Architecture can play a catalytic role in strategies to improve living conditions and to increase human dignity around the world.

Bethel Abate

Design Director
Kigali, Rwanda

Bethel is a Design Director at MASS, where she works with multidisciplinary teams to deliver projects that advance research and education across different communities around the world. Her daily work is driven by an interest in understanding the significance of the built environment within different economic, social, and cultural contexts.

Since joining MASS in 2015, Bethel has worked with various teams across the organization, from research and exhibition design to architecture and construction. She has focused on projects such as the African Leadership University campus in Kigali's Innovation City; Grumeti Fund’s Western Serengeti Research Facility in Tanzania; and the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in northern Rwanda. 

More recently, Bethel led the design of the new National Heroes Mausoleum in Kigali, a museum dedicated to honoring and celebrating Rwanda's national heroes. She is continuing to advance projects that seek to expand the narratives in our public realm by working within the Public Memory and Memorials Lab at MASS.

Bethel received her Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech. At Tech’s design/buildLAB, she contributed to the design and construction of the award-winning Smith Creek Park, a   transformation of a tire factory into an amphitheater and recreational area in the historic town of Clifton Forge. 

In 2023, the Wallpaper* USA 300 recognized Bethel as one of 17 community builders defining America’s creative landscape.

Architecture can play a catalytic role in strategies to improve living conditions and to increase human dignity around the world.