The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

Temporary classrooms coming to kick off school project

An illustration of where the modular classrooms and temporary parking will be located.

The first visible sign of the start of the $93.9 million school project will appear in the center ballfield shortly after the Fourth of July, when the six-month task of installing temporary classrooms will begin.

The modulars will be home for the K–4 students during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years. The total cost for the classrooms and associated work is about $4.53 million, according to School Building Committee Vice Chair Kim Bodnar. This includes units themselves and also delivery and setup of the modular classrooms and their removal at the end of the project, as well as utility connections and a temporary parking lot for 45 cars.

The center playing fields will be closed on July 5 and the site work for the modulars will be contained inside a temporary construction fence. Installation is due to be completed by the end of 2019. The Smith playing fields and the Codman field will remain open, as will the smaller playing field to the south of the modulars.

A view inside one of the modular classrooms at Hanscom Primary School.

The Brooks auditorium and Reed Gym will be closed for renovations in 2020-21, and the Smith fields will go out of commission in 2021-22. Codman Pool and the adjacent field will remain open for the entire school project which is expected to finish  in time for the start of the 2022-23 school year.

The projected cost for the modulars was initially much higher than budgeted — $1.68 million in June 2018 vs. $4.62 million in the fall. The total estimate for the project had also increased to about $9 million over the budget approved by voters last June. As part of its cost-cutting value-engineering process, the SBC trimmed several items and expected to make up the shortfall on the modulars by negotiating less expensive units.

Last week, the SBC approved a contract for the modulars after at least one of the three bids came in under budget. Construction manager Consigli Construction will oversee the installation of the modular classrooms by vendor/subcontractor J&J Construction.

This chart shows where grade will be located at various stages of the school project (click to enlarge).

As part of the permitting process for the project, the Conservation Commission will hold a second hearing and vote on the plans for the temporary classrooms on Wednesday, May 22. That same night, the SBC will see the latest updates to the exterior elevations, floor plans, and site plans. Both groups will meet in the Town Office Building due to the student art show at Hartwell.

News acorns

Magic Garden open house this weekend

The Magic Garden Infant & Toddler Center at 14 Bedford Rd. (the stone church) is holding an open house on Saturday, May 18 from 9–11 a.m. The event is geared towards answering parents’ questions, but children are welcome to attend and play in our classrooms, and activities for infants and toddlers will be provided. Call with questions and RSVPs to 781-259-8161 (walk-ins are also welcome). Magic Garden offers year-round care and education to children ages 2 months to 5 years old with flexible schedules.

Adjustments in library hours

The Lincoln Public Library will be closed on Monday, May 27 in observance of Memorial Day and will open late (1 p.m.) on Tuesday, June 4 due to staff training.

Movie group to show “Tabu”

The Lincoln Library Film Society will screen “Tabu” (2012, not rated) on Thursday, June 6 at 6 p.m. A restless retired woman teams up with her deceased neighbor’s maid to seek out a man who has a secret connection to her past life as a farm owner at the foothill of Mount Tabu in Africa.

Birding walk at Minute Man HNP

Look for nests of orioles, tanagers and others, and watch for adult birds feeding and raising their young on “Nesting Birds of Minute Man National Historical Park” on Saturday, June 8 from 8-10 a.m. Meet at Hartwell Tavern lot (106 North Great Rd., Lincoln). Recommended for ages 10 to adult. In case of inclement weather call the park at 617-620-2942 or Kathy Dia 617-480-5103 for walk status.

Garden Club hosts tree and sculpture tour, photo exhibit

The Lincoln Garden Club will hold its annual fundraiser — a tree and sculpture tour at deCordova Sculpture Park followed by a champagne reception at the Pierce House — on Sunday, June 9. The tour runs from 1–5 p.m. The reception from 5–7 p.m. will feature a photo exhibit where attendees can vote on their favorite photos submitted in the club’s photo contest. Entries must be submitted by May 21; click here for contest rules. There will also be an auction of items including stone wall repair services, a helicopter ride over Boston, customized invitations and more. Click here to buy tickets online.

Group unveils proposals to boost South Lincoln development

A map showing locations of the proposed South Lincoln Village District subareas (click to enlarge).

A town committee is proposing new zoning and a special permitting process to allow denser and more diverse commercial and residential development in South Lincoln. A set of proposed zoning bylaw amendments will be up for discussion at the State of the Town meeting in the fall and a Town Meeting vote in March 2020.

The Village Planning and Zoning group (a subcommittee of the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee) presented its work at a public forum on May 7. The group is one of several SPLIC teams, along with Placemaking, Wayfinding, and MBTA. SPLIC also commissioned a recent study of Department of Public Works needs and potential alternate locations.

The new South Lincoln Village District would have two subareas: business, which emphasizes commercial or mixed use, and residential, which provides a variety of housing options close to transit and retail amenities. The residential subarea would allow buildings up to three and a half stories further back from Lincoln Road to accommodate greater density.

• This series of slides summarizes the work of the Village Planning and Zoning group

Most uses already allowed by current zoning would be allowed by right with a site plan review. Other uses — such as multifamily housing and artist live-work studios in the residential subarea or mixed-use development, restaurants, brew pubs and service stations in the business subarea — would require a special permit.

To get this permit in the residential subarea, up to 15% of the housing would have to be affordable to low-income, residents — and another 10% affordable to middle-income residents.

“That’s a subset that’s missing in Lincoln—people that are not low-income but still can’t afford to move here,” said Alexis Smith, a senior planner with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which awarded the town a $15,000 grant and assistance with the zoning and design guideline work. (Lincoln also received a $25,000 Community Compact Grant.)

To receive a special permit from the Planning Board, projects must also conform to specific design guidelines that could accommodate both modern and traditional designs, so “it won’t all look like Ye Olde Town Center,” as one resident at the forum commented. Projects exceeding special permit uses and densities could seek Town Meeting approval through South Lincoln Overlay District process.

Some residents worried about helping the business spaces already in South Lincoln succeed in addition to encouraging new ventures. Smith assured them that denser and more affordable housing would “create the foot traffic that would support those businesses and bring down those vacancy levels.”

“We definitely want to give a stronger footing to the businesses we do have,” said SPLIC member Gary Taylor.

Another resident was wary. “This is like a Pandora’s box. Once you change the zoning law, you don’t know what you’re going to get. Lincoln has a certain character, and that’s the reason I moved here,” he said.

But resident Jon Lynch was supportive. “This is really where Lincoln Center should be,” with development around the MBTA mass transit hub, he said. “We don’t have a critical mass of people… if we had stuff there, people would get off the train and do something instead of just jumping in their car and driving away. We have to get cars to stop thinking of [South Lincoln] as a drive-through.”

Sara Mattes urged more work on increasing parking capacity and fixing the MBTA station, saying denser housing could create an undue strain on public services and septic capacity. Director of Planning and Land Use Jennifer Burney assured her that the town is in fact doing a parking study for the commuter and business lots. Lincoln has also applied for another $400,000 Complete Streets grant to enable walkability and parking improvements, she added.

“With the school [project] and taxes, increasing the tax base is really important, so there’s urgency from another perspective,” Peyton Marshall said.

Attracting more residents and commercial development is crucial for Lincoln’s future, Ken Hurd said. “This is a death knell for this town if we don’t address it and attract younger folks.”

Board hears options for DPW alternate sites and construction

A sketch by Weston and Sampson of how the Lewis Street DPW site might be reconfigured (click to enlarge).

Consulting engineers detailed the need for new Department of Public Works facilities in a presentation to the Board of Selectmen — but with the school project underway and a new community center up next, the town isn’t likely to have the money for a major upgrade any time soon.

As part of a larger project to look at rezoning and redeveloping parts of South Lincoln, Weston and Sampson was hired in 2017 to identify the current and future needs of the DPW and to identify a potential site to address those needs. Their report released in January suggested a new facility costing about $15 million.

The Lewis Street DPW facility was built in the 1950s and 1960s, “and there’s been a significant increase in their responsibilities, but the facility really hasn’t kept pace,” Jeffrey Alberti, vice president and general manager of the Facilities division at Weston and Sampson, told the board at its April 22 meeting. The covered vehicle storage space is inadequate; “they do a great job of packing them in like sardines” with only inches of clearance, while other equipment is stored in makeshift structures of concrete blocks.

The facility is also out of compliance with current mechanical, fire, and plumbing codes and presents “safety concerns and operational inefficiencies,” Alberti said.

The firm showed a sketch of how one might reconfigure the current DPW site with new structures including enclosed maintenance, vehicle leaning and storage areas, but even then, the school buses now parked there would probably have to move to another new site. “It becomes tight once you start developing it with a new building,” Alberti said. “And it’s not really allowing for many other public functions” such as public parking or a public septic system.”

The firm drew up a list of potential sites for a refurbished or related DPW bases on the properties’ size, zoning, current use, floodplain, wetlands, conservation designation (if any) and present use. Other possible sites identified in the study are on:

  1. Old Bedford Road across from Battle Farm Road, on land owned by the Massachusetts Port Authority
  2. Virginia Road just west of the Lincoln North office park, on land owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  3. Virginia Road just north of site #2, on land owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  4. North Great Road between the transfer station and Mill Street, on land owned by the federal government
  5. Cambridge Turnpike, on land owned by Farrington Memorial

Narrowing down the choices will require “a much higher-level assessment of the preferred site or sites” including subsurface conditions as well as zoning and permitting costs, Alberti said.

Building or rebuilding the DPW facility regardless of location would cost about $15.2 million. That figure includes the cost of decommissioning and demolition of the current site plus temporary facilities during the construction period, but would not include land acquisition costs. The facility will also have to include at least one structure (the salt shed) that’s 30 to 40 feet high to accommodate the salt pile and trucks.

“This is a pretty shocking number to many people because they look at these facilities as the highway barn and the garage, but I like to tell everyone that this is an operational facility and it has to be designed to today’s building codes,” Alberti said. This includes equipment to pressure-wash sanders and trucks and then collect and store the runoff for later removal, as well as a stormwater system that’s more complex than those found on the average street.

Selectman James Craig asked if any of the other towns Weston and Sampson has worked with have broken out their DPW facilities into more than one site. Actually, Alberti said, about 95% of towns are consolidating their DPW into a single site for greater efficiency, though some towns store seasonal equipment off-site.

“Given our capital commitments, spending $15 million is down the road a ways,” noted SLPIC member Gary Taylor.

DPW Superintendent Chris Bibbo said afterwards that “whatever the study would recommend would be fine with us” and that it would be “acceptable” to wait several years for a renewed facility. “We have equipment storage that’s very, very tight, but we manage to keep all the equipment under the garage roof,” he said.

The DPW is currently doing some renovations to update its office space using money from its regular operating budget for materials and labor by DPW staff as time permits, Bibbo said.

News acorns

Lincoln team wins Latino and African American Tenacity Challenge Competition

The winning L-S Tenacity Challenge Team, “America’s Future.”

The L-S Tenacity Challenge Team “America’s Future,” whose members are all Lincoln School alumni, won first place in the 2019 Latino and African American Tenacity Challenge Competition on April 27 at Bedford High School. Their victory marks the first time a Lincoln-Sudbury team has placed in this competition. Each year, teams of LatinX and African-American students from urban and suburban high schools across Massachusetts compete for scholarship prize money. This year’s theme was “The Social and Political Significance of Hip Hop, Rap and Spoken Word.”

Led by advisor and history teacher Caroline Han, students Jada Edwards, Keith Hylton, Kares Mack, Jaelynn Rodney, and Jesus Tejeda prepared for four events: the Science and Math Quiz Bowl, Latino and African-American Literature Response, History Oral Argument, and Mural Challenge. By earning the highest overall score out of 34 schools, members of the L-S team will each receive a $1,000 scholarship.

L-S Community Sing this week

The L-S Music Department presents its annual Community Sing on Thursday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the L-S auditorium. Come hear L-S’ five student-led vocal groups and Chamber Singers perform. The featured piece is Eric Whitacre’s “Five Hebrew Love Songs” with string quartet, piano, and the L-S Concert Choir, choir alumni, parents and community members.  If you would like to join us in singing the Whitacre, contact L-S Choral Director Mike Bunting at michael_bunting@lsrhs.net for details. The event is free and open to the public.

Sales of snacks and refreshments will support the L-S Friends of Music, which invites everyone to their annual meeting on Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m. in Conference Room A at L-S. All parents of music students and community members are welcome. Talk to board members, meet fellow music program supporters, and learn about opportunities to get involved.

Wash your car, help the eighth grade

Saturday, May 18 is the annual 8th-grade car wash and bake sale. The event is a key source of funds for all activities around graduation, including the student dance party, the family party, T-shirts, etc.  Each wash is only $10. Swing by Town Hall any time between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. If you’re away or would just like to make a donation, please click here.

Get down at Club Codman

Dance to the music of the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and beyond (and wear costumes to match your favorite era) at Club Codman, an adults-only fundraiser in the Codman barn on Saturday, May 18 from 8:30–11:30 p.m. Cash bar. Tickets are $45 for CCF members and $60 for nonmembers; click here to purchase.

Test-drive an electric vehicle

Tired of going to gas stations and paying for oil changes and also want to do something significant about climate change? Please come and test-drive an electric vehicle (EV) at the First Parish in Lincoln (FPL) on Sunday, May 19 from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. There will be two Teslas available, and possible a Chevy Bolt and Hyundai Kona as well. EV owners will also be on hand to share their experiences.

As an example, a 2018 Chevy Bolt last year gets over 300 miles per charge in the summer and (over 200 miles in the winter) and costs as little as half the current list price when you factor in available federal and state subsidies and the volume discount that has been negotiated by Lincoln’s partner, the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. Replacing an internal combustion engine car with an EV will remove 3–5 tons of CO2 emissions annually from your total carbon footprint, which works out to an overall carbon footprint reduction of around 20% for typical car owners. Please click here to RSVP. Call Green Energy Committee Chair Peter Watkinson at 339-224-0000 with questions.

See Lincolnites in “None But the Best”

In Good Company Theater presents “None But the Best” by Patrick Gabridge (original music by Dan Ryan) on Saturday and Sunday, June 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Bemis Hall. It tells the remarkable story of Boston publisher Daniel Sharp Ford, who quietly used his wealth to help thousands of disadvantaged people during the turbulent post-Civil War/Gilded Age years. Two Lincoln residents are in the cast — Cindy Bencal plays Ford’s wife Sarah, and Nancy Knight sings “The Fire” in a trio. Tickets are available at ingc.co/lincoln (use discount code “Lincoln” to get $5 off).

Candidate for cable committee sought

The Board of Selectmen is seeking a volunteer to fill a vacant seat on the Cable Advisory Committee. The CAC represents the board in all aspects of cable television licensing, including advising and negotiating on renewal licenses or original licenses, monitoring compliance, and serving as custodian of all reports and records made under the terms of any cable television license. The complete charge can be found here. Letters of interest should be sent to Peggy Elder, Administrative Assistant in the Selectmen’s Office, elderp@lincolntown.org by May 31. For information call the Selectmen’s Office at 781-259-2601.

Free heat pump brings Codman Community Farms closer to net zero

The indoor unit of Codman Community Farm’s new heat pump.

CCF Board President David Alperovitz, New England Ductless owner Joseph Wood, and CCF Farm Manager Pete Lowy with the heat pump’s outdoor unit.

Codman Community Farms has been selected as a recipient of a free cold-climate heat pump from New England Ductless, one of the installers for HeatSmart Carlisle, Concord & Lincoln (HeatSmart CCL), based on the success of that program.

HeatSmart CCL is community-led initiative to learn about and purchase clean energy technologies. New England Ductless of Milton was selected through a competitive solicitation as the air-source heat pump installer for the organization. In 2018, with support from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, HeatSmart CCL secured contracts to install 49 cold-climate air-source heat pumps and 23 ground-source heat pumps.

Also  In 2018, Codman Community Farms (CCF) began to work towards a goal of having the farm’s operational buildings becoming net-zero energy while simultaneously reducing the farm’s overall reliance on fossil fuels. With the completion of a 54 kW solar electric array expected in June 2019, this goal will be realized. CCF has taken other steps to meet the goals of its Green Energy Plan, including installing a solar hot-water system for egg washing and farm house staff, evaluating bids for the solar electric array, and applying for a state grant to support additional measures.

The farm had considered installing a cold-climate heat pump but did not proceed due to budgetary constraints. However, New England Ductless made this possible in April by installing a Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat cold-climate heat pump in Codman Farms’ 700-square-foot kitchen/dining area, which is used for cooking classes, nutrition education, farm luncheons and dinners, and other events.

The new heating and cooling system replaces an inefficient propane furnace and non-functioning central air conditioner, and makes the farm’s operational buildings fossil-fuel-free. When the solar array is operational, the heat pump will heat and cool the kitchen/dining area while producing no greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the installation allows CCF to remove two unsightly propane tanks and eliminates the need for propane deliveries.

The Lincoln Historical Committee was especially pleased that the company was able to conceal the heat-pump line set in the attic space to help preserve the historical character of the space.

HeatSmart CCL will host heat-pump educational events on Saturday, June 8 from 1:30–3:30 p.m. in the Concord-Carlisle High School learning commons and Tuesday, June 11 from 7–8:30 pm. in the Wayland Public Library. Click here for more information.

Craig Hill dies at age 90

Craig C. Hill

Craig C. Hill, age 91, of Lincoln and Bedford, passed away on May 6 after a many-year battle with multiple systems atrophy. He was supported during his illness by an amazing group of caregivers including Carol, Paula, Lisa, Gerry, and Vera. 

Craig had many talents and was an architect, editor, inventor, poet, and translator of The Complete Fables of La Fontaine, widely praised as one of the most vivid and imaginative translations of the 17th-century fabulist ever produced.

Craig was born in San Antonio and attended the University of Texas and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He and his wife of 62 years, Heather, resided in Lincoln for 44 years before moving to Bedford. They traveled extensively and often with groups of close friends and spent more than 30 summers with friends and family at their home in Truro.

Craig is survived by his wife Heather, daughter Amanda and her husband Kevin, son Matthew and his wife Lisa, son Thomas and his wife Emmanuelle, and grandchildren Malcolm, Hazel, Hannah, Hardy, Montgomery, and Calvin. He is also survived by his brother Roger Hill of San Antonio. Craig was also the brother of the late Marian Hill.

A private burial service will be held at Lincoln Cemetery. To share a remembrance or to send a condolence in Craig’s online guestbook at Dee Funeral Home, click here.

Lincoln committee pushing ahead with green goals

Gathering data on Lincoln’s greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging specific ways for residents to use more green energy are among this year’s goals for the Green Energy Committee (GEC).

The GEC serves as the primary resource for the town to identify technologies, initiatives, and means to reduce Lincoln’s CO2 emissions. One of its long-term goals is for the town’s public buildings to achieve “net zero” status for energy use by 2030 (with production of renewable energy equivalent to fossil fuel consumption) as required by a 2011 Town Meeting vote.

Among the efforts underway: finalizing a proposal for community choice aggregation, which uses the power of group electricity purchasing to offer a greater percentage of electricity from renewable sources than the 15% now required from Eversource. The voluntary Lincoln Green Energy Choice program will also offer a fixed price for electricity supply over a longer period of time. The prices for power will be slightly higher than they would be otherwise, though the figures for different sources of electricity under the program won’t be known until the town signs a contract with an electricity supplier.

The GEC also hopes to gather data and report each year on CO2e emissions. “CO2e” means carbon dioxide equivalent, which gauges carbon footprint by expressing the impact of each different greenhouse gas in terms of the amount of CO2 that would create the same amount of warming.

“Our focus is on tracking CO2e emissions and reductions data so that we can figure out how to have the biggest impact on reducing them as we develop a plan to become carbon neutral by 2030,” said GEC chair Peter Watkinson. The group is in discussions with a third party to provide this data for the town of Lincoln and “expects progress this quarter,” he added.

Other GEC goals for 2019:

  • Work with the School Building Committee on a high-efficiency school building powered completely by onsite solar PV arrays to achieve a net zero campus.
  • Encourage residents to buy or lease electric vehicles. Work to make it easier and less expensive to purchase residential charging stations, and investigate locations for public charging stations in town.
  • Continue residential efforts including encouraging home energy efficiency measures, energy-efficient heating/cooling systems, and solar installations.
  • Encourage/enable the development and implementation of solar PV projects at non-residential locations, including the Lincoln School, Codman Community Farms, the Lincoln Mall parking lot, the First Parish in Lincoln, the Public Safety Building, and the transfer station.

The Codman barn is now having solar panels installed, and the First Parish in Lincoln (FPL) Parish Committee has approved installation of solar panels on the roof of the parish house across from Bemis Hall (they now need approval from the Historic District Commission, according to Larry Buell, chair of the FPL Outreach Committee).

FPL Green was formed in fall 2017 under the leadership of Tom Walker in response to a membership poll that named energy and climate change as the most urgent public priority among a dozen possible. Twenty families are now driving electric vehicles and 35 are using 100% wind-generated electricity, Watkinson said.

Harold Smith, 1933–2019

Harold Smith at Open Studio in Lincoln. (Photos courtesy Eric Smith)

There will be a memorial service on Sunday, May 19 for Harold Dean Smith — husband, father, artist, engineer — who passed at Emerson Hospital on April 23 at age 85, just after celebrating 55 years of marriage to Elizabeth “Betty” (Harris) Smith.

Harold was born in St. Louis, Mo., on October 10, 1933. He was the son of the late Silas Clark Smith, Jr. and Verna Louise (Eichmeyer) Smith Roloff. Harold was raised with his brother Bernie, and they shared great times sailing toy boats in Clifton Park pond, playing on swing sets at the Bryan Mullanphy School, making toy paper airplanes, blowing up tin cans with firecrackers, using windup trains to knock down wooden block buildings, visiting Grandpa, and sledding down Sulphur Street (swing wide at the bottom of the hill and steer hard to miss the house across the street — impossible but he did it anyway).

Harold graduated in 1957 from the University of Washington in St. Louis with a degree in architecture, in which he had an interest from an early age. He went on to earn two advanced degrees from MIT  in civil and environmental engineering (1957) and civil engineering (1961). He was employed by Simpson Gumpertz and Hager for 32 years as a structural engineer. During that time he worked on the Epcot Center in Florida, the John Hancock Tower, telescope facilities in Hawaii, and as a consultant for Firestone, among many other projects.

He was a quiet, reserved man who enjoyed his time painting. He was a longtime member of the Lincoln Recreation Department’s Open Studio and he showed his watercolor paintings on occasion. He was honored to have his work chosen to be part of the 15th edition of the book Splash15: Creative Solutions (part of the Splash: The Best of Watercolor series). He was also the primary designer behind the design and layout of the local magazine the Lincoln Review.

Smith and two of his grandchildren.

Some of Harold’s most beautiful work was his early pen and ink drawings that captured the simple flavor of his beloved Lincoln. In his later years, his art was inspired by his international travel. This included France, England, Turkey, India, New Zealand, Japan, Hungry, Anguilla, and many more. He enjoyed traveling with his wife and photographing the places they visited. He shared his view of the world with others and using some of those photos as the basis for his paintings.

Harold is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Harris Smith; his brother, Bernard Smith; his four children, Dean Smith, Caron King, Eric Smith, and Craig Smith; and five grandchildren, Jessica Smith, Krysta Smith, Susannah King, Kamille Smith, and Stephen Smith.

There will be a private burial at the Lincoln Cemetery. Relatives and friends are encouraged to gather for a memorial at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 19 at the First Parish Church. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory can be made to the Annual Fund of Washington University, c/o Washington University, Campus Box 1082, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130. Click here to leave a note in his online guest book at Dee Funeral Home.

A “watershed” moment for the deCordova

An installation similar to “Watershed”: “Culvert Carin” (2013) by Andy Goldsworthy (private collection, California). © Andy Goldsworthy, Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., New York & Haines Gallery, San Francisco. Click image to enlarge.

A new commissioned work, Watershed — a site-specific work designed to interact with the deCordova’s Sculpture Park’s unique natural environment will make deCordova the only public institution in New England with an outdoor work by internationally renowned British artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Throughout his career, Goldsworthy has explored the power of water. Its force, energy, and impact respond to the rhythm of weather, and have strong and powerful consequences on the landscape. Watershed is composed of an open-fronted, nine-by-fifteen-foot granite stone structure, partially-embedded in the slope of deCordova’s pond-side hill.

The work will be built in a vernacular style, echoing stone walls and structures found throughout New England, using local materials and the expert assistance of Goldsworthy’s team of British wallers. On the structure’s interior rear wall, stonework will radiate in concentric circles from a drain outlet centered in the wall—a powerful evocation of water’s energy and pattern. Goldsworthy hopes that local environmental organizations will engage with the work and its attention to rainwater.

In times of heavy rain, water that flows across deCordova’s paved upper lot will be collected and channeled underground to pour from the outlet in the work’s rear wall, giving form to the usually unremarked course of groundwater across hard surfaces and allowing people to see and hear the work come to life. In dry weather the wall will stand expectantly, waiting to be activated. The work will serve to illustrate both the impermanence and the lasting effects of water, through the growth of residues like mineral deposits, moss, and patina. With the invitation to enter the piece, the human presence in all of these periods activates the work and its lifetime.

“The permanent installation of Watershed will enhance deCordova’s offerings for visitors passionate about the connection between art and nature — and for those who simply wish for the unforgettable experience of encountering a Goldsworthy installation in the landscape,” said deCordova Executive Director John B. Ravenal.

Installation begins this spring and is expected to be complete by the end of 2019. Major funding for this project is provided by the Nancy Foss Heath & Richard B. Heath Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as numerous generous private supporters.