Hatchlings | PUBLIC ART Activation
NOW ON DISPLAY AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE AND DOWNTOWN NORTH ADAMS
Hatchlings is a traveling public art installation that has been exhibited on the Rose Kennedy greenway and the charles river esplanade in downtown boston in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, and in downtown north adams in western massachusetts, and is now on view at williams collge for the holiday season from dec. 1, 2025 through january 11, 2026.
Hatchlings a public art installation. featuring nine individual pavilions, that pays joyful homage to one of Boston’s architectural gems and envisions a brighter, more environmentally sustainable future for our cities by harnessing the power of the sun, even during the darkest months of the year.
Selected as the winning design via The Greenway’s open call process in Spring 2023, Hatchlings began its first season in seven distinct locations in seven distinct neighborhoods. Hatchlings was inspired by a whimsical question we asked ourselves in a creative brainstorming session: What if the Hatch Shell hatched “shells” that wandered off through the parks like adventurous ducklings?
Originally selected as the winning design via the Greenway’s open call for art process in Spring 2023. Hatchlings has since become a traveling art installation, on view for the past two years at The Rose Kennedy Greenway, and the Esplanade parks in downtown Boston, and, this past summer throughout downtown North Adams.
“When I started developing the concepts I studied simple architectural shapes that were self-supporting like the Bandshell pavilions such as the Hollywood Bowl where I grew up in Los Angeles and the beautiful amphitheater near the Charles River called the Hatch Shell,” said Hooper, “and an idea popped into my head: What if the Hatch Shell hatched shells? I suddenly envisioned illuminated amphitheaters at different scales, some big enough to accommodate a whole group of performers, and some so small only one tiny child could tuck inside. That's how the Hatchlings got their whimsical name; they are abstracted versions of the iconic Boston landmark.”
“When Chris Cook and The Greenway team reached out about Studio HHH’s idea, we were thrilled to partner,” said Jen Mergel, James & Audrey Foster Executive Director of the Esplanade Association. “The project nods to the Esplanade’s long history as a cultural convener (since the Boston Pops performed at the original music shell in the 1920s) and prompt for imagination (since Robert McCloskey’s 1941 classic ‘Make Way for Ducklings’ about Mrs. Mallard leading her hatchlings from the Esplanade to the Public Garden). But it also marks the Esplanade’s future as a site of sustainable innovation and inclusive cross-city connection, much like our friends at The Greenway.”
Striving to incorporate the use of solar energy throughout the darkest months of the year was a design challenge we as a creative studio were excited to meet, and something that we felt was critical to advancing the conversation about sustainability in Boston. By presenting a solar installation that shows us the amount of light present each day - evidenced by the (sometimes limited) amount of illumination each night, Hatchlings asks the public to think more critically about natural resources while pushing creative and technical limits of what is currently possible with solar. In the end, good design is about problem solving, and as the days grew darker, the hatchlings were not illuminating for long enough, and the window of time that they could be enjoyed by the public was not long enough, so we made the hard decision to convert four of the nine hatchlings to grid power, extending full illumination until 11pm each night.
The Hatchlings were designed and fabricated in North Adams, at Greylock WORKS, a former cotton-spinning mill turned arts studio and culinary complex.
