels. Shop for choice plants at reasonable prices. Professional gardeners to answer questions or consult with a landscape designer for a modest fee. All proceeds support the Nursery Garden for growing plant material destined for community green spaces.
Saturday, May 18, 2013, 10am – 2pm
on the grounds of the Espousal Retreat and Conference Center,
554 Lexington Street; Waltham, MA 02452
Garden Fest SPONSORS: Allegra Printing, Elephant Walk Waltham, Phil Mastroianni Tree & Landscape Corp., Waltham West Suburban Chamber of Commerce, Waltham Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Mass. Cultural Council, a state agency.
(Google
Map)
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Garden Journal for Spring
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This beautiful garden journal lists gardening tasks month by month. Add your own maintenance notes to personalize and record your horticultural observations.
Created by COGdesign for the thoughtful gardener, beginner or seasoned! My Garden Through the Year is available exclusively through COGdesign for $20 each.
How to Buy
Use the PayPal button at right or mail payment to:
COGdesign, 14 Buxton Lane, Waltham, MA 02451.
For a single journal, add $5 for S&H. For orders of two or more journals, add $2.50
S&H for each additional journal.
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New Vision for Peace Garden
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Egleston Square, Roxbury, March 2013 – Local residents, youth, and business people turned out for the Community Visioning events organized by the Ecumenical Social Action Committee, the Egleston Square YMCA, Egleston Square Main Street, and COGdesign. Once the question was asked, “What would you like to see in the Peace Garden?” many voices, many opinions, and many great ideas poured forth! COGdesign’s team of designers will be inspired by the community’s ideas as they develop a new design for this tired neighborhood park.
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Theater Seeks Green Retreat
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Charlestown, January 2013 – The Charlestown Working Theater owns a small unused and overgrown space with great potential. Gardens for Charlestown, a thriving community garden, is a neighbor. Landscape architect Carolyn Cooney is consulting to both organizations to help them develop the space for events and relaxation.
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All About the High Line
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December 2012 – Johnny Linville, Friends of the High Line’s Manager of Horticulture (center in photo), told a full house of COGdesign friends everything we wanted to know, on the ground and behind the scenes!
Left to right: COGdesign board members Carolyn Edsell-Vetter and Jon Pate, Johnny Linville, COGdesign board member Amy Voorhes, Landscape Institute director Heather Heimarck. Photo by Kathy Tarantola,
ktphotos.com.
All About the High Line Major Sponsors: Landscape Institute at the Boston Architectural College, The Elephant Walk in Waltham, NELDHA.
Sponsors: Boston Tree Preservation, Cavicchio Greenhouses, Derby Farm Flowers & Gardens, Gaudette Insurance Agency, New World Hot Sauce, Van Berkum Nursery, Warner Larson.
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Libraries in Need of Welcoming Spaces
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Brighton, November 2012 – Although this public library recently went through a major renovation, a small outdoor area was forgotten. Landscape designer Janis Porter is consulting with the Friends of the Brighton Branch Library to help develop a serenity garden for patrons.
East Cambridge, October2012 – The O’Connell Public Library, an important community resource tucked into a dense urban neighborhood, has a tiny front yard cut off from visitors by a large iron fence. At the request of the East Cambridge Open Space Trust, landscape architect Anjali Joshi and landscape designer Chantal Eide are helping to create a more inviting outdoor space.
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CONVERSATION with Tom McCarthy:
Innovating Parks for Universal Access
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Many state parks in Massachusetts offer adaptive features to visitors in wheelchairs which help them experience the joys of kayaking, skating, fishing, and other rigorous outdoor activities. For more than 25 years, Tom McCarthy has been improvising and innovating as the Director of the Universal Access Program for the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation.
>> Read the Conversation. (PDF)
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GARDENS & HEALING
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Arlington, September 2012 – The rain had stopped and the evening was gentle and dusky as Luminarium dancers quietly entered The Children’s Room garden. The garden, designed by David McCoy, was transformed into a performance space as the dancers interpreted grief and healing to the captivated audience. (The Children’s Room provides caring support to grieving children and teens.)
The evening continued with a screening of the amazing video-made-from-stills, A Garden Grows, by Kathy Tarantola, and a thought-provoking talk by landscape architect Rob Hoover. Hearty savories were provided by many local Arlington and Somerville restaurants.
> Watch the Youtube video
A GARDEN GROWS
GARDENS & HEALING was sponsored by the Arlington Garden Club, John’s Landscape Service, Inc., and Big Foot Moving & Storage.
>
The Children's Room project sheet (PDF)
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Celebrating 15 Years of Greening Communities
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Mitchell School Courtyard design and illustration by Alice Evans
During 2012, join COGdesign in a retrospective look at
the process and outcome of community greening projects
– developing partnerships, supporting clients'
missions, institutionalizing use and maintenance,
hearing from the users.
>>
Schedule of Events (PDF)
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OPEN HOUSE for OUTDOOR LEARNING
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Students in the Mitchell School
Outdoor Learning Center
MITCHELL SCHOOL
187 Brookline St.,
Needham, MA 02492
Thursday, JUNE 7, 2012
4:00pm - 6:00pm
The OLC Open House was sponsored by Terrascapes Landscape Design.
www.terrascapeslandscapedesign.com
Six years after the COG-designed Outdoor Learning Center (OLC) was installed in the courtyard of the Mitchell School in Needham, it is a vibrant and meaningful part of the school’s academic curriculum. The Mitchell School and COGdesign invited
the public to an Open House to see the OLC, meet
students and teachers, hear about curriculum
development, and how community-wide partnerships keep
the OLC thriving.
>>
Project Sheet (PDF)
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New Garden Days Ahead
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May 2012 - The new ornamental garden at the Roxbury YMCA is officially open for pleasure and learning! Designed by COGdesign and supported by many, the floriferous and leafy green space adds beauty to the neighborhood and supports the Y’s mission of social responsibility, healthy living, and youth development.
>> Plant List (PDF)
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CONVERSATION with Silvia Acosta:
Merging Practice with Study
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Rhode Island School of Design’s Professor of Architecture, Silvia Acosta, encourages students to see the integration of architecture with the needs of the community through hands-on projects like Blossom, a new community garden.
>> Read the Conversation. (PDF)
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Walker Center for Ecumenical Exchange
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May 2012 – Thanks to the generosity of McKinney Brothers Tree Services, the canopies of many mature trees at the Walker Center for Ecumenical Exchange, a new COGdesign client, received long overdue maintenance!
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New Raised Beds for Comfortable Planting
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April 2012 – COGdesign’s Nursery Garden now offers wheelchair accessible planting beds to volunteers! Thanks to Pine Street Inn’s Handy Works, a social venture program, three sturdy and elegant raised beds were designed, constructed, and installed as a new feature in the garden. The raised planters offer an alternative to gardening volunteers in wheelchairs or those gardeners for whom bending and stooping is challenging. The Nursery Garden is a source of hardy, ornamental plant material destined for community projects on a shoestring budget.
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Concord Prison Outreach
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March-April 2012 – A team of COG designers, Karen Longeteig, Susan Balleza, and Anne Smith, collaborated with Concord Prison Outreach, Inc. to enrich a horticulture program behind bars. The designers offered sessions to inmates in site analysis, measuring, design principles, and model-making. Under the direction of Correction Officers, inmates maintain the prison grounds and plant gardens.
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Vital Spaces, Vibrant Lives
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March 2012 – An audience of neighbors, designers, local elected officials, and green space advocates gathered in the Church Park Apartments Penthouse to hear a panel discussion about developing a new design concept for Symphony Park in the Fenway neighborhood. Organized by COGdesign and the Fenway Civic Association; sponsored by the New England Landscape Design and History Association (NELDHA).
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Embassy Park Design Competition
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Professional 1st Place: Herrera Nielsen Design, Brooklyn, NY
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Please see EVENTS &
NEWS for more special project events!
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