Boston, MA

MASS is seeking a full-time Sr. Landscape Designer to join our team in Boston, MA.

The landscape is our most honest and unrelenting keeper of our mutual histories, whether logged in seasons, generations, or millenia. The landscape does not exist in a post-truth world, it is an undeniable material register.  Without learning to read these embedded histories, they remain hidden, keeping sometimes revelatory, and sometimes terrible secrets. If we begin to observe and uncover these histories whether geologic, ecologic, or human, we can use this record to hold ourselves accountable to an abundant, shared future.

We are at a pivotal point in our society that calls for heightened attention toward the transformative impact of monuments and memorials. Worldwide, memory and history in built form—memorials, monuments, museums, street names, plaques, historic preservation markers—carry a responsibility to communicate complex histories and provide spaces, sometimes for healing, sometimes for celebration. The construction of public memory lends weight to particular narratives, bringing us to ask: Who or what is deemed important? Whose voices are we hearing, and who is left out?

In 2020, we established the Public Memory and Memorials Lab at MASS, an initiative that advances research, training, and built work around a central thesis: spatializing memory can heal us and inspire collective action for generations to come.

THE POSITION: Sr. Landscape Designer for Public Memory and Memorials Lab

 We are a mission-driven design collective that approaches design with an interdisciplinary focus on improving people’s lives in measurable ways. We create environments that promote health and human dignity, and design towards a regenerative design culture that advances economic, social, and environmental justice from the scale of a landscape to the scale of a system. 

Leadership:  We are seeking a talented truth teller to support Public Memory and Memorials Lab leadership in careful and intentional thought leadership, specifically for landscape based histories, narratives, and spacemaking work. This often begins with project accompaniment, working with potential partners in trust-building, engagement, and narrative.  We work holistically to anticipate and connect partners to experts as needs emerge, whether in fundraising strategy, collaboration with external entities for national commemoration, attending to political shifts, or understanding the potentials for economic development.  You will be asked to contribute to the high level definition and direction of landscape memorialization, commemoration and celebration work, as well as guide the conceptual and physical manifestation of projects.

Project Roles:  You will also attend to deep & collaborative design work from narrative development, concept manifestation, schematic design, design development, and construction document phases of work. You may be asked to work within teams as well as manage and/or play a leadership role in  projects collaborating with Directors and Principals.

HOW YOU WORK

• You are committed to working with partners  to co-create landscapes that reflect their unique needs and aspirations.
• You have a commitment to applying the MASS methodology and enforcing high project standards while maintaining flexibility and humility toward the clients and communities we serve. 
• You take initiative and responsibility for your work, manage yourself with humility, and are willing to ask for help when needed.

• You are able to inspire and guide design team members to achieve their full potential and have experience managing individuals and providing mentorship. 

• You have a track record of  building positive  relationships with community members and project partners. .
• You celebrate the input of others and know dialogue is critical to design rigor both in the studio and the field.

• You have excellent communication and organizational skills.

• You are equally attentive to big picture project planning as you are to the technical details.

EXPERIENCE + SKILLS

• 5+ years of related landscape and/or urban design and project-based experience; professional degree in landscape design, urban design or urban planning; license is ideal but not required
• Demonstrated knowledge and comprehension of research and histories related to social justice practices and memorialization
• Demonstrated willingness to explore unknown histories of systems, structures, people, and places impacted by the built environment
• Commitment to and experience with public memory and memorial topics, research and precedents
• Able to plan and lead engagement efforts that uncover and relay essential findings that inform critical narrative drivers in overall projects
• Experience to lead large projects (ex. >$1M fee budget) and teams
• Capacity to oversee and effectively deliver complex projects
• Reliability to present directly to the client on the technical and design solutions
• Skills necessary to manage client budgets, schedules and programs; project communications and documentation; office administrative tasks; and project team assignments
• Experience necessary to estimate fees, determine scope of work, and prepare proposals and contracts
• Proficiency in Revit, AutoCad Rhino, Lumion 
• Project delivery experience from pre-design through construction

HOW TO APPLY

This is a search process, as we are seeking a person who will become part of our community; collaboratively lead in knowledge creation, contribute directly to the building of our organization, and be entrusted to deeply support our valued partners.  The interview process will include an invitation to join us in our office for an opportunity to meet others on our team, introduce yourself and go a bit beyond the constraints of a traditional interview meeting. To get started, please introduce yourself to us! 

Interested candidates should submit all application materials through the SlideRoom portal. 

Please be prepared to include or present the following in your application/interview:

• Short Answers Questions
• Resume
• Portfolio of design work (include clear descriptions of your role and responsibilities on each project)
• References (At least 2)

At MASS Design Group we want people to be afforded the ability to do public interest work as a career and offer competitive salaries, health insurance, retirement plans as well as the opportunity to work with lighthouse organizations on seminal projects that promote justice and human dignity. 

With over 200 employees from almost a dozen countries, MASS lives our belief that only a diverse staff from widely varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds is properly equipped to tackle complex challenges in our communities. We aspire to create a more inclusive design profession and encourage all qualified individuals to apply. For this role, salary determinations will be commensurate with experience.

Qualified candidates should submit all application materials through the SlideRoom portal. Please, no phone calls or recruiting agencies. We will be in touch with next steps once your application has been reviewed.

Open