We’re proud to announce that Siqi Zhu has joined the ranks of certified planners. Siqi joined Utile three years ago, and has made significant contributions to our urban design and planning practice. Among his projects are the Acushnet Avenue Study, New Haven Mill River Planning Study, and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Master Plan.

Tim Love attended thesis reviews at Tulane from April 30^th to May 2^nd. Many of the projects dealt thoughtfully with wide range of issues facing New Orleans, including the threat of future storms, rising sea levels, and equitable approaches to residential development at the boundaries between gentrified neighborhoods and former industrial areas.

Utile is excited to be starting a study of the Round House site in Northampton, as reported in the Northampton Gazette:

The mayor said the Round House lot has been generating “buzz” this spring, including from a few developers who have contacted his office inquiring about the property.

“I’m excited about it,” [Mayor] Narkewicz said Friday. “Economic development has been one of the priorities of my administration … and we want to redevelop the property in a way that maximizes economic development benefits and keeps with character of downtown.”

Under the agreement with MassDevelopment, the agency will bring in a Boston urban design firm called Utile to study the site, meet with key community stakeholders and develop a request for proposals.

In addition to studying market conditions, primarily in the areas of housing and office markets, the firm will examine the city’s zoning and the site’s previous development effort before making recommendations.

The design firm will do this in consultation with the community, including neighbors and downtown businesses. Narkewicz said he hopes the resulting request for proposals will allow the city to meet its many goals for the site, including boosting tax revenue, creating jobs and enhancing the downtown business climate.

Tim Love spoke at the “Convergence: Research as Practice” conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Design on April 12.

The BRA and Utile kicked off the planning process for the Downtown Waterfront this week with a public meeting, walking tours, and a charrette. Approximately 200 residents, business owners, and community stakeholders attended the public meeting on Wednesday at the New England Aquarium IMAX theater; and about seventy people participated in the charrette on Friday at the Boston Harbor Hotel.

This two-year planning initiative seeks to refine and enhance Boston’s Downtown Waterfront — one of the most attractive and actively used waterfronts in New England – by developing a public realm and watersheet activation plan.

Tim Love and Matthew Littell are speaking at the New York Institute of Technology tonight on “Housing as Urbanism.”

The MIT Center for Real Estate was honored with a 2012 Award for Interior Architecture / Interior Design at last night’s Boston Society of Architects Design Awards Gala.

For the Fabrikator column on The Architect’s Newspaper website, Branden Klayko writes about the design and fabrication of the Harbor Islands Pavilion’s roofs.

We’re pleased to announce that the Utile blog made Architectural Record‘s list of 10 blogs to watch in 2013.

Boston-based Utile calls itself a design firm “built like a think tank,” and its blog reveals the substance of that tagline. Posts contemplate aspects of the historic constructed environment and comment on new buildings conceived by other architects, while others intimate a certain obsession with environmental graphics. In all, the blog pulls back the curtain on inspirations and musings.

Utile is working closely with Sasaki on a master plan for the Boston Convention  & Exhibition Center and its proposed expansion, a facility with 516,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space. Currently, Boston ranks 9th nationally in its ability to attract and conduct convention business. The master plan is part of a larger effort to make Boston one of the top five convention center destinations in the U.S. The Sasaki/Utile plan is primarily focused on how to locate new hotels and other development within a new mixed-use urban district that can serve for conventioneers, visitors from the metro region, and residents of nearby neighborhoods. The first stage of the implementation of the emerging plan was the issuance of a developer team request for proposals for two new hotels. As a result, the on-going planning effort will include real-time coordination with a selected developer team.