All that's missing are the biscuits
Architect David Hacin, creator of some of the city's sleekest lofts and showiest town houses, has designed a smart space where clients can sniff, chase, and play.
The city's first official canine park, the Joe Wex Dog Recreation Space, is a 14,000-square-foot woofer wonderland of pea stone and granite, shade trees, and commodious curved benches. After years of planning, money-raising, and community wrangling, the privately funded South End dog park, located inside Peters Park, is scheduled to open Nov. 4.
Hacin, 46, took on the pro-bono challenge out of love for his dog, Oscar, and for the Washington Street corridor he's helped reinvent and called home for the past eight years. Hacin and his longtime partner, Tim Grafft, an executive with the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, live across the street from the dog park in the Laconia Lofts, which Hacin's architectural firm designed. The couple joined the South End's rather rabid, er, dog culture after they got Oscar, a gray schnauzer, after Sept. 11, 2001.
Since then, Hacin has been a constant traveler through Dog Nation, from West Hollywood, Calif., to Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, keeping a file of four-legged ideas.
"In visiting a number of parks, I could see what the possibilities were and that there was more to it than just a fenced run," Hacin said on a recent morning, holding Oscar's leash and strolling through the park named for the late Joe Wex, an early supporter of the project.
"It's funny how parks are used by different communities," he observed. "If I had children . . . I would meet people in the playground. If I played basketball, I'd meet people on the basketball court. My recreation was going out with the dog, and so this was the place where I interacted with people. I saw it for the community amenity that it is - not just for the dogs but as a social connector in the neighborhood."
In that spirit, Hacin and co-designer Tamar Zimmerman, a landscape architect, carved out an intuitive preserve, complete with water features of different heights, pavers (they'll be inscribed with the names of deceased pets), areas for small and large dogs, a fan of granite bricks for four-legged basking (owners can mist their dogs periodically), and 12 granite chunks for play scattered in the pea-stone field.
But the designers also kept humans in mind.
"We have curved benches that will surround the trees," he said. "So if I'm sitting here with my dog and you're sitting there, we can have a conversation. But if I come here and I really want to read a book and not talk to anybody, I can sit over here. There's a sense that you can come to the dog park and choose how you want to be."
Randi Cohen, who spearheaded the fund-raising, community soothing, and political maneuvering for the $300,000 park, is satisfied the space fits in the South End.
"I believe David wanted a park that was functionally and aesthetically pleasing," Cohen said, "and really worked in this neighborhood."
Of course, being "the first" means becoming an example to other communities. Provincetown residents Kathleen Cote and her father, Robert, were poking around the space that day, looking for ideas. They didn't know Hacin, but they already knew quite a bit about the park.
"In August, we got selectmen approval and land granted to us from the town," Kathleen explained. "And we've used your dog park as a model."
"Oh, fantastic," Hacin said. "That makes me so happy. Truly it does."
Later, over lunch at Myers + Chang, the nouvelle Chinese bistro designed by Hacin to echo a retro diner, the architect scarcely spoke of his next grand project, FP3 - residences and restaurants on Congress Street at Fort Point Channel. Instead, he discussed the differences between pleasing canines and humans.
"It's not just what the dogs want," he said. "It's about what I, you, the Boston public want. Dogs are easy. Satisfying the people is much harder." 