Grace and Peace: Grace Farms' Sharon Prince on Social Justice and Spaces That Communicate
Portrait by Ryan Slack, courtesy of Grace Farms Foundation
By Julia Gamolina
Sharon Prince is the CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation which aims to end modern slavery and gender-based violence, while creating more grace and peace in our local and global communities. Prince commissioned the Pritzker Prize-winning SANAA to design the River building, garnering awards for architecture, sustainability, and social good. In 2020, Prince launched Design for Freedom, with more than 60 leaders to create a radical paradigm shift to remove slavery from the built environment.
In her interview with Julia, Sharon talks about her work with Grace Farms, SANAA’s design for the River Building, and Design for Freedom. She advises those just starting their careers to prioritize being futuristic in their thinking.
JG: Your background is in business! Tell me about how that planted the seeds for what you’re doing now with Grace Farms.
SP: My background in business started with figuring out how to put myself through college. I went to school at the University of Tulsa, and one avenue was to be the graduate assistant to Dr. Bob Hisrich. He was a Fulbright Scholar and a leading Entrepreneurial Studies professor in the country at the time, and has published something like thirty textbooks. His book during my studies however, happened to be on entrepreneurs that were women! And I was assisting him.
So, I ran the newly formed incubator center, which is called the Venture Capital Exchange, and essentially became an entrepreneur myself by starting a market research firm with him before I graduated.
How did this lead to you starting Grace Farms?
I quickly discovered that creating something new and worthy is creative, intense, forward-thinking and ultimately very fulfilling. I began thinking about the gaps in our culture that need to be filled. This started with enterprises, and moved to social impact endeavors for me. This work was energizing for me, and I really felt like I needed to take action to help remedy problems, injustices, and gaps. I’m wired to care and stand up for people along the way. Gender parity has long been one of those significant gaps, and I also learned about the brutality and scale of modern slavery about twenty years ago, which has only escalated with impunity and opacity. Both issues really need us to engage with fervor.
This ethos really ran through my career, including when I was the President of 66 Degree North US, which is a 100-year old Icelandic technicalwear brand that I brought to the US. The brand brought together exploration, awe-inspiring nature, and then the ethos continued as I founded Grace Farms.
The anodized aluminum roof of the River building was used in the Design for Freedom report as a test case in tracing the raw and composite materials used in its construction. Photo © Dean Kaufman
The curvilinear River building, embedded in 80 acres, creates a hopeful space for productive inquiry, collaboration, and public engagement. © Dean Kaufman
The River building’s open and porous architecture breaks down barriers between people and the natural world. Photo © Dean Kaufman
Was was the catalyst for starting it?
Every business trip I took to Iceland included nearly 24 hours of immersion when I landed, in this ethereal, expansive, and quiet landscape, and a different culture. This heightened my understanding of the power of nature to propel curiosity, to experience wonder, to bring people from varied backgrounds together, and each of these things are now interwoven into Grace Farms. The people I intersected with at 66 Degree North were essential to creating the foundation.
My commitment to justice and my hopeful nature to create more grace and peace in the world also comes through my faith. All of these things combined led me to Grace Farms. Also in working with an architect on 66 Degrees North, on regional projects, a simple but profound idea emerged, that space communicates. To realize that space could communicate a set of values and a way of being, as well as to draw different people from around the world, was the inspiration for Grace Farms. Critically, our stake in the ground is to end modern slavery and gender-based violence, and to create more grace and peace in our local and global communities. We’ve been able to accelerate our work and address pressing humanitarian issues of our time, by now also launching Design for Freedom, the Movement. You can see that my personal evolution has been entwined with founding and leading Grace Farms, and being in proximity to brilliant and caring people who work on these pressing issues with depth.
Tell me now about the architecture. Grace Farms is a total pilgrimage site for architects!
I was thinking all the time about how space could be a catalyst for good. And, how people could activate it so that the space could be generative and so that it could all accelerate over time. I adopted the belief that architecture, when activated, can play a significant role in a more just and equitable world. One of the fundamental barriers to equity is being in the proximity to people and issues. Preserving and converting Grace Farms as eighty acres into a publicly available space was the first move, and solidified the ability to create a space to experience the awe and wonder of nature, and then to invite people from all backgrounds and sectors.
So we started with the land, and we had this clean slate to think about which values we wanted to embed in the space, and what the contributors were to advancing good, grace, peace, openness, excellence, meaning. New outcomes emerged from that, and in tandem, our architectural directive asked for many things - a space that would pique your curiosity, that would break down barriers between people locally and globally, create an experience for new perspectives, evoke a warm and inviting, yet intellectually stimulating environment, for the individual and the collective.
Ultimately, we opened Grace Farms in 2015 as a new kind of publicly available place - a peaceful respite with an active community, where we generated a hopeful space.
“To realize that space could communicate a set of values and a way of being, as well as to draw different people from around the world, was the inspiration for Grace Farms.”
How did you go about selecting SANAA?
We chose SANAA before they won the Pritzker Prize in 2010. It was Kazuyo Sejima who also said, as we were in the midst of design development, that we are really setting out to create a new kind of public place. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa just really understood what we were envisioning, aspirationally, and when we were asking for a porous place and membrane for people to float in and out of. They are really comfortable with abstract aspirations, and I haven’t seen that yet in other architects at this level. They were able to envision what can be, before it was, and to live in abstract terms before it came to be. Of course we had utilitarian goals as well, but we started with the aspirations.
The curvilinear River Building truly became the three dimensional expression of our vision. The design solved the complex site puzzle with fluidity, social and spiritual potential. Then, the master plan of opening and lowering the profile of the barns that were on site, and designing the River Building with its undulating form, was entirely an optimization relative to both our aspirations and those utilitarian goals and constraints. It is such an elegant solution.
What was the design process like?
Working with SANAA was absolutely an iterative process, starting with a fundamental goal for the land to remain in the foreground, and to allow any building to lightly sit on it. To become part of the landscape. And for the values to be embedded into the spaces, grace and peace primarily. The aspirational vision and goals were delineated very very carefully in a thirty-five page program. When I think about coming up with the design, I’m reminded of these two large-scale photographs by the German artist, Thomas Demand. They are permanently displayed in our library, but the subject is the multitude of the River Building roof models, revealing all of the possibilities that we considered. I consider these models historically important, in terms of design and how many outcomes will emerge.
Also in terms of process though, each of us contributed our expertise without overstepping, committing too early, or being swayed by materiality.
On the stairs leading to the Sanctuary, from left to right, is Andy Klemmer, President and Founder of the Paratus Group, SANAA Founders Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, and Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation and Co-Founder of Design for Freedom. © Dean Kaufman
From left to right, Andy Klemmer, President and Founder of the Paratus Group, SANAA Founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, and Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation and Co-Founder of Design for Freedom, during the construction of the River building before its opening in October 2015. Photo © Bita Behzad.
From left to right, Yuko Hasegawa, Curatorial Advisor for arts installations at Grace Farms, Kazuyo Sejima, award-winning SANAA architect, and Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation and Co-Founder of Design for Freedom, at Grace Farms in New Canaan, Connecticut. Photo © Dean Kaufman
What was your role in the design?
My role, as the social impact entrepreneur, was to actualize a vision and set the goals, knowing that the powerful vehicle for this purpose is the architecture. I needed to avoid overstepping into designing, and remain focused on whether or not the design was simply reaching that vision.
Also, to truly design a place of grace and peace, that has spiritual quality and one of hopefulness and reflection, and one that is humble but also a place of excellence, Sejima and Nishizawa really needed themselves to be of that ilk. That was also part of the process. It was a high bar that we set, and they exceeded it in every way [laughs]. We talked a lot in their vibrant studio, overflowing with models.
What advice do you have for architects? Most of us dream of a client such as yourself and Grace Farms.
[Laughs] Well thank you so much. My suggestion to architects is to reflect back to the potential client, the aspirations you hear for the project. The aspirations, not the tactics and designs you think that they want to see. The end result will be subpar if you try to accommodate what you think they want to see, because the client is not the architect! They don’t necessarily know how to go through the truest process for design! So, listen to their vision, and don’t rush matching that vision with something visible. Ask them what this space should communicate and activate. Start there. What you’re trying to glean is what they are aspiring to. They might say they want a certain form, but you need to draw out why.
“...listen to their vision, and don’t rush matching that vision with something visible. Ask them what this space should communicate and activate. Start there.”
Where are you in your career today with Grace Farms?
It’s an incredibly exciting time to lead Grace Farms with our extraordinary and committed team. There is a lot going on, starting with opening Grace Farms back up after Covid-19. Over the last year, our team and partners mobilized our wherewithal and ingenuity to address two intersecting and pressing humanitarian challenges at the onset of Covid, which were both PPE and food relief. We deployed our team to address these dire needs. To date, we supplied more than 2 million PPE, and more than 250,000 pounds of food to surrounding organizations.
When the pandemic hit, we were able to mobilize so quickly because of the trusted relationships we’ve developed since the beginning with our partners globally and locally, and the work we’ve done to understand supply chains. Our food relief program continues as we open, with Shared Meals. From this, I founded Grace Farms Foods with our former Director of Operations and Sustainability, to demonstrate that which we’re advocating for. And of course, Design for Freedom is just getting started.
Tell me about the Design for Freedom movement. This is an extraordinarily powerful initiative to have come out of your work.
Nearly 25,000,000 people in the world are in forced labor conditions, working in hazardous and inhumane environments, to make and extract building materials. So although slavery is illegal in every country, from human trafficking to forced labor, it continues with impunity. We launched Design for Freedom last October, which is a new movement to create a radical paradigm shift to first eliminate forced labor in the material supply chain. We have a working group of sixty leaders in the ecosystem of the built environment. The late Bill Menking stepped up at our second anniversary and agreed to start a working group with me, which immediately included many of those who were on my Grace Farms AEC team.
This is where our advocacy to end slavery met our investment in architecture! By recognizing this void in the global design and construction sector, which literally no one has, we are continuing with our ethos. Construction is the largest global industrialized sector, and has the highest risk of forced labor. First, Grace Farms provided an analysis of the materials with the highest risk of embedded slavery, and they are some of the most common building materials. Timber, stone, brick, steel, copper, and more. All buildings around the world are also built with materials with a high risk of child labor. And not one modern building can be certified to not have used any forced labor, in its thousands materials.
Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation and Co-Founder of Design for Freedom, leading a discussion at a Design for Freedom Working Group meeting in NYC. © Niv Rozenberg
Members of the Design for Freedom Working Group gather at the Center for Architecture, NYC. Photo © Niv Rozenberg
From left to right, Benjamin Prosky, AIA NY, Center for Architecture, Executive Director; Barry Bergdoll, Center for Architecture, Board President; Jesse Lazar, AIA NY, Deputy Director at Center for Architecture; Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation and Co-Founder of Design for Freedom; Hayes Slade, Slade Architecture, Co-Founder and Principal & AIA NY 2019 President. Photo © Niv Rozenberg
Wow.
Yes, and this is what we exposed in our newest Design for Freedom report. What we are asking is that the buildings being designed and constructed are ethically sourced, forced-labor free, and sustainably designed. The answer of how we get there is largely unknown.
The transparency inspection of supply chains has started within food and clothing, and next will be shelter which is what we’re initializing and making known. We are asking architects, engineers, owners, specifiers, all of us - as we all influence the supply chain - to add human rights as a fundamental criteria in building materials.
What is the architect’s role in this?
From an architectural standpoint of being specifiers, I really appreciate Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg’s note in our report, and it’s something along the lines of, “Every line a designer or architect draws sets into motion a string of actions that have environmental, social, and ethical repercussions.”
Absolutely. I’ve drawn those lines, and as a young architect, you are indeed taught that every line has a consequence, but really that’s in the context of it having consequence for clarity during construction. You don’t necessarily get taught how far beyond that those lines go. It affects people.
With all of your wonderful work, what have been the biggest challenges in your career?
Certainly my first big challenge was to create Grace Farms, as it was such an aspirational place, without a precedent, and without me ever building one project [laughs]. The highlight at the same time was seeing Grace Farms become the transformational and generative place beyond what was envisioned. You can imagine, over the past decade of leading Grace Farms, how many times I’ve been told that whatever it was I wanted to do next can’t possibly work, and that the initiatives are too many, and that people on the northeast won’t want to walk outside between five separate glass volumes [laughs]. And, that putting a stake in the ground to stop human trafficking is too idyllic. The good news is that people did come! We’ve worked with over one hundred non-profits, at least a thousand events and programs, over two hundred artists have added to our place and purpose.
One significant challenge that I’ll also tell you about is that we had to abandon our first design for the building, after two years of design work on it. I don’t know if you knew that. We just realized that we came up short, and that we didn’t meet our goals for the space. This determination was only possible because we questioned our own assessment, and we brought together some of the top architects and critics to assess whether or not we were meeting our own vision and goals. Florian Idenburg and Architectural Record’s Suzanne Stephens were among that group, and are now friends, and despite our first design winning the AIANY Unbuilt Design Merit Award [laughs], we scrapped those plans at a high cost. After a global search though, and opening up the possibility for us to purchase the remaining 27 acres on the site, we hired SANAA. Without that challenge, what we now know as Grace Farms wouldn’t exist.
“We are asking architects, engineers, owners, specifiers, all of us - as we all influence the supply chain - to add human rights as a fundamental criteria in building materials.”
It’s all a learning. All cumulative.
Right. Sometimes the challenge is also the good news of the day [laughs].
I also set out from the get go to create a diversified and gender-balanced top notch team, which is actually not difficult to do. But of course people said it would be. It’s not.
Thank you for reminding us. It’s really not.
And we have this extraordinary team who is committed to changing the world, from many backgrounds and even sectors that are not of proximity to each other. Arts and justice for example. We start all of our meetings with a poetry reading, which is a whole other story, but we do that to enable an entry point for everyone, to a conversation, since we have all these backgrounds and people coming from different angles.
Who are you admiring right now?
I admire everyone within the ecosystem of the built environment who has stepped up and used their wherewithal for the Design for Freedom working group. There are also many that have come alongside and focused on representation, like you right now. Harriet Harriss has been wonderful, we’ve co-hosted together two Design for Freedom webinars, and now we’re in conversation about extractive geologies at the Venice Biennale. Deborah Berke’s commitment early on to ethical supply chains and incorporating that into the curriculum at Yale is wonderful. Susan Jones, who I also greatly admire, is now adding Design for Freedom to an upcoming Mass Timber studio at the University of Washington. Rick Cook and the COOKFOX team are taking a lead in initiating some pilot projects, and Hayes Slade has brought Design for Freedom to the AIANY community and is working with me to figure out how to incorporate Design for Freedom principles for specifiers. The list goes on, so many have stepped up for us, and there’s a lot that’s germinating.
That’s a lot! Congratulations. My final question to you is what advice do you have for those just starting their careers, and do you have any additional advice specifically for women?
Prioritizing finding and working with those that have integrity and are futuristic in their thinking - not just in design thinking but in general in terms of what the future should look like - is important. The work also takes a long timeline, so being prepared to see it through is key. Then, not waiting until you’re fully ready to take an opportunity is important as well. You know more right out of the gate about something than someone else might - maybe you have fresh eyes, or know more about technology - and there’s always something you can offer that’s unique. You have to be obsessive and curious.
For women, I’m a strong believer in changing the gender skewed vernacular. Language is one of the most powerful means to perpetuate gender discrimination and societal asymmetries. Exercise your voice in the moment to confront power structures, and the language that perpetuates these structures.
I was just talking to someone at Google about this, where Google had everyone go through training to not say things like, “Hey guys!” if it’s a group of people, and instead say things like, “Hey everyone!”
Exactly! Exactly. Just taking a gender neutral stance. Mainly I think we need more architects that are women, to design our future. I’m very keen to see that.
Me too.