Emily Grandstaff-Rice
Eric Convey
Web Editor- Boston Business Journal
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Call it the curse of peaking early.
Architect Emily Grandstaff-Rice will tell you that if she could win the job of designing any building in Greater Boston, it would be the Boston Children’s Museum.
The problem?
“I’ve already done it,” she said in a recent interview. “This is one of the things that still haunts me — that I got to do it so quickly. It was a dream job. The client was great. The work was fun. “I had my first child when I did it.”
An associate at Cambridge Seven Associates Inc., Grandstaff-Rice’s others projects include a health and sciences building at UMass Lowell and the Greensboro Science Center in North Carolina. She specializes in environmentally friendly design and construction.
Grandstaff-Rice also is president of the Boston Society of Architects.
“What I do day-job wise always has a public access to it — the museums, the hospitality work, aquariums — there’s always this element of connecting architecture for community use,” she said. “The great thing with the BSA is it also allows me to explore issues in greater depth.”
If there’s a challenge facing architects in the coming decade, she said, this: “Sometimes we struggle to express our own value. There is great value that incorporates civic issues, sustainable issues, the right fit — making sure you have the right space for the way in which you’re going to use it.”
With the Children’s Museum job in the past, Grandstaff-Rice still has some broad parameters for defining ideal work.
“My dream project is something where I get to incorporate education and activity and fun and people can feel really proud about it,” she said.