Alumni Profile: Della Donahue (MDS-SD ’21)

When we flip on our faucet, we expect water; and when we bring our trash to the end of the driveway, we just expect it to get picked up. But we don't necessarily think about how it all works or appreciate the people who make those things happen. 

One person who has come to appreciate this aspect of our society is Della Donahue, an architect at Weston & Sampson who completed her Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design in May of 2021.

“[Weston & Sampson] design Department of Public Works facilities,” Donahue said. “Working there has made me really appreciate public works and municipal workers, and it's revealed a lot in terms of sustainability and what is inherently wrong with our society — how we don't appreciate these things until they don't happen.” 

Though Donahue — who graduated from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst in 2015 with a bachelor of fine arts in architecture and design — has been immersed in the public works world with Weston & Sampson for over four years now, it was her upbringing in the south of Boston that sparked her interest in sustainability. 

“My dad had this beautiful recycling situation in our back pantry where you had to have the paper, plastic, aluminum and batteries all separated,” Donahue said. “I would go along with him to the redemption center, so it was always part of my life to think about where I'm getting my energy and water and all that.”

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One of Donahue’s favorite projects currently is Moakley Park in South Boston. The project is part of the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department’s plan to increase city-wide climate resilience along the South Boston waterfront. The park is located right across from Carson Beach, so it is increasingly vulnerable to flooding due to climate change. 

“We're working on the operations and maintenance facility that the Boston parks department will operate out of to maintain the park,” Donahue said. “We’re working on tons of resiliency initiatives like raised-earth berms that will split the site north-to-south essentially.” 

The project will help the city turn Moakley Park into a facility that is more resilient to climate events while at the same time providing for a range of recreational opportunities for a diverse population.

“This one's been really interesting,” Donahue said, “because we're working with other design consultants on this big high-profile 60-acre park where all the Boston guys bring their sons to baseball games.”

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Donahue is ideally situated for the kind of work Weston & Sampson does because it’s related to the vision she presented for public works facilities in her master’s thesis at the BAC. 

Titled, “The Department of Public Works And Its Unique Leverage To Steward Municipal Sustainability,” Donahue essentially proposed a model green department of public works facility that takes into consideration dozens of sustainable design features, where a potential client could select from a menu of design choices for their new facility. 

“I was basically saying that the DPW doesn’t have to recreate the wheel, it already has this unique leverage to support municipal sustainable stewardship, thanks to its being a municipal agency,” Donahue said. 

While Donahue is waiting for the world to catch up to her vision for green public works facilities, her employer Weston & Sampson continues working to assign her to projects that have resiliency or sustainability aspects. That represents somewhat of a challenge, though, because governmental agencies are historically slow to change and subject to political and fiscal pressures.

“There are some more progressive towns, like Acton, where they've actually requested that we meet with their green committee,” Donahue said. “The tricky part is how to educate other towns to get on board without sounding condescending or preachy, so that takes finesse.”

For the time being, Donahue is happy to continue to meld her twin passions of sustainability and design at a firm that values both, and is large and diverse enough to offer her opportunities to use what she’s learned at the BAC.

“My goal for now, just because I am still very new to architecture and even more new to sustainable design, is to transition to a hybrid of the two,” Donahue said.