Lecture: Lo-Fab by Alan Ricks

Wednesday, September 30, 7pm
Lecture: Lo-Fab by Alan Ricks
Cornerstone Arts Center 

Presented by The Colorado College Art Department Design Research Fund

Alan Ricks is the chief operating officer and co-founder of MASS Design Group. Alan’s work with MASS spans design, research, and policy. Ricks was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum for the 2014-2019 term, which ‘recognizes extraordinary leaders of the world under the age of 40’. He also has an appointment as an ‘Expert In Residence’ at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Chief TED curator Chris Anderson described the TED talk Alan gave in September 2013 as “a different language about what architecture can aspire to be.” Since designing and building the Butaro District Hospital for Partners In Health, MASS has expanded to twelve countries, focusing on design innovation and health, housing, and education infrastructure development. Alan is a graduate of Colorado College and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. 

“Lo-Fab (Locally Fabricated) speaks to MASS’s approach to the design and building process. On every project, we highlight and scale local innovation and ideas, hire local labor, and use local materials. In Haiti, MASS designed and built Port au Prince’s the first permanent cholera center with the Haitian healthcare organization GHESKIO. Cholera and similar diseases are leading causes of sickness and death globally. By building off of the methods of this project to implementing locally borne, systemic approaches to infrastructure development we can confront this global crisis. This kind of architecture is making human lives better, and this is how we evaluate design integrity and the success of our projects. From this ethos, we draw a core set of principles: 

1 Architecture can improve lives.
2 Architecture must have a transcendent idea to effect systemic change.
3 The building process must be curated to produce dignity.