that no longer reflected the character of the City . Pulaski Park had simply become a maintenance eyesore in the center of downtown Northampton . It was through the progressive foresight of the City Engineer , Jim Laurila , of the Department of Public Works ( DPW ), that the design process was jumpstarted . In 2007 , the DPW issued a competition brief inviting Landscape Architects to submit entries for the re-design of the Park . Stephen Stimson Associates ( SSA ) entered and was selected as the winning firm . After much initial excitement , the project was shelved due to lack of funding . It took three diligent years for the DPW to secure funding through the Community Preservation Act and a Massachusetts PARC Grant . Five years later in December 2012 , SSA got the call from the City Engineer to begin design work .
Design Process : Learning the City All Over Again
The project was very transparent and inclusive during the Schematic Design phase : SSA led a series of public meetings and workshops in downtown Northampton to gauge the mindset of locals concerning Pulaski Park . Many of us in the SSAstudio had gone to UMass Amherst or grown up in the area and , although , we felt familiar with the site and the character of Northampton , we knew we had to get to know the City all over again in a more intimate way . We had to win the trust of the public , because this Park was heavy with baggage and , although in desperate need of improvements , it was still much-loved by the public and the community . Everybody had an opinion and an attitude about the future of the Park : what needed to be saved , what was significant , what needed to change . While less than one acre in size , the site had become a collection of gathering spaces and activity , such as summer concerts ; passive play on the small lawn area ; a tiny playground with off-the shelf plastic equipment and a makeshift sand pit ; a holiday tree for winter festivities ; and an extremely popular bus stop that
The Park had a little bit of everything for everyone , and how to capture and bring this forward for the next fifty years of life in this Park became a primary goal for the project .
Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook
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