*Update: Uni Boston will launch Sat 7/19 at 11am with a very special guest. Details here. Join us!
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We’re pleased to announce that the Uni Project will launch a portable, open-air reading room for Boston’s 15-acre linear Greenway park this summer where people can sit, gather, and read great books. Last night, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced that the Uni was a winner in the first-ever Boston Public Space Invitational competition, sponsored by the city’s Office of New Urban Mechanics.
Thank you to the Uni design team at Höweler + Yoon Architecture. On the ground, we’ll be working with our partners the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, the Boston Public Library, and students from Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, who will staff the reading room as volunteers. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will help seed the reading room’s collection, and the reading room will be sponsored by the staffing agency Robert Half.
Here’s a video about the competition and a Boston Globe article. More press here.
Those of you who know our work over time as Boston Street Lab, will recognize this is something of a homecoming. Hello again Boston.
View our winning entry poster at full size.
Leslie attended last night’s Oscar-style announcement with two long-time board members of the Uni Project, Jared Eigerman and Willard Donham.
Leslie holding four PSI sweatshirts with Mayor Marty Walsh (L); William Driscoll, President, Robert Half (R)
What part of the Greenway and when?
Thanks for your question! We’ll be working on those details soon with the Greenway and our partners. Our goal is to travel the length of the Greenway, touching a variety of locations and communities along the park. Our immediate focus is the fabrication of the new reading room cart and benches, and also developing the collection and staffing. More to follow.
Update: the launch of the Uni in Boston will be at the Wharf District Park on the Greenway. July 19 at 11am with Mayor Marty Walsh.