On Saturday, May 17, the BSA and the Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood welcomed over 100 students, families, educators, and community members to celebrate the 2025 Our Boston: Voices from Kindergarten exhibition—a joyful gathering that put young learners' visions for a better Boston on proud display.

Hosted at BSA Space, the event marked the culmination of a months-long collaboration between 75+ kindergarten classrooms across BPS and Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) and more than 85 volunteer architects and designers. The results? Over 30+ lively city models filled with parks, housing, kindness helpers, museums, and even reimagined bus stops—all designed and built by kindergartners using recycled materials and boundless imagination.

View the photo gallery from the exhibition and celebration.

“Our project is called Beautiful Magic,” shared Angela, a kindergartner from the Henry Grew Elementary School, standing alongside her classmate Allie. “There is a lot of houses. There are animals, there are pools, a big playground… and there’s helper people called kindness helpers. We made this place so there can be more areas for people to live in and more people to help others in the world.” Their model, like many others, offered not just a creative city plan but a hopeful, caring vision for the future.

This year marked the expansion of the Our Boston program to include two architect visits per classroom—deepening the partnership between educators and design professionals. “It was a really humbling experience,” said Alankrita Prasad (Chartreuse Colab), who worked with students at Trotter Elementary. “While we were coaching and mentoring these young kids to tackle issues in the city, I kept thinking—these are the future citymakers.”

Agnes Tessner Risser (designLAB Architects), who volunteered with Philbrick Elementary, praised the commitment of her classroom collaborators: “They dedicated eight weeks straight to working together and collaborating on those models—much longer than I think any architecture firm can focus on a model!”

Throughout the morning, speakers from BPS, the City of Boston, and the BSA praised the power of early design education. “So many of the solutions to issues—and where we want our city to be—are coming straight from the minds of our children,” said Lesley Ryan Miller, BPS Chief of Teaching and Learning.

Kristen McSwain, Director of the City’s Office of Early Childhood, highlighted how students’ ideas are already influencing policy conversations: “You all have some amazing ideas… and some of them, our folks at City Hall haven’t even started on yet. Like the project about bus stops—making them not just cooler, but fun. I’m going to share that with our team.”

Thanks to educators like Jaida Judge (Philbrick Elementary) and Jemma Joseph (Trotter K-6 School), and volunteers like Agnes Tessner Risser (DesignLAB Architects) and Alankrita Prasad (Chartreuse Colab), the collaboration between classrooms and the design community continues to grow.

Special thanks to our partners at BPS and the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood for their continued support. As we look ahead, we’re excited to deepen the program’s reach into early elementary years and welcome more volunteers into the classroom.

Interested in getting involved? Connect with Taylor Johnson ([email protected]) to learn more about upcoming K-12 Design Education opportunities, or join our next Kindergarten volunteer cohort.

Together, we’re helping Boston’s youngest residents become active designers of their communities—starting with cardboard, clay, crayons, and big ideas.

Learn more about K-12 Programs, which include Kindergarten Classrooms and Our Boston: Voices from Kindergarten.