Urban Design as a Development Strategy The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture Campus by MASS

Christian Benimana is a Senior Principal and Co-Executive Director at MASS, overseeing the Africa studio. He also founded the African Design Centre, a field-based training program within MASS, which supports designers in leapfrogging past the mistakes of unsustainable industrialization, enabling Africa to become a global leader in equitable, regenerative development.

Alan Ricks is a Principal and Co-Executive Director of MASS, where he leads global design initiatives that blend beauty, equity, and ecological regeneration to advance systemic change through the built environment. He continues to collaborate on and lead a diverse range of projects, overseeing a group of interdisciplinary teams that support design and research across the practice.

Sierra Bainbridge is a co-founder and Senior Principal at MASS, where she directs the Landscape Studio and Abundant Futures Lab. With a background in landscape architecture, ecology, and regional planning, she advances holistic, comprehensive, cross-disciplinary approaches to design regeneratively. Her work has been recognized for design excellence, research and analysis, and sustainability by the ASLA, AIA, COTE, and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Awards.

Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture, joined the GSD as Dean in July 2019. She is a design principal and co-founder of WW Architecture, and served as the Dean of Rice University’s School of Architecture from 2010 to 2019.

Rachel Weber is Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. She is an urban planner, political economist, and economic geographer who researches the relationship between finance and the built environment. She explores the ways in which cities’ deepening relationships with financial markets have brought about changes in the ways they budget, fund infrastructure, and manage their assets.

Dan Stubbergaard, Professor in Practice of Urban Design at the GSD, trained as an architect at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and founded Cobe in 2006. Inspired by the transformation of Copenhagen from an industrial port city to a beacon for livability and sustainability, Stubbergaard believes architects have a profound responsibility to create resilient, long-term solutions that improve life—cities, buildings, and landscapes that are made to outlast our generation

Peter Rowe is the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. Rowe served as Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design from 1992–2004, Chairman of the Urban Planning and Design Department from 1988–1992, and Director of the Urban Design Programs from 1985–1990. Prior to Harvard, Rowe served as the Director of the School of Architecture at Rice University from 1981–1985 and also directed many multi-disciplinary research projects through the Rice Center, where he was Vice President from 1978 onwards, and at the Southwest Center for Urban Research.

Dana McKinney White is an Assistant Professor of Urban Design at the GSD and a licensed architect and urban designer. She is an outspoken advocate for social justice and equity through design. She contextualizes people and their broader communities throughout her work. Her academic and professional work integrates wellness, policy, and economics into innovative design solutions to benefit even the most vulnerable populations, including system-impacted communities, persons experiencing homelessness, and aging populations.

Maurice D. Cox is Emma Bloomberg Professor in Residence of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to joining the GSD faculty, Cox was Director of Planning and Development for the City of Detroit between 2015–2019 and Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago between 2019–2023, where he focused on the adaptive challenges facing contemporary urban revitalization.

Gareth Doherty, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the GSD, takes a human-centered approach to design and theory that aspires to shape environmentally and socially just landscapes. Doherty contributes to core knowledge in landscape architecture through applying ethnographic fieldwork and participatory design methodologies to design and theory. Through what he terms “landscape fieldwork,” Doherty unravels diverse landscape narratives that have not yet been formally documented as evidenced through his recent fieldwork on African landscape architecture.

Jungyoon Kim, Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the GSD,is a practicing landscape architect, registered in the Netherlands and in the state of Massachusetts. She found PARKKIM with Yoonjin Park in Rotterdam, upon their winning of the Taiwan Chichi Earthquake Memorial Design Competition (2004), and relocated to Seoul, Korea (2006). PARKKIM completed projects of diverse scale and nature, ranging from corporate landscapes to civic venues. Current ongoing projects include the Suseongmot Lake Floating Stage in Daegu, Korea, for which PARKKIM won the international invited competition in 2024 and is scheduled for completion in 2026.

Stephen Gray is an Associate Professor of Urban Design and Director of the Urban Design Program at the GSD. He is an urban designer, educator, and principal of Grayscale Collaborative , a research and design firm focused on spatial justice and equitable development. Stephen’s research, teaching, and practice examine how race, capital, and infrastructure intersect to shape cities—and are anchored by two core commitments: (1) foregrounding the systems and ideologies of power that have historically and continuously shaped the field of urban design; and (2) developing principles and methods for a practice that not only engages power more critically, but also envisions cities as places where more people can exercise agency over their own futures. 

Patricia Gruits, Co-Executive Director of MASS, supports the strategy, development, operations, finance, design, and governance of the North American studios. Her decade-long tenure has seen her working at MASS’s Boston Studio and in the Africa Studio, where she led design teams on acclaimed projects, including the African Leadership University, the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and the Maternity Waiting Village in Malawi.

Jean Paul Sebuhayi Uwase is committed to architecture that drives social impact. He envisions a world where everyone has access to architecture that promotes dignity. Since joining MASS in 2011 as an Intern, Jean Paul’s role has continuously expanded in scope. He currently serves as a Design Principal at the Africa Studio, where he guides design projects from conception to construction while managing client relations and ensuring effective collaboration.

Rahul Mehrotra is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at the GSD and the founding principal of Mumbai-based RMA Architects . RMA Architects, founded in 1990, has designed and executed projects including government and private institutions, corporate workplaces, private homes, and unsolicited projects driven by the firm’s commitment to advocacy in the city of Mumbai.

Toni L. Griffin is Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the GSD and a faculty affiliate of the Bloomberg Center on Cities. Her teaching portfolio includes cross-disciplinary option studios, MDes open projects, and seminars devoted to gentrification, neighborhood change, and design for the just city.  In addition to teaching, Toni is the founding director of the Just City Lab, a research platform that investigates how design’s impact on social and spatial justice in cities.