Today, the American Institute of Architects announced the winner of its 2021 Collaborative Achievement Award, naming the Boston- and Kigali, Rwanda–based MASS Design Group as a firm that "recognizes and encourages collaboration among design professionals, clients, organizations, knowledge communities and others that have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession," according to the Institute's press release.
Co-founded in 2008 by principals Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, AIA, MASS—an acronym for Model of Architecture Serving Society— has grown into a 120-person collective composed of architects, landscape architects, engineers, furniture designers, writers, and filmmakers. The nonprofit has also donated upwards of $8 million in design services since its inception. From its first project, the Butaro District Hospital in Butaro, Rwanda, the firm has focused much of its work on health care–sensitive design, which has proven invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"In the last 10 years, we have spent time working in the middle of three different epidemics, and have developed a practice in response to the consideration of how buildings might respond as well as protect against future epidemics," Murphy said in a March 2020 interview with ARCHITECT. "In each case—cholera, tuberculosis, and Ebola—I think it has taught us to think more deeply about the way in which buildings and the built environment must be constantly adaptive, designed purposefully for its context, and consider the long term-implications on the health of the people it serves." ARCHITECT profiled the firm in May 2017.
As of 2021, the firm has 30 projects, either completed or under construction, around the world. Recent projects include the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala.; Butaro Oncology Support Centre in Butaro, Rwanda; Kigali Genocide Memorial—African Center for Peace in Kigali, Rwanda; GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti; and Pepper Place Market in Birmingham, Ala.
"Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program has been working since 1985 with the mission to provide or assure access to the highest quality health care for all homeless individuals and families in the greater Boston area," wrote BHCHP chief medical officer Jessie Gaeta in a letter supporting MASS's nomination for the award. "MASS shares our commitment to centering human dignity in every aspect of our work. Their partnership in designing and creating the spatial environments that achieve that goal has been instrumental in our organization’s service provision. A key example of MASS’s collaborative and dedicated partnership is from March of [2020], when our team was rapidly responding to challenges presented by COVID-19 and reached out to MASS for immediate support. Members of their design team provided valuable design insight on the construction of temporary medical clinics that could treat homeless individuals threatened by the virus."
The jury for the 2021 Collaborative Achievement Award comprised chair Britt Linderg, AIA, of Gensler in San Jose, Calif.; Karen Braitmayer, FAIA, of Studio Pacifica, in Seattle; Antoine Bryant, Assoc. AIA, of Moody Nolan in Houston; Damaris Hollingsworth, AIA, of Design by Melo, in Golden Valley, Minn.; and Paul Young of the City of Memphis, Tenn.
To see more work from MASS Design Group, visit ARCHITECT's MASS firm page.
