Landscape Design

"I believe that every project is an opportunity to create a movement. To inspire this momentum, we must be one with the community, and together, go beyond the bare minimum."

Sierra began work with MASS in 2008 focusing on landscape architecture and joined full time in 2009 to finalize design and oversee implementation of the Butaro Hospital, MASS’s first project. Currently Sierra directs the ongoing design and implementation of MASS’s planning and architectural projects and is currently overseeing The Kayanja Center, an academic facility supporting rural health care delivery and research in Uganda, a number of African Conservation Schools in DRC, Tanzania, Zambia, and Rwanda, and the Butaro Hospital Expansion Plan, among others. Those completed include Butaro Hospital, the Umubano Primary School, the Butaro Doctors’ Housing, and the Butaro Ambulatory Cancer Center.

Prior to joining MASS, Sierra worked for four years at James Corner Field Operations, primarily in design and oversight of implementation of Section 1 of the New York City High Line. Sierra has taught graduate level studios at various universities and from 2010-2012, Sierra served as Head of the Architecture Department at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Rwanda. At KIST, Sierra was instrumental in shaping the current curriculum. She is invited to speak regularly, including the keynote address at the Healthcare Design Conference, serving as a Sasaki Distinguished Visiting Critic at the Boston Architectural College, and lecturing at the Carter ‘Lectures In African Studies’ series, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, University of Toronto, and the American Institute of Architects, among others. Select features of Sierra’s work with MASS Design Group include A+U Magazine, Lotus, Mark Magazine, and Detail.

Sierra received her Bachelors of Arts in Art and Architectural History from Smith College and her Masters of Landscape Architecture and Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

"We need to create an embedded understanding of the systems and identities that construct place."

Therese joined MASS in 2018 as an Associate to support the landscape team and the Rwandan Institute of Conservational Agriculture. Prior to joining MASS, Therese worked for Gustafson Guthrie Nichol in Seattle, WA, Coen + Partners in Minneapolis, and the Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University. In her work, she has been afforded the opportunity to contribute towards a diverse range of projects addressing topics such as homelessness, resilience, urban revitalization, and community engagement.

Therese received her Bachelor of Environmental Design and Landscape Planning from the University of Minnesota in and Masters of International Cooperation in Sustainable Emergency Architecture from the International University of Catalonia in Barcelona. Her master's thesis was a theoretical comparative analysis of the relevance and suitability for integrating Landscape Design within the existing framework of Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction.

Melissa Naranjo is a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and is a licensed Architect from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana - Medellín, Colombia. She is the 2018 Harvard GSD International Community Service Fellow and her project “Les Alpilles Wild-Garden'' was the recipient of the 2019 Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship by the Harvard University Committee on General Scholarships. Her academic work has been published by the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (FAU-USP), Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, and more recently at Harvard GSD. Melissa has practiced as an Architect since 2010 and her experience includes the design direction of projects and competitions from the concept through the executive phase with LCLA office and Mazzanti Architects. As a Landscape Architect, Melissa worked as the lead designer of Moakley Park in Boston, MA (STOSS 2019-20'). Melissa is currently an Associate with MASS Design Group.

Georgios Orfanopoulos joined MASS in 2019 as a Landscape Design Associate. A registered Architect with the Dutch Register of Architects, he has broad experience in projects ranging from large scale master plans, public space design, flooding, and water-related design. At MASS, Georgios has worked on various projects including the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture and Norrsken Kigali House in Rwanda, Sok’An Library in Cambodia, and The Green Heart of Kenya project. Currently, he is working on Samajik Health Science Institute & Research Centre, an urban health campus with a 520-bed hospital, medical college, and health technology institute in Bangladesh.

Prior to MASS, Georgios was rebuilding and designing schools in earthquake-ridden rural Nepal. Before that, he practiced for 6 years in various international offices, Mecanoo, LOLA, etc. where he worked on projects with MVRDV, OMA, ARUP as well as independently with his LandArch studio. Georgios has also worked on many large infrastructure, masterplanning and architecture projects in the Netherlands, UK, Taiwan, China, Chile. He has received numerous architectural competition prizes and awards, many of which turned into realized projects. Georgios received a national award for his Architecture diploma thesis “EarthSea” and was exhibited in the 7th Landscape Biennial in Barcelona. He has published research in Urbanism and Landscape as well as strong digital skills regarding complex geometries and larger-scale projects requiring creative workflows and R&D - specifically, GIS, Grasshopper, custom tool making, topography scanning, D-Fab and cartography. Georgios worked at the D-Fab lab of ETH Zurich and researched on dikes/flooding while in the Netherlands. He holds a Master’s degree of Advanced Studies in Landscape Architecture from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and a Diploma in Architecture from the University of Patras, Greece.

"I believe that there needs to be balance between what is beautiful and what is just in this world, and I believe it can stem from how we design our environments."

Taylor joined MASS in October 2017 as a Junior Landscape Design Associate. Prior to joining, she graduated from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture, where she specialized in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. Throughout her undergraduate degree, she found her passion in exploring thoughtful and simple design that could benefit one’s quality of life. Taylor assists in research and design at the Boston office and is currently working on a relocation project for Isle de Jean Charles, a community that is facing the effects of climate change. She plans to pursue a Masters of Architecture in the future, and to hopes to expand notion of the need for a beautiful and just world.