Rachel Guilfoil is the Open Space and Recreation Consultant to the City of Boston’s Community Preservation Act Office. The City of Boston Community Preservation Program (CPA) raises more than $20 million annually for Boston to spend on affordable housing, parks and open space, and historic preservation. As the Open Space and Recreation Consultant, Rachel is responsible for evaluating, analyzing, monitoring and planning for the CPA Program’s parks and open space projects. She works directly with other City departments and members of the community on all stages of a project, from project inception, community engagement, the grant application process, project construction, and finally ongoing maintenance and monitoring. Rachel also currently sits as Chair of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects’ Advocacy Committee. A resident of Boston, Rachel is committed to creating equal access to safe and quality open space across all neighborhoods in the City. Prior to her current role with the City of Boston, Rachel worked in the landscape architecture group of global environmental engineering firm CDM Smith, where she was involved in a diversity of projects, including the design of public parks, recreational facilities, green infrastructure, streetscapes, stream restoration, and coastal embankment stabilization.
Rachel says “landscape architecture has proven to be a perfect outlet for my passion for the environment and my concern over climate change and its effects. Landscape architects are among the leaders of this global fight. Each day, I leave work feeling as though I have done something constructive for our planet, its changing climate, and the people who live in it. It is a career at the intersection of technical and creative, which allows for the opportunity to design bold, inspired, and beautiful solutions to real and pressing problems.” While still a student, Rachel completed a summer landscape architecture internship with the Sudbury Design Group.
While at UMass, Rachel:
– was Co-President of the UMass Student Chapter of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects
-studied abroad at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand