Our first, largest, and longest running project is the design of our practice.

Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA

Co-Executive Director and Founding Principal
Boston, MA, USA

Alan is a Co-Executive Director and Founding Principal of MASS, whose mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity.

MASS has previously received the National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, named Firm of the Year by the American Institute of Architects, and Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal.

The Royal Institute of British Architects named Alan with an International Fellowship in recognition of his contribution towards the field of architecture. He is also a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders with the World Economic Forum, a community of over 800 men and women, who operate as a force for good to overcome barriers that elsewhere stand in the way of progress.

Most recently he was the William Henry Bishop Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and has also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He regularly speaks, writes, and helps create films focused on the role of architecture in catalyzing social change. Chris Anderson, chief curator of TED, described his TED talk as “a different language about what architecture can aspire to be.”

He lives in a house that he designed in Cambridge, MA with his wife Cristina and three children, Siena, Sage, and Sloan, who provide him regular design feedback. Before architecture he tried out many other fields, but is mostly asked to tell stories about having been a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

He has a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and received his Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College (where he also received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts).