The BSA Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization established by the Boston Society for Architecture in 1971 as a way to connect our profession to our community. We believe architecture is for everyone, and at the core of this belief is creating equitable ways of designing, collaborating, building, and living. We seek to inspire a shared vision and provoke change that improves the lives of Boston-area residents through programming and projects that result in progress you can see in and around Boston.

The BSA Foundation is organized around focus areas that collectively seek to connect the profession to our community to address issues related to climate change, social injustice and housing insecurity in our area.

K-12 Design Education

To help solve the problem of limited access to the profession (and an inequitable access at that), the BSA Foundation’s K-12 Design Education program builds awareness of and interest in architecture and design by providing opportunities for students from a variety of backgrounds ages 5-18. By using design as a tool to understand the built environment, and providing age-accessible, hands-on learning opportunities, students gain critical thinking skills, and the BSA provides pathways for interested students to pursue a career in architecture.

This year, BSA Design Education served over 2,500 K-12 students through programs such as Kindergarten Curriculum, OurBoston, KidsBuild!, Middle School Early Career Exploratories, Architecture/Design Thinking Week, and High School Internships.

Community + Collaborative Design

Community leaders and neighborhoods are often left out of the design/build process or lack the resources to effectively turn their needs into actionable ideas. While this problem is complex, Community + Collaborative Design addresses them in Boston’s built environment through connecting community stakeholders with spatial designers, amplifying community leadership to confront systemic inequalities, and leverage participatory design to create pathways for change in Boston’s neighborhoods.

This year, C+CD brought together over 100+ community leaders, designers, and activists to explore spatial justice principles and their application in practice and the region. Collaboration stretched to include six additional member firms, and established four new neighborhood-based partnerships in Roxbury, East Boston, Chinatown, and Revere.

All of this was accomplished through programs such as the Designing Just Futures Summit in September; the Meeting House design and visioning project in Codman Square, launched in collaboration with the Second Church of Dorchester, Emmanuel Gospel Center, and local stakeholders to reimagine community spaces in the historic church; and advancing the Woodrow Avenue Neighborhood Visioning project in partnership with Woodrow Avenue Neighborhood Association and the Mayor’s Office of Housing.

Housing Innovation

We are in the midst of a national and regional housing and climate emergency. Massachusetts faces a staggering 200k home shortage to meet state housing demand by 2030, there are systemic issues with the creation of affordable housing, and over 37% of all global emissions come from the building and construction industry.

At the heart of the BSA Foundation’s housing innovation work is the exploration of new, alternative, and experimental approaches to improving the quality and quantity of affordable housing in Boston. For almost a decade, the BSA’s Housing Innovation program has worked to advance housing access, affordability, and innovation through collaborations with housing advocates, developers, designers, and policymakers within the City of Boston.

Our work in 2024 included the culmination of the three-year Future Decker initiative with the City of Boston and the installation of a Future Decker Exhibition at BSA Space, co-hosted The Persistently Missing Middle event with Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and educated the AEC Community in advocacy via the MBTA Communities Act (in partnership with CHAPA).

In 2024, Housing Innovation worked to address this problem through strong partnerships with the Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab/Mayor’s Office of Housing, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Citizens’ Housing & Planning Association (CHAPA), Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP), Dain Research, Boston Indicators, and Utile. Other programs included hosting informative events and workshops for the State of Housing Design and MBTA Communities Act. Finally, the Future-Decker initiative engaged 54 participants and six eligible responses to the Request for Proposals, and will culminate in an exhibition detailing the current phase of the project.