Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge Receive 2012 Tucker Design Award

Seattle landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), together with Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge (CSS) of Boston, are the recipients of the biennial Tucker Design Award for 2012. GGN and CSS have been recognized for North End Parks, the three-acre park that was part of the “Big Dig” development in Boston, MA.

First presented in 1977, the Tucker Design Award is a nationally recognized architectural design award in both the building and landscape industries. The award program honors those whose work demonstrates excellence in concept, design, construction and use of natural stone.

“It is an honor for GGN and CSS to receive this award for work that was a joy for us to do. We fell in love with the North End neighborhood while designing the Parks, and I like to think that this emotion came through in the careful detailing of the stone” said Shannon Nichol, Director of GGN. “Our interest in the beautiful layers of hand-crafted materials in the nearby streets influenced the stone details in the Parks. The colorful, passionate personalities in the neighborhood also inspired our selection of dramatic, marble-like granite and the overall design for social interactions at every scale”.

North End Parks are built on the land of the I-93 tunnel roof, at the prime entry to one of Boston’s densest and most historic neighborhoods. The Parks are designed as a system of varied spaces that serve the finely scaled residential neighborhood, while forming together as one, a unified threshold piece at a grander civic scale.

This year’s juror’s for the Tucker Design Awards were Ripley Rasmus, Senior Vice President and Director of HOK St. Louis; Rae Price, FASLA, Peridian International, Newport Beach, CA; and Peter MacKeith, Associate Dean, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University St. Louis.

The 2012 awards are being presented today, May 11, in the Shoenberg Auditorium of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO.

Other distinguished projects receiving Tucker Design Awards in 2012 include: Nelson Byrd Woltz, Citygarden, St. Louis, MO; Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, The Center for the Advancement of Public Action, Bennington College, Bennington VT; HOLT Architects, P.C. Southworth Library, Lincoln Center Addition, Dryden, NY; Hartman-Cox Architects, LLP, Duke Divinity School Addition, Duke University, Durham, NC and others.