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MASS Design Group

Also known as: MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society)

Active

Multiple recently completed public memorials and civic projects: The Embrace on Boston Common (2023), the Snow Country Prison Japanese American Memorial at United Tribes Technical College, Bismarck, ND (2024), and Champion's Walk at Corey Ingram Circle, Poughkeepsie, NY (dedicated 2024); several more in progress (Swords Into Plowshares, Charlottesville, VA, expected 2025; Standing Rock Cultural Center). Won the AIA's 2022 Architecture Firm Award, its highest honor for a design practice. (verified 2026-07-18)

MASS Design Group (Model of Architecture Serving Society) is a Boston-based nonprofit architecture and design collective founded in 2008 by Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, known for mission-driven public architecture, memorials, and civic spaces addressing justice, memory, and public health, including the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Embrace on Boston Common. It also maintains offices in Kigali, Rwanda; Poughkeepsie, New York; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

HeadquartersBoston, MA
Other officesKigali; Poughkeepsie, NY; Santa Fe, NM
Founded2008
RolesArchitecture, Exhibit Design, Interpretive Planning, Landscape Architecture
Websitehttps://modelofarchitecture.org

Projects (13)

ProjectVenueRoleYear
Unbound: Memorial to Enslaved Persons King's Chapel Architecture 2025
Champion's Walk at Corey Ingram Circle Petty Officer 1st Class Corey Ingram Circle Architecture 2024
Snow Country Prison Japanese American Memorial United Tribes Technical College Architecture, Interpretive Planning 2024
The Embrace Boston Common Architecture 2023
Cindy Broder Conservation Gallery The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Architecture 2022
Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Exhibit Design 2021
Justice is Beauty: The Work of MASS Design Group National Building Museum Exhibit Design 2021
The Writing on the Wall The High Line Architecture, Environmental Graphics & Wayfinding 2020
Fringe Cities: Legacies of Renewal in the Small American City Center for Architecture Exhibit Design 2019
Corn / Meal Central Middle School Exhibit Design 2019
The Gun Violence Memorial Project Chicago Cultural Center Architecture, Exhibit Design 2019
Trolley Barn Trolley Barn Architecture 2019
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice The National Memorial for Peace and Justice Architecture 2018

Sources