The Arrowstreet logo made its way into the final design A close up of the decorated interior of the shop Our team hard at work decorating The shops were decorated before assembly The tiny snowman has a handmade gum paste hat
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Arrowstreet’s entry for the Community Design Resource Center’s (CDRC) 4th annual Gingerbread House Design Competition required a lot of engineering consulting, and resulted in a few burnt fingers. We ambitiously chose to create a winter scene at City Hall Plaza. To respond to the theme of “Imagine Boston,” we envisioned an activated plaza with a row of shops, almond people, a sugar skating pond, gingerbread trees, and a gum-paste and fondant Elf on the Shelf to watch over everyone in City Hall.

Our team started planning in early October. Nicole Voss served as our project manager, with Kachina Studer taking on the heroic task of creating a model of City Hall out of gingerbread, and Jordan Zimmermann leading the charge on the plaza design. Most of the baking and decorating was completed last week, with a few late nights in the studio to wrap things up before delivery to the BSA Space last Friday afternoon. City Hall: Naughty or Nice will be on display with the rest of the competition entries from December 9th through January 3rd at the BSA Space. Visitors can also vote for their favorite house by making a donation at CDRCboston.org, a non-profit that provides pro bono technical assistance for projects that benefit underserved communities throughout metropolitan Boston, and supports Boston-area architects and designers doing public interest work.

Topics: Design, Charity, Competitions