Cummings School Blog

Alumni Goldenberg and Hardy of MASS Design Spring 2024 Teaching Firm in Residence

Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, 2022
The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Image Credit: Photo Iwan Baan

Alumni Emily Goldenberg'10'12 and Chris Hardy'12'16 of MASS Design Group, Boston are serving as a Spring 2024 Teaching Firm in Residence, teaching a Graduate Architectural Design Studio. Each received their undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture from RWU. MASS Design Group received the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2022 Firm of the Year Award, the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture practice. The award recognizes a firm that has consistently produced distinguished architecture for at least 10 years. 

Goldenberg in her 10+ years at MASS has contributed to projects including the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Birmingham, Alabama—which honors more than 4400 historical victims of lynching in the American South and was heralded as “the single greatest work of 21st century American architecture that will break your heart” by the Dallas Morning News, the New Redemption Hospital, and African Leadership University. She recently spent four years in the Kigali office leading the design and construction of the recently opened Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Prior to working at MASS, Emily was a Designer at Sasaki Associates. At RWU she was awarded the Architecture Thesis Award for her work on informal architecture and slum redevelopment for a potters community in Dharavi, Mumbai, India.

Chris Hardy joined MASS in 2018, and has focused on complex projects and delivery methods. He spent four years in the Kigali, Rwanda office leading the design and construction of the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture and the Western Serengeti Research Centre for the Grumeti Fund in Tanzania. He has contributed to or managed a number of projects at MASS, including the New Lots Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Haven Domestic Violence Shelter, Children’s Services Roxbury, Caddo Childcare Center, 110 Ocean Housing, among others. He teaches at the Boston Architectural College. 

Goldenberg and Hardy’s Spring 2024 graduate design studio is focused on Empowerment Centers: Cultivating a Future-proof Workforce.

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