Community Landscape Design

COGdesign is a non-profit service organization that

• Connects community groups with quality and landscape design that responds to the community’s needs
• Generates meaningful professional experience for student and practicing landscape designers
• Creates volunteer opportunities for anyone interested in strengthening communities by creating and improving neighborhood green spaces.

COGdesign connects underserved communities with the technical design assistance they need to bring healthy, attractive, and useful open space to their neighborhoods.

Participatory Design

COGdesign promotes public participation in the planning and design process and encourages understanding and ownership of the project. This involvement empowers and educates our nontraditional clients. COGdesign designers appreciate the importance of involving their project’s constituency and value this input. Such projects are generally more respected and cared for by the people who use them, the stakeholders.

COGdesign develops experienced designers who gain experience by working with diverse communities, and empowered, informed community clients.

History

COGdesign was launched in 1995 as a program of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) student chapter at the Radcliffe Seminars in Landscape Design. After receiving many requests for design help from community groups, and witnessing designers’strong interest in working with community projects, organizers decided to incorporated COGdesign as an independent non-profit organization in 1997.