Lilly Saniel-Banrey

Designer of many things. Sowing joy and wellbeing into the details of everyday life. Currently at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. See a full scope of work including architecture, graphics, objects, and documents. Or just see my current projects.

Pop-Up Park


 Proposed 2022
North End, Boston, MA

Harvard Graduate School of Design
Studio by Angela Pang


 The Pop-up park transforms an under-utilized and stagnant ground plane into a multi-definiton horizontal plane to serve both specific programmatic needs and offer a generous park space to the public. Program is re-inserted into the lot as follies which is the draped by a return of the landscape. The landscape as cut and pinned to create tension while providing enclosed program, new experiences of multiple park ground planes, and multiple passages through the park. In combination, the site negotiates between the pop-up shed structure and the the paper-like drape of the landscape. Light becomes an integral piece of the architecture. The experience from below and through offers generous amounts of light, even to the Northern most corners of the site and uses the expanse of the architecture itself to illuminate multiple layers of circulation in and out of the enclosed spaces. From the outside, the elevated ground plane captures a magnificient view towards downtown Boston.


Visions of the park shift drastically depending one’s position below or above the new ground.


A fabric ground plane rests over program volumes.  Ground becomes roof, roof becomes ground. The carpet pinches, hovers, sinks, and pulls.




The site, stretched between a Northern level and a Southern level, wedges various forms of criculation into a playful site. Commuters gain direct access from the parking garage at the north west, Wanders amble through the gentle slopes, Neighbors enjoy sidewalk access to ground level courts, and Shortcutters use cores as portals popping up out of the ground upon ascent.