MASS Publishes Seeking Abundance

Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS) Publishes Seeking Abundance: Design, Ecology and a Flourishing Planet

The new book illustrates how regenerative design and building can heal our planet and communities by halting biodiversity loss, reversing climate change, and improving social equity

BOSTON - March 1, 2026— Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS), a nonprofit design organization, published Seeking Abundance: Design, Ecology and a Flourishing Planet, a new book that illustrates how regenerative design and building can heal our planet and communities by halting biodiversity loss, reversing climate change, and improving social equity. The publication looks at the last decade of MASS’s design practice, proving positive social, environmental, and economic results through a series of projects in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Seeking Abundance argues for reducing the harm our building activities wage in our environments and that we can—and must—help people and the planet thrive together. The groundbreaking book, co-edited by MASS founders Sierra Bainbridge and Alan Ricks, examines how the power of multidisciplinary collaboration, regenerative practices, and community engagement can actively contribute to a healthier, more harmonious world.

“Seeking Abundance offers a hopeful and actionable vision for the future of design, one where design, engineering and construction are viewed as a means to restore and balance, not just build,” said Alan Ricks, Co-Executive Director & Founding Principal at MASS. “The work revealed choices about materials, construction methods, and labor that most books neglect, taking readers into the ethics of design’s production. Design is not just about creating beautiful structures; it’s about understanding and responding to the context in which those structures exist.”

The book is focused around three primary projects:

• The Rwanda Institute of Conservation Agriculture (RICA), MASS’s largest project — a 3,400-acre, 69-building university in Rwanda — and the first regenerative and climate-positive university ever built. It is an agricultural landscape, an ecological restoration effort, and an educational model rolled into one. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa with food insecurity rising, placing extraordinary pressure on farmland and ecosystems. Climate change, soil erosion, deforestation, and biodiversity loss compounded these risks, undermining water, crops, and public health. Meeting Rwanda’s ambitious goal of food independence required a new approach, increasing productivity while sustaining ecological health. To meet its goal of food independence, RICA was founded to train a new generation of agricultural leaders. Supported by the Government of Rwanda, RICA blends scientific rigor, business training, and ecological stewardship through hands-on, farm-based learning rooted in conservation agriculture and One Health principles.
• Ilima Primary School, in partnership with the global nonprofit the African Wildlife Foundation, strengthens rural education while conserving threatened ecosystems. Located in the Democratic Republic of Congo and built from materials sourced within a 10-kilometer radius, it was conceived as a living platform for learning, conservation, and community resilience—proving that abundance can be hand-crafted, hyperlocal, and deeply reciprocal. In one of the planet’s most ecologically rich yet vulnerable regions, the Ilima community is among the most remote in the world. For generations, residents have lived in close relationship with endangered wildlife in the surrounding forest, but increasing development pressures have created tensions between population growth, agriculture, and conservation. The Congo Basin—the world’s second-largest rainforest—is disappearing at an alarming rate due to agriculture, logging, mining, and population growth, threatening biodiversity.
• The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, located outside the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda is a living laboratory for conservation, research, and education—designed to regenerate the land, support biodiversity, and serve as an entry point for a lifetime of conservation activism. Founded 55 years ago, the Fossey Fund is the world’s largest and longest-running organization fully dedicated to gorilla conservation. Located at the base of the seismically active Virunga Mountains, the campus required robust structural solutions, with reinforced concrete cores. Materials used included local volcanic stone, pinewood and clay. More than 250,000 native plants were propagated and planted, extending the park’s habitats and creating a research site that informs regional reforestation strategies. Since the Fossey Fund campus opening, 52 bird species, small mammals and endemic amphibians have returned, and 95 percent of the plants that were planted are intact.

Seeking Abundance is a photographic and geographical exploration of cross-collaboration in design’s effect on ecological and cultural restoration. Set across three African landscapes: the Congo Basin, Savannah Woodland, and Afromontane Forest, the book immerses readers in stories of earth, clay, hand-shaped timber, and wetlands reborn as living infrastructure. Readers are able to see a way in which we can shape our collective future, knowing that every act of design can advance a more just, balanced, and beautiful world.

As architects, landscape architects, engineers and industrial designers increasingly engage with social, political, and environmental challenges, MASS continues to lead by example, showing how design can be a powerful tool for equity, integrity, and systemic change. The work, focused on biodiversity, ecology and materiality, is not meant to be a retrospective but used to inspire prospective work.

“Our buildings, landscape design and material selection is a response to the interconnectedness of the world around us,” said Sierra Bainbridge, Founding Principal at MASS. “We believe architecture can be a tool for healing and nurturing both people and planet. Seeking Abundance strives for a new definition of abundance rooted in equilibrium, when all species, including our own, thrive in relation to each other.”

MASS will lecture globally on lessons from Seeking Abundance and apply the applications from the projects, partnerships and books in workshops and encourage participatory activations. The work, focused on biodiversity, ecology and materiality, is not meant to be a retrospective but used to inspire prospective work.

Credited Contributors: Lesley Lokko - Accra, Ghana; Dieuveil Malonga – Kigali, Rwanda; Gaël Ruboneka Vande weghe – Kigali, Rwanda; Cedric Mizero - Kigali, Rwanda; Kelly Alvarez Doran – London, UK; Anita Berrizbetia – Boston, Mass., USA; Hanif Kara – Boston, Mass., USA; Sarah Ichioka – Singapore; Chris Schwagga – Kigali, Rwanda; Iwan Baan - Amsterdam, Netherlands; Tara Stoinski – Atlanta, GA., USA; Maura Rockcastle – Minneapolis, Minn., USA

Contributing MASS Team: Bethel Abate, Cam Bailey, Thatcher Bean, Andrew Brose, Rachel Brose, Regina Chen, Niels Datema, Jessi Flynn, Joe Christa Giraso, Rosie Goldrick, Emily Goldenberg, Therese Graf, Patricia Gruits, Chris Hardy, Martine Dushime, James Kitchin, Anton Larsen, Aimable Mukire, Adam Saltzman, John Paul Sebuhayi Uwase, Maggie Stern, Theo Uwayezu

SPECS
Publisher: Axiomatic Editions, Ashley Simone, Editorial Director
Editor: William Richards
Design: Fred Swart, Pascale Vonier
Trim: 9” x 11” Portrait
Extent: 252pp
Binding: Hardbound
ISBN: 978-1-966515-02-9
Cost: $50.00
Season: Winter 2026
SKU: 91246

ABOUT MASS:

Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS) transforms bold ideas into transformative architecture and landscapes. Rooted in leading research, visionary thinking, and deep local knowledge and expertise, MASS creates civic spaces that set new standards for design excellence.

MASS’s Design Labs turn insights from our projects into sustained movements for change. Through research, catalytic pilot projects, and systems change work, the Labs bring impact to scale—addressing the root causes of inequality and ecological crisis.

MASS was incorporated as a design nonprofit 501(c)3 in 2010. MASS celebrated its 15th anniversary as a global design nonprofit in 2025. MASS’s first book, Justice is Beauty, was a monograph of their first body of work, published in 2019.

BIOS

Alan Ricks

Alan is a Founding Principal and Co-Executive Director at Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS). Under his leadership, MASS has garnered international acclaim for its innovative approach to addressing global challenges through design. He continues to collaborate on and lead a diverse range of projects and oversees a group of interdisciplinary teams that support design and research across the practice.

Alan regularly teaches advanced architecture studios, including at Harvard University and Yale University, where he was most recently the Louis I. Khan Visiting Professor. Alan has presented at universities, conferences, and events around the globe. He has written and produced 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.”

Alan was honored with an International Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects in appreciation of his significant contributions to the field. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, a community working towards positive change and progress in various fields. The governor of Massachusetts appointed him to the Designer Selection Board to select firms for state-funded work, and during his two terms, he also served as chair. He is also a member of the Harvard University Design Advisory Council.

Alan holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College, where he was also bestowed an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.

Sierra Bainbridge

Sierra Bainbridge seeks to create spaces of research, engagement, and collaboration where context-driven, impactful design solutions can emerge, supporting communities, institutions, and thought leaders working to address our most urgent challenges and inequities. Her practice is grounded in openness, curiosity, and optimism, shaped by deep interdisciplinary experience, and focused on delivering projects that demonstrate what is possible. 

As a founder and Senior Principal at Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS), Sierra 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. From early work on the High Line and Fresh Kills Park to the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture and the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, her projects reveal the power of design to catalyze ecological and societal abundance. 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.

Sierra also works to evolve the design professions through teaching and service. She served on the Landscape Architecture Foundation Board, and continues as Board Emeritus. She received the Berkeley Rupp Prize for career achievement, serving as practitioner in residence ‘23–’25. Sierra is a creative educator, teaching landscape, architecture and interdisciplinary graduate studios & seminars at Penn, Harvard, UC Berkeley, the Boston Architectural College, and the University of Rwanda. Sierra has also developed innovative curricula for programs such as the University of Rwanda’s Faculty of Architecture, the African Design Center’s Graduate Design Program, and RICA’s One Health & Food Systems curriculum. She holds dual master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Landscape Architecture and Architecture, and a BA in Architectural History and Fine Arts from Smith College.