Love in Design: MASS Design Group's Senior Principal Katie Swenson on Home Making, Community Architects, and Feeling Others' Joy

By Julia Gamolina

Katie Swenson is a Senior Principal of MASS Design Group, whose work explores how critical design practice promotes economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities. A nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator, Katie received the 2021 AIA Award for Public Architecture, a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2019, and led the Enterprise Rose Fellowship as an alumni and as President of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners. MASS Design Group won the 2022 AIA Firm of the Year Award.

Katie is the author of Design with Love: At Home in America, and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness, both published in August 2020. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Katie talks about integrating all that one loves into their life, and joy for others’ successes, advising those just starting their careers to explore all of their interests.

JG: We always start at the very beginning – tell me about where and how you grew up!

KS: I love this question to begin — I’m teaching a studio at Parsons this semester called “Home Making,” where we start by reflecting on what “home” means to each of us. The students are from all over, and I came away from those conversations reminded that “home” is loaded and often difficult for many people. I feel fortunate that for me, “home” is a profoundly positive concept.

I grew up just outside of Washington, DC, on a street full of kids, with a path leading through the woods to Little Falls Park. My grandparents lived nearby and I went to a local public school. My mom was always into homemaking — I had a small room of my own, with a bed tucked into a nook that she wallpapered in a 70's pink and orange flower print. I loved that little world. I was also a gymnast from age three, a dancer, and played many sports. I still practice yoga, run, bike, and crave movement in my life. Creativity and movement are intimately linked for me. We all need to grow up with a sense of safety.

I can relate so much — dance, running, all of it. How did you come to architecture?

I went to college at University of California, Berkeley and got the chance to spend my junior year in Paris, studying comparative literature and film theory. I think that is where the idea of architecture started germinating; I loved city life and walked endlessly. I still remember Paris in a very granular way and learned that part of what makes a city and its architecture great is the feeling, the texture.

After college, I moved to New York, with the dream of being a modern dancer. I danced for six years, living downtown, and met so many creatives. I rented and renovated two lofts on the Bowery in the ‘90s. In one, I built a dance rehearsal studio for 3-D Dance, a company I started with friends. From college on, I would renovate and adapt every space I lived in, endlessly “home making,” expressing where I was in life at the time. I worked with all sorts of makers – welders, architects, builders, graphic designers – building lofts, stores, restaurants, and bars. As my dance life was winding down, I remember driving home for the holidays with my brother, talking about what was next. He said, “If you could do anything, what would you do?” I said, “Well, architecture, but it must be too late for that.” I was 27. He said, “I don’t know, is it?” Over that holiday break I applied to schools and went off to architecture school at University of Virginia in the fall. Things took off from there!

The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA). Photo by Iwan Baan.

The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Photo by Iwan Baan.

Norrsken Kigali House. Photo by Chris Schwagga.

Tell me how you got your start working in architecture.

In my final year of architecture school, I saw an announcement from Enterprise Community Partners looking for “community architects” to become Enterprise Rose Fellows — designers paired with local housing organizations over a three-year term. I had never heard those two words together, but something in me immediately lit up: whatever a community architect was, that’s what I wanted to be.

I partnered with Piedmont Housing in Charlottesville, Virginia, and got the chance to learn about affordable housing, and build a peer network of Rose Fellows, who have become friends and life long collaborators. Later, I ran the fellowship program, and over a dozen years, had the chance to recruit and mentor architectural fellows all over the country. I fell in love with the people side of architecture, and began to understand that affordable housing and community development is the result of people’s deep commitments and activism. Writing Design with Love: At Home in America was my way of spotlighting the tenacity it takes to make positive change in one's community.

How did you get to MASS Design Group?

I first met MASS in 2010, at the Structures for Inclusion Conference (SFI) by Design Corps at Howard University. SFI was an annual conference for what we then called “public interest design.” I was there with a dozen Rose Fellows to connect with peers and share stories from their respective communities. MASS’s first project, the Butaro District Hospital, was still under construction at that time, and watching the presentation, I remember thinking how amazing it was that public interest design was evolving from neighborhood projects to a regional hospital! And, that MASS was working to leverage the project to create a new model for a firm organized around the idea that architects would do social impact design as their full-time focus. I became a friend and collaborator with MASS and later joined the board of directors. In 2020, after a year as a Harvard Loeb Fellow, I joined the staff full time.

“For me, the idea of ‘home’ may be personal, but it’s also political — I tell my story of home to make the connection that a safe, affordable, and beautiful home is essential for all people.”

— Katie Swenson

What is your role at MASS now?

When I joined MASS at its ten year anniversary, we were looking ahead to the next decade. As a senior principal and leader on the global MASS team, my goal is to support the growth and potential of the organization and build next generation leadership. Nurturing next generation of talent has been a constant in my career. I learned from my peers and mentors, including Jamie Blosser, John Cary, and Marc Norman, that the best thing you can do is to invest in others.

At MASS we are investing in our systems: philanthropy, communications, training in purpose-built decision making, One Health sustainable practices, and professional development programs. Our collective leadership model means that we are constantly investing in and elevating diverse voices and thought leadership.

Across MASS´s studios, we have emerging leaders who are creating some of the most inspirational solutions for our partners while charting their own personal paths. You have gotten to know Noella Nibakuze through her amazing Madame Architect profile, describing what it took for her to become an architect, and how she is designing local engagement, materials, and craft to advance Rwandan architecture. Most of us need a sounding board or someone to encourage us to lean into our own stories and philosophies, as well as our shared values. For me, the idea of “home” may be personal, but it’s also political — I tell my story of home to make the connection that a safe, affordable, and beautiful home is essential for all people. To take the time to develop our point of views and personal stories may seem like a luxury, but I think that when people have the agency to share their stories, it’s one of the most powerful ways that they can advocate for the issues they care about most.

With all that you’re doing now, what have you learned in these last six months?

We have had significant project openings in the last six months, including Norrsken House in Kigali, Rwanda, The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Kinigi, Rwanda, the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) in Gashora, Rwanda, and most recently, The Embrace memorial in Boston. We are focused on bringing bold ideas into the world through architecture, highlighting collaboration, culture, craft, and the beauty of how things are made.

Architecture, in its ambition, design, and the experience of it, is a way to understand the world, and to see ourselves in it. The best way to do this is to have the entire team come together to support and articulate a central mission of the project, to which they each, in their own domain, lend specificity and personal perspective. How we tell our stories informs our design process.

The opening of The Embrace, a memorial celebrating the love of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Corretta Scott King, was a transformative moment for Boston. Embrace Boston led the visionary community building and the memorial is just the beginning of their ambitions to elevate love as a motivating force for social change. MASS and artist Hank Willis Thomas partnered on the sculpture and the 1965 Freedom Plaza. It’s been wonderful — and at moments overwhelming — to have so much public conversation. We’re reminded that architects don’t own architecture — it's for the people who experience it and live it. In the case of this memorial, with its rich and warm materiality and deeply striking symbolism, it has already become a beloved gathering place. Once architecture becomes part of the public realm, it takes on as many meanings as there are people who experience it, but I believe that the handprint of everyone who made it, also makes it endure.

*The Embrace*. Courtesy of MASS Design Group.

Given all of this, what are you most excited for in 2023?

I’m excited to elevate the idea of muditā, a Sanskrit word to describe the feeling of joy for someone else’s accomplishment, a pure joy that has no self-interest. In Kinyarwanda there is a word Ubwuzu, pronounced ub-gu-zu, which means happiness, or feeling fulfilled by another's achievement. In English, we have the word empathy to describe feeling someone else’s pain, but not a specific word for feeling their joy. I believe the more we learn about each other, the more we elevate each other’s perspectives, experiences, points of view, the more we are able to have a mindset of abundance.

That’s beautiful. We need more of that.

Right, and we need to find ways to systemically achieve the goal of muditā — as individuals, yes, in our personal lives, but also in our professional lives. That’s exciting.

“I’m excited to elevate the idea of muditā, a Sanskrit word to describe the feeling of joy for someone else’s accomplishment, a pure joy that has no self-interest...we need to find ways to systemically achieve the goal of muditā — as individuals, yes, in our personal lives, but also in our professional lives.”

— Katie Swenson

Who are you admiring right now? It doesn’t have to be someone in architecture, it can be anyone in the world who is doing great work.

I mean, honestly Julia…I don’t know if I can say this here, but I admire you. We met because I’ve been following Madame Architect and I was so impressed and inspired by what you’re doing. Over these last five years, you’ve shined the light on hundreds of women in design…you are actively practicing this very idea of muditā and taking joy in other’s success! I think that’s unique, beautiful and inspirational. I just have to call it as it is – I admire you and your team at Madame Architect. The exposure, confidence, connectivity, and visibility that comes from these Madame Architect interviews — I can only imagine the possibilities that will open for the women profiled, and the inspiration others can take. When we express authentic joy in each other's contributions, I think the opportunities are truly endless.

Katie, I’m speechless! Thank you very much. Your words means a lot to me.

I hope you’ll let me print that, because that’s the thing I want to say most.

If it is, we will honor that and keep it!

Back to you though, looking back on your years in architecture, what would you say the biggest challenges have been and how have you worked through them?

The biggest challenges have been changes mostly in my personal life — which is really indiscernible from our professional lives. Separating the two — well that’s a luxury that as a single parent, I just didn’t have. My partner passed away very suddenly in 2017, and that was just devastating. I had never experienced grief like that. I took time off work for the first time in my adult life, and needed the care of my family and friends. But I also learned so much. “Writing and grieving seem the same to me,” I wrote at the time, and I reconnected with my love of writing, publishing, In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness in 2020. That felt like a miracle. During my Loeb Fellowship year, I started work on the next book Design with Love. Writing, meaning making, connection of people and place, those were all part of my journey. And learning how to move forward.

Architects tend to talk about practicing architecture as something that’s unique, and separate, and not really a part of life. I have three amazing daughters, now grown and in grad school and college. Two of them were born while I was getting my Master of Architecture! It seemed so shocking at the time, almost like people took offense to the idea that I would even try to do both — be an architect and have a family. When my third daughter was born, I had two weeks paid leave.

Katie in "Bohemia" with a timeline scroll of *The Scarab*, built in 1907 by Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful,” underpinning the story of her book *In Bohemia: A. Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness*. Photography by Lisa Neighbors.

Katie with her daughters. Photography by Lisa Neighbors.

Oh my god.

Two weeks was what was offered, and what I could afford at the time, so that’s what I took. At MASS we ensure that both parents get the opportunity for a twelve-week 100% paid leave when their children are born, which is perhaps not enough, but an improvement.

Then when my youngest child left for school, a happy and expected change for a parent, I faced another moment of personal transition. A Loeb Fellow friend said, “Katie, the nest isn’t empty if you’re still in it!” So I dusted myself off and moved to Brooklyn, where I could still be there for my family but also design my life around my own creative pursuits. People talk about striving for balance in work and life, but I have seen it more as integration.

I talk about that all the time. It’s not two separate lives, it’s not balance, it’s all one life and integrating everything that you love into it.

Right. Maybe in my future, I’ll find more of a balance. For now, I have an idea of loving my work and loving my life.

I love that. I relate to this completely, and I was never willing to give certain things up. With that, what would you say your mission is?

I should have an elevator pitch for this [laughs]. My mission is to center love in design. I am interested in exploring the spiritual and practical implications of love — how it works, what it means, how we do it better. I think love is an untapped resource in architecture. If we understand that our job is to express love through design — by creating the best conditions for the most people, by honoring the history and future of people and planet, and by expressing empathy for each other's challenges, and joy in their successes — the world will be a better place.

“If we understand that our job is to express love through design — by creating the best conditions for the most people, by honoring the history and future of people and planet, and by expressing empathy for each other’s challenges, and joy in their successes — the world will be a better place.”

— Katie Swenson

My last question for you is, what advice do you have for those just starting their careers in the field? Is there any additional advice that you have for women?

I would encourage people to explore the breadth and range of their interests. No matter what the task is, you are always showing up as your full self – not only as an architect, but as yourself first. I got into architecture a bit late, which gave me the chance to do so many other things — dance, write, travel — and all of that continues to inform my work. Take time to take stock of where you are and what you need now and for the future. Our stories are developing in real time and they matter. At 27, I thought I was too old to become an architect; now, I am proud that I can leverage all of the diverse experiences and expressions of creativity from the various paths I have pursued and can now use it to spotlight other emerging voices that will make the future possible.

Let’s keep lifting each other up! I think every time that we help one another, we look out for each other, we experience that feeling of joy in each other’s success and come out of it feeling more empowered.