Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA, the founding principal and co-executive director of MASS design group, joins the University of Maryland this fall as the Architecture Program’s 2025-26 Kea Professor. A celebrated, socially minded, global designer, Ricks will work alongside Associate Clinical Professors Julie Gabrielli and Brittany Williams, Assistant Professor Deok-Oh Woo and Lecturer Dan Curry to teach the fall Integrated Design Studio.
“Alan is a world-renowned practitioner whose work is transforming the utility and impact of architecture,” said Mohammad Gharipour, director of the University of Maryland’s Architecture Program. “We are thrilled that our students will have the opportunity to learn from his perspectives and experiences as Kea Professor.”
Ricks founded the nonprofit architecture and design firm with classmates from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2008 to serve as a catalyst for regeneration and healing in communities around the globe. MASS has since grown to over 200 architects, engineers, builders, researchers and more working in 20 countries, including Joseph Kunkel ‘09, who is principal and director of MASS’ Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab in Santa Fe, NM.
Its mission-driven projects range from hospitals in Africa to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery Alabama. MASS was named firm of the year in 2022 by the American Institute of Architects and earned the National Design Award for Architecture from the Copper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
Ricks joins 67 Kea Distinguished Professors who have significantly contributed to the student studio experience at the University of Maryland. Created in 1967 by Paul Kea, one of the first licensed architects in Maryland, the Kea Distinguished Professorship allows students to benefit from the expertise of eminent practitioners and scholars from around the world. Kea Professors serve as critics and lecturers for one semester, but the extended nature of the position is akin to a master class.
This semester’s studio is set at Forested, a nonprofit in Bowie, Md. that design and develops edible ecosystems or “food forests” for urban and rural communities. Students will design a sustainable, bioclimatic civic community center for its headquarters to support the growing organization’s social-environmental mission and outreach.
“Architects have a tremendous about of agency,” he said. “And each decision we make about a design detail, or a material has the opportunity to advance progress and social, economic and environmental impact.”
Ricks has previously led architecture studios at Yale and Harvard and shares his holistic design philosophy in films, podcasts, articles and speaking engagements. He holds an International Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. In addition to his mentorship in studio, Ricks will deliver a lecture to the MAPP community next semester.