Michael Murphy, Founding Partner and Executive Director

Michael is the Executive director and Co-Founder of MASS Design Group. Michael helped lead the design of the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, assisting with architectural solutions to mitigate and reduce the transmission of airborne diseases like tuberculosis. Opened in 2010, the Butaro Hospital has won awards including 2011 Acute Medical Building of the Year by Contract Magazine and the Zumtobel Award given every three years for sustainability and humanity in the built environment.

Michael has been the recipient of the 2010 Design Futures Council Emerging Leaders Scholarship, deemed a Master of Design for 2010 by Fast Company Magazine, named one of 2011's Game Changers by Metropolis Magazine, and honored in the PopTech Fellows class of 2011 as a leader in technology innovation. Michael has a Masters in Architecture from Harvard's Graduate School of Design, has taught courses on design for infection control at Harvard University’s school of Public Health, and was a 2011 Entrepreneur in Residence at Clark University as well as a Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critic at the Boston Architectural College. Michael with partner Alan Ricks recently accepted the award for 2012 Designer of the Year from Contract Magazine and the Curry Stone Design Award for 2012. 

Alan Ricks, Founding Partner and Chief Operating Officer

Alan co-founded MASS Design Group in 2007 to better address the need for holistic design. As Chief Operating Officer, he manages the firm’s multiple offices where he has overseen rapid growth, while leading projects with NGOs, foreign and domestic governments, as well as in the private sector.

Projects of note include: the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, a finalist for 2011 World Architecture Festival Health Project of the Year, the GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Haiti, research on infection control and health facility design for USAID, and policy writing for the Liberian Ministry of Health. He was named to Forbes Magazine’s 2012, 30 under 30 list of the most influential people in art and design and received Contract Magazine’s Designer of the Year award with co-founder Michael Murphy in 2012. He has served as the Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critic at the Boston Architectural College and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Clark University. He has been a guest critic or lecturer on the topics of MASS’s work at Colorado College, Northeastern, University of Texas, Clark University, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, Tulane and the Harvard School of Public Health. Alan received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from Colorado College and his Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Sierra Bainbridge, Senior Director

Sierra began working on the Butaro Hospital in 2008, eventually joining MASS full time in June of 2009. Prior to joining MASS, Sierra oversaw the completion of Section 1 of the High Line for James Corner Field Operations, where she worked for four and a half years on various projects including Fresh Kills, Patterson Great Falls Park, and Bond’s Cay EcoResort.

Sierra helped designing and overseeing the implementation of the company’s first built work, including Butaro Hospital, the Girubuntu School, and Rwinkwavu Village Housing.  From 2010-2012, Sierra also served as Head of the Architecture Department at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) where she was instrumental in shaping the current curriculum.  

Recently a Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critic at the Boston Architectural College, Sierra has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and has been a visiting critic at Cornell University, and the MIT Design Innovation Competition.  She has lectured widely, including IUAV in Venice, University of Pennsylvania, the World Conference on Lung Health, and Savannah Institute of Art.  Sierra received her Bachelor of Arts in Art and Architectural History from Smith College and her Masters in Landscape Architecture and Masters in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

Chris Scovel, Director

Chris joined MASS in 2011 and has directed and mentored several projects in Haiti such as a masterplan for the St. Boniface Hospital, a rural community center in Fond des Blancs, and the GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Port-au-Prince, among others. Prior to MASS, Chris worked as an architect in Boston providing design, project management, and construction administration expertise on multiple institutional projects. These include libraries, courthouses, and a wide variety of academic buildings. Chris is a registered architect within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Architecture. He received his Masters in Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. 

Garret Gantner, Project Manager LEED AP

As a Project Manager at MASS, Garret worked extensively on the design and managed the construction of Butaro Hospital, Rwinkwavu NICU, and co-managed the design of the Maternity Hospital in Nyanza.  He has been a core faculty member in the Department of Architecture at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) since 2009, where he, along with fellow MASS team member Sierra Bainbridge, helped lead the authoring of the curriculum, and was appointed Head of the Architecture Department in 2011. Garret’s design work has been published in Retrospecta, Yale's annual architectural journal (2007), and he has had furniture design exhibited at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (2008). Following that year, he published research on African urbanism in African Perspectives, and has presented conference papers delivering an architectural education in Rwanda. Garret received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his Master of Architecture from Yale University. 

David Saladik, Director

In 2007, David was a founding member of MASS and worked extensively on the design of the Butaro Hospital. David now manages MASS’s Haiti operations and serves as Project Manager on GHESKIO’s new Cholera Treatment Center and Tuberculosis Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Prior to MASS, David has worked for Barkow Leibinger Architects in Berlin and Preston Scott Cohen, Inc. David received his Bachelor of Arts from Boston University and his Masters in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Amie Shao, Research Manager, LEED AP

Amie joined MASS in 2010 and was involved on the ground in MASS’s initial work in Haiti. She currently leads impact research out of the Boston office.

Prior to joining MASS, Amie has worked for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Beijing, WORK Architecture Company in New York City, and EnSitu, S.A. in Panama. At Princeton University, Amie led the university’s Haiti Rapid Response initiative. In 2008, she co-curated an exhibition titled Eco-Redux at the Byzantine Museum in Greece and was invited to collaborate with the Mapping Athens in the 21^st Century project, where she documented the spatial dynamics of immigration through film, photography, and mapping. In 2009-10, she was awarded the Butler Traveling Fellowship to document the ship-breaking beaches of Alang, India.

Amie received her Masters in Architecture and a Certificate in Urban Policy & Planning from Princeton University. 

Tanya Paz, Communications and Development Manager

Tanya joined MASS in 2011 as a Project Manager, leading the New York Community Hospital Renovation and playing an instrumental role in US health care work. She now runs running MASS’s development and marketing efforts, putting her skills towards helping ensure design reaches the communities who need it most. 

Prior to working at MASS, Tanya was a Fulbright Scholar and worked at Mansilla and Tunon Arquitectura, MoMA, So-Il on their PS1 YAP project and construction, and on Paul Lukez Architecture’s TransformX urbanism research. Her research and work focuses on leveraging “architecturally inhospitable” sites to give designers new latitudes to develop alternative models. Tanya received her Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University and her Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Monique Guimond, Senior Associate

As one of the first full time members of MASS in 2010, Monique has been instrumental in the office's growth and operations. Leading the process of forming MASS as an independent entity, Monique now uses her skills to manage MASS’s fiscal and organizational operations, ensuring the spread of healthy building into the future. 

In 2009, she lived in Kampala, Uganda where she worked for the Ministry of Health conducting research on rainfall patterns in Malaria endemic regions, as well as for a local grassroots orphanage focusing on development. Monique has also interned in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the INFANT Foundation, taking part in laboratory and hospital-based research on childhood respiratory disease.

Commode Dushimimana, Project Manager

Commode first joined MASS in 2010 as a Global Health Corps Fellow. During his first year as a design fellow with MASS, Commode worked on the implementation of the design of the Butaro Hospital. He now serves as the Project Manager for the Butaro Doctor’s Housing complex, where he is responsible for overseeing the project to its completion.

Along with fellow MASS team members, Sierra, Garret and Christian, Commode is active at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) where he is an assistant lecturer. Commode is most interested in sustainable energy solutions and their applications to architecture. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Tongji University, Shanghai, China. 

Andrew Brose, Associate

Andrew received his Bachelors of Architecture from the University of Oregon in 2010 and joined MASS the same year where he has been assisting in the design and construction of Girubuntu Primary School, Rwinkwavu Housing, and the Butaro Doctors’ Housing complex.  In addition Andrew oversees the development of MASS’s new projects in Uganda, including the Bishop Masereka Medical Center in Kasese and the Kayaja Center at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology. 

Prior to joining MASS, Andrew spent most of his adolescent years in Rwanda, Burundi, and Kenya where he lived with his family and attended school.  Growing up in East Africa has given Andrew a deep appreciation and interest in the intersection of culture, art, design, and development.  He has developed this interest through participating in and leading design/build projects in Burundi with World Relief (shelter construction for returning refugees) and in Eugene, Oregon with DesignBridge.  Andrew’s vision is to see how local materials and creative design can merge to provide cost-effective architectural solutions.

Matt Swaidan, Associate

In 2012, Matt joined the MASS team in Boston, and is working on Redemption Hospital and the Drury University Exhibit. Matt was awarded a Community Service Fellowship Grant by the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) for the design and fabrication of the INSERT! library in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. He served as a CNC teaching assistant for three years at the GSD, assisting fellow students in the use and programming of digital fabrication tools. Prior to joining MASS, Matt worked at SO-IL and William Rawn Architects. Matt received his Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Ohio State University.

Christian Benimana, Junior Associate

Christian obtained a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) of Tongji University in Shanghai, China (2008). He was a 2011 class Global Health Corps fellow with Partners in Health and has been involved with design/build projects and development intiatives at MASS, as well as teaching at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). Besides being on the academic staff of the Architecture Department of KIST, he is also the chairman of the Education Board of the Architect Association of Rwanda and a member of the Education Board Council of the East African Institute of Science and Technology. He was a designer on the Rwinkwavu NICU/OR project and he is currently handling the construction administration. Prior to joining MASS, he worked with LongiLat Architecture and Research in Shanghai where he worked on the Porsche center in Shanghai and the Netherlands Pavillion in the 2010 International Expo. He is particularly interested in the innovative use of materials for sustainable designs.

Sarah Mohland, Associate

Sarah joined MASS in 2011 as a Design Fellow and has worked on the NICU in Rwinkwavu Hospital, monitoring and metric evaluation for the Butaro Hospital, the Nyanza Hospital Maternity Retrofit and Expansion, and the design/build of Butaro Doctor's Housing.  Focused on designing sustainable and dignifying solutions for the developing world, Sarah began her social design career in graduate school with the design of the Khumbu Climbing Center in Phortse, Nepal as a partnership with the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation, aiming to teach the Sherpa of the Everest Region life safety climbing skills. After graduating, she traveled with the Montana State chapter of Engineers Without Borders to help in the design and construction of a biogas digester in rural Kenya.  Sarah received her Bachelors of Environmental Design in 2008 and Masters of Architecture in 2009 from Montana State University-Bozeman.

Ben Hartigan, Associate

Ben joined MASS in 2011 as a Global Health Corps Fellow with Partners in Health. During that year he was able to apply design as a relevant tool for addressing the problem of global health inequity through working on the Nyanza Hospital and Butaro Doctor's Housing. He currently lives and works in Butaro where he works on construction management, furniture fabrication, and design for the Butaro Cancer Center. 

Prior to MASS, Ben joined Lake|Flato Architects in San Antonio where he worked on a wide range of projects. He also was a student design fellow with Boulder Associates Architects where he pursued the research and design of a modular mobile wellness clinic and healing garden for rural Zimbabwe.

Ben received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 2008 and his Masters of Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2011.

Holly Jacobson, Junior Associate

Holly joined MASS in 2011 to help manage internal communications and now assists with MASS’s business development. She studied architecture in Copenhagen at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in the spring of 2010, and interned with the Maine Chapter of the US Green Building Council assisting with grant work during the summer of 2011. An interest in international development via appropriate design grew from both volunteer work in Guatemala, where she aided in elementary school classrooms, and in Ghana, where Holly tutored math and French at an orphanage in the VeDeme region. Holly received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College in 2011.

Michelle Benoit, Design Fellow

Michelle received her Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois, and a Master in Architectural History from the University of Virginia.  Her Master's thesis analyzed urban regeneration projects in the historic city center of Istanbul, Turkey.  It was through this project that she was exposed to the health concerns of those living in older neighborhoods, such as the inaccessibility of modern utilities.  It also introduced her to the health and environmental impacts of living in close proximity to post-industrial sites.  Michelle joined the MASS team as a 2012-2013 Global Health Corps Fellow with Partners in Health.  She looks forward to exploring ways to incorporate a better standard of health within new and existing architectural environments.

Adam Saltzman, Associate

In 2011, Adam joined the MASS team in Haiti working on GHESKIO’s new Cholera Treatment Center and Tuberculosis Hospital.

Prior to MASS, in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, he worked in the recovery effort with Architecture for Humanity. Adam also interned at Rodrigo Carazo Arquitectos in San Jose, Costa Rice, and Perkins + Will at their New York and Atlanta offices. Adam received his Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from James Madison University and his Master of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. 

Jean Michel Maniragaba, Design Fellow

Jean Michel joined MASS as a 2012- 2013 Gobal Health Corps Fellow with Partners in Health. Prior to working with MASS, he worked at the Embassy of Japan in Rwanda at the Workforce Development Authority (WDA). He has a Bachelor of Engineering from Nihon University’s Department of Architecture in Japan, and studied electronics in high school, now bringing his knowledge in electricity with his love for architecture (particularly modern architecture) to his work at MASS. Born in the D.R. Congo, but now native to Rwanda, Jean Michel loves what MASS is doing within the country, and believes it’s the way to go for health facilities.