Alicia connected with Kannan Thiruvengadam, director of Eastie Farm. His team’s project, Eastie for Eastie, promotes using land pooling, land readjustment, and community land trusts as an alternative to displacement due to rising sea levels and intensifying development pressure in East Boston.
Alicia sat down with Mosesian Center for the Arts’ Aneleise Ruggles, Assistant Program Director, Matt Jatkola, Graphic Designer, and Karissa Coady, Patron Engagement Coordinator. Their project, Please Touch the Art, is a tactile art exhibit and companion humanities exhibit accompanied by a curator’s talk and panel discussion.
This project explores an approach aiming to reduce harmful algal blooms by enhancing zooplankton populations using floating wetlands. The goals are to create a visually impactful wetland installation, document the impact on zooplankton and water quality, and educate the public about the relationship between river ecology, pollution, and water quality in order to work toward a healthy and swimmable Charles River.
Alicia, the Foundation’s Program & Marketing Manager, sat down with two members of the Charles River Floating Wetlands project—Max Rome, PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University, and Vanessa Nason, Project Manager for the Charles River Conservancy.
This project explores an approach aiming to reduce harmful algal blooms by enhancing zooplankton populations using floating wetlands. The goals are to create a visually impactful wetland installation, document the impact on zooplankton and water quality, and educate the public about the relationship between river ecology, pollution, and water quality in order to work toward a healthy and swimmable Charles River.
This last month has been a special time in the Incubator at Sasaki, where the inaugural teams of researchers chosen through the Sasaki Foundation Design Grants program in September have come together to advance their project work. Projects range from creating a floating wetland in the Charles River – to crafting residential and workforce development opportunities for young women of color in Roxbury – to building community understanding about approaches to rising water in East Boston – to developing software to expand housing options throughout Boston – to creating an art exhibit that can be experienced without the benefit of sight just down the river in Watertown.
The Sasaki Foundation announced today its 2018 Design Grants Winners. If you’ve somehow missed all the buzz around them, the Design Grants are an annual competition held by the Sasaki Foundation to showcase projects that support and drive interdisciplinary innovation and empower our local communities. The winning teams are awarded $15,000 each, and are provided office space in the Incubator at Sasaki.
On September 26, the Sasaki Foundation held a Pitch Night for the Finalists in its inaugural Sasaki Foundation Design Grants competition. Over 140 people attended the event, which consisted of designers, entrepreneurs, investors, civic leaders, and corporate and non-profit leaders.
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April 2, 2025
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Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023-2024 Design Grants Research
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April 2, 2025
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Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023-2024 Design Grants Research
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Anna Scherling
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Check out our newly released 2023-2024 Design Grants Research Report to learn more about our fifth cohort's work, offering innovative solutions to address food resilience, access to childcare, environmental justice, community infrastructure, and gentrification, with an ongoing impact in Greater Boston and beyond.
In June 2023, the Sasaki Foundation awarded $52,500 to five community-based research teams, who spent the next ten months advancing and implementing projects that promote equity in design. The team members also met with Sasaki designers who provided design guidance and a deep breadth of knowledge about solutions to the challenges they faced.
The Sasaki Foundation continued to focus on community, housing, transit, health and wellbeing, and climate, under the theme of Shared Voices: Charting a Course for Community Action. This theme recognizes that multiple futures are at stake, and we can make a difference by acting now. The projects are already having a significant impact in their respective communities and will remain as open source research with links to the project websites, to help communities that may be tackling similar issues. Metrics highlighting the impact of these projects are included in the report.
Through our research grants, the Sasaki Foundation seeks to harness the power of design thinking to promote equity and empower local communities, tackling global challenges through local action. Our 2024-2025 Design Grants cohort is hard at work, and we launched the 2025 Design Grants call for proposals in February, with applications due on April 24 at noon. The program will continue to provide teams with access not only to designers at Sasaki—an award-winning international design firm—but also to the Sasaki Foundation's broad network of startups, designers and planners, community groups, artists, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs.
For more information about the work of the Sasaki Foundation visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming programs and opportunities.
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Mayor Wu announces applications for Boston's youth summer jobs program are now open
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[post_title] => Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023 Design Grants Research
[post_excerpt] => Check out our newly released 2022-2023 Design Grants Research Report to learn more about our fourth cohort's work, offering innovative solutions to address food resilience, access to childcare, environmental justice, community infrastructure, and gentrification, with an ongoing impact in Greater Boston and beyond.
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Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023-2024 Design Grants Research
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April 2, 2025
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Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023-2024 Design Grants Research
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Anna Scherling
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Check out our newly released 2023-2024 Design Grants Research Report to learn more about our fifth cohort's work, offering innovative solutions to address food resilience, access to childcare, environmental justice, community infrastructure, and gentrification, with an ongoing impact in Greater Boston and beyond.
In June 2023, the Sasaki Foundation awarded $52,500 to five community-based research teams, who spent the next ten months advancing and implementing projects that promote equity in design. The team members also met with Sasaki designers who provided design guidance and a deep breadth of knowledge about solutions to the challenges they faced.
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Through our research grants, the Sasaki Foundation seeks to harness the power of design thinking to promote equity and empower local communities, tackling global challenges through local action. Our 2024-2025 Design Grants cohort is hard at work, and we launched the 2025 Design Grants call for proposals in February, with applications due on April 24 at noon. The program will continue to provide teams with access not only to designers at Sasaki—an award-winning international design firm—but also to the Sasaki Foundation's broad network of startups, designers and planners, community groups, artists, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs.
For more information about the work of the Sasaki Foundation visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming programs and opportunities.
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Mayor Wu announces applications for Boston's youth summer jobs program are now open
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[post_title] => Sasaki Foundation Publishes 2023 Design Grants Research
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