Design jury
The Design Jury is a group of distinguished individuals from varying backgrounds, each of whom brings a unique perspective to the competition. The Jury's charge is to balance the many aspects of successful place-making—aesthetics and design, expression of community vision, artistic merit, programmatic fit, and innovation.
Edmund Barry Gaither
Director Curator, Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists
Since 1969, Edmund Barry Gaither has been Director and Curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), and Special Consultant at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston. At the MFA, he has served as curator for eight exhibitions including Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston, a ground breaking show of l970. For the NCAAA, he developed the Museum from a concept to an institution with collections exceeding three thousand objects and a thirty-two year history of exhibitions celebrating the visual arts heritage of black people worldwide.
Gary Hilderbrand, FASLA
Reed Hilderbrand Architects, Boston
Gary Hilderbrand has shared design direction in the firm with Douglas Reed since 1997. He is also widely published as an author and critic on twentieth-century landscape architecture practice, contributing essay in numerous books and journals. Gary holds degrees from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is currently adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, where he has taught since 1990. He is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Ann McQueen
Senior Program Officer, Boston Foundation
Ann McQueen is a senior program officer at the Boston Foundation with primary responsibility for grantmaking and policy development in arts/culture and the urban environment. As part of this work, she leads projects in research, convening and publishing on behalf of the interests of those sectors. In the arts, this work has lead to a new understanding of the benefits and needs of cultural organizations and to the filing of legislation that would provide significant state funding for capital projects. Working with the Foundation's development and philanthropic services teams, McQueen also helps donors achieve high-impact philanthropy.
Ms. McQueen joined the Boston Foundation in 1997, after working there as a consultant since 1993. She has also worked as a freelance photographer and held positions at the Worcester Art Museum as well as other nonprofits and funding organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds an undergraduate degree in art history from Wheaton College in Norton, MA, and master degrees in filmmaking from Boston University and in arts management from Leslie University.
Ann McQueen serves on the board of United South End Settlements, a multi-service agency, and Grantmakers in the Arts, a national organization. She is actively involved in her neighborhood, most recently heading a community effort to commission a public art work for a local park. Ms. McQueen also continues to pursue her life-long interest in photography.
Toshiko Mori, FAIA
Chair of Architecture Department, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Principal, Toshiko Mori Architect
Toshiko Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 2002. She is also principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, which she established in 1981 in New York City.
Mori's strong research-based approach to design has been commended in awards and invitations to lectures and exhibitions around the world. In the fall of 2005, her work was exhibited in "Renewing Wright" at the Heinz Architectural Center of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh. Her profile, "Postscripts: Building on Sacred Ground", appeared in The New York Times in May 2005. She has edited a volume on material and fabrication research, Immaterial/Ultramaterial, and is currently preparing her next publication: Textile Tectonic in Architecture, to be published in 2006.
Peter Reed
Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Peter Reed is Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Previously, he was Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA where he joined the staff in 1992.
Reed was the organizer of Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape (2005), MoMA's first survey of landscape design. Other exhibitions Reed has organized include AUTObodies: speed, sport, transport (2002) and Alvar Aalto: Between Humanism and Materialism (1998).
Kairos Shen
Director of Planning, Boston Redevelopment Authority
Kairos Shen is the Director of Planning for the BRA, Boston's economic development and planning agency. In addition to undertaking and supervising many planning and design studies, Mr. Shen regularly participates in community meetings to solicit citizen feedback that is essential to any successful plan. Apart from his work at the BRA, Mr. Shen is a frequent guest critic at architecture schools around Boston. Mr. Shen is a native of Hong Kong and a graduate of Swarthmore College and MIT.