Michael Murphy on Architecture as a Vessel for Healing and Hope

Michael Murphy believes in architecture that promotes connectivity, collectivity, and health, in the broadest sense of the term. As the founding principal and executive director of MASS Design Group, a 14-year-old nonprofit architecture and design collective with main offices in Boston and Kigali, Rwanda, he creates buildings with the aim of aiding individuals and communities, and addressing complex issues—particularly ones exacerbated by politics and time. 

In addition to hospitals and health centers around the world, MASS has created schools, public and private housing, farms, campuses, and other projects centered around healing and hope. This focus shines in some of the firm’s recent efforts, including MASS’s Restorative Design Justice Lab, which seeks to design decarceration, and its Covid-19 Design Response team, which provides resources to vulnerable populations, such as Indigenous communities and those in senior housing. “Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics,” an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt (on view through February 20, 2023) that MASS curated and designed, highlights how architecture can serve people in moments of crisis. 

MASS’s work on memorials further illustrates the firm’s dedication to creating affecting architecture. The practice’s designs for the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (2018) in Montgomery, Alabama; the Gun Violence Memorial Project (2019); and “The Embrace,” a sculpture created with artist Hank Willis Thomas that will rise from the Boston Common this year, offer visceral, multisensory experiences. 

On this episode, Murphy talks with Spencer about creating a “Slow Space” movement, architecture as a storytelling device, and why the most successful memorials are those that offer tools for collective engagement.

Special thanks to our Season 5 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Full transcript
• [03:15] MASS Design Group
• [21:30] The Architecture of Health: Hospital Design and the Construction of Dignity
• [21:30] “Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics”
• [22:10] Michael Murphy’s 2016 TED Talk 
• [34:30] Restorative Justice Design Lab
• [44:39] National Memorial for Peace and Justice
• [44:39] “The Embrace”
• [47:21] Kigali Genocide Memorial—African Center for Peace
• [55:18] Gun Violence Memorial Project 
• [01:06:30] Butaro District Hospital