Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, co-founders of Boston-based MASS Design Group, are putting into action what other idealists of their generation may only dream about: The opportunity to change the world. Really. Unlike many of their recent architecture school graduate peers who go on to follow a more traditional career path, Murphy and Ricks are already turning the familiar model of design practice as we know it on its head-for a higher purpose.In 2007, while still in school at Harvard GSD, Murphy and Ricks founded MASS (an acronym for Model of Architecture Serving Society) in an inspired response to a lecture by Partners in Health (PIH) co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer, who talked about his own organization’s goal to deliver improved healthcare services to Third World populations impacted by the AIDS crisis. PIH’s mission to build better healthcare facilities in AIDS-ravaged countries—a challenge that is not without its need for creative architectural solutions—not only resonated with Murphy and Ricks, but called them to action.

MASS Design, a pending 501(c) (3) not for profit firm, is focused on designing, building, and advocating for buildings that improve health and strengthen communities in some of the most marginalized regions of the world. It’s first project, Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, completed mostly pro-bono, has been the recipient of numerous design awards, has caught the attention of such dignitaries as President Bill Clinton, and serves as the young firm’s successful model for the transformative power of design.

Other projects include Butaro Doctor’s Housing in Rwanda (currently under construction); Girubuntu School, a non-profit school committed to the education of vulnerable and orphaned children in Rwanda; and GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Port Au Prince, Haiti (currently under construction). In all its work, MASS embraces holistic design solutions that result in job creation and training in sustainable building practices, creating models that can be used to inform building projects elsewhere.

InterfaceFLOR caught up with Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks for a Q+A, shortly after MASS Design Group was honored as 2012 Designer of the Year by Contract magazine.

IF: Describe the mission of MASS Design Group.

MASS: We design, build, and advocate for buildings that heal. We address not only immediate infrastructural needs, but also the construction of dignity and the development of systems to address the social determinants of failure. We build capacity at all levels—from training unskilled laborers, to teaching the next generation of impact-focused architects, to assisting government ministries in writing better policies.

IF: How did you first become interested in public interest design? Do you see this career path as an alternative to or an enhancement to traditional practice?

MASS: We would first posit the question: “What architect is against design for the public interest?” What has become apparent with the current economic climate is that as a discipline we need to fight for our relevance. In 2007, when we discovered that the lack of design or poor design was literally killing people by contributing to the spread of airborne disease, we recognized an opportunity to demonstrate the powerful instrumentality of architecture to affect positive change.

IF: What lessons did you take away from your experience designing and building Butaro Hospital, and how will you apply these to your other work?

MASS: We discovered the power of partnership. By joining the project early on, and working alongside interdisciplinary partners through the entirety of the project, allowed us to not only develop innovative solutions to global health challenges, but also produce a larger, more profound impact in the community at a range of scales. Using local materials and expertise, training and employing the community, and focusing on design strategies that actually facilitate the healing process are lessons that we have carried forward to our other work.

IF: In your opinion, what larger role can architecture and design play in society?

MASS: Architecture and design have significant power for affecting change when it is seen not only as the object produced, but also as the processes that produced it. Constructing Butaro stimulated local construction markets, trained 4,000 skilled craftsmen and employed a total of 12,000 members of the community. The boost to the economy, accompanied by the pride and ownership experienced by those who helped build the state-of-the-art hospital eclipses the impact that only architecture-as-an-object can produce. The project also opened the doors to partnership with the government to rethink the standards of health facilities, the opportunity teach the first generation of Rwandan educated architects, and design strategies that can inform better health solutions globally.

IF: At the end of January, MASS Design was named Designer of the Year by Contract magazine. What does this award represent to you?

MASS: This award is a testament to the large team that have been a part of MASS and made the choice to support his work and fought to prove that our profession has the capacity to radically improve lives.

IF: What inspires you?

MASS: This quote from Paul Farmer, founder of Partners In Health, well articulates a call to action and the opportunity we have as architects.

“The architecture here (Butaro) responds to real problems, and does so in creative and efficient ways. Why are there so few examples of this kind of thoughtful generous-spirited design? The most honest answer to this question turns on the ‘political economy’ of design: those who have the resources determine who will design what, when, and where…One of the unusual strengths of Butaro Hospital is that it made the unusual leap from concept to construction through an exchange that pushed designers and engineers to listen to us, the health care providers; and, with us, to our patients.”

IF: What would advice would you give to young architects and designers just starting out?

MASS: Training in architecture and design provides you with a skillset and way of thinking that has the potential to go beyond the creation of beautiful objects. It teaches you a different way to think about problems, digesting information from an array of fields, to distill opportunities to improve the mission of the project. This is powerful.