Hierarchy of Needs

Michael Murphy, Int FRIBA, is the Founding Principal and Executive Director of MASS Design Group, an architecture and design collective that leverages buildings, as well as the design and construction process, to become catalysts for economic growth, social change, and justice. Since MASS's beginnings, their portfolio of work has expanded to over a dozen countries and span the areas of healthcare, education, housing, urban development. MASS’s work has been published in over 900 publications and awarded globally. Most recently, MASS has been recognized as the winners of the national Arts and Letters Award for 2017 and the 2017 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. Michael’s 2016 TED talk has reached over a million views, and was awarded the Al Filipov Medal for Peace and Justice in 2017. MASS's project, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice was named the single greatest work of American architecture in the 21st century. Michael has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Michigan, and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. Michael is from Poughkeepsie, NY, and holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago.

Amie Shao is a Principal with MASS Design Group, where she oversees research focusing on health infrastructure planning, design, and evaluation. Amie also leads the MASS.Made team in interior design, including space planning, testing and fabrication, and furniture design for office and healthcare spaces. Her work is aimed at engaging and empowering stakeholders in the design process; creating human-centered environments that are functional, adaptable, and mission-driven; supporting and substantiating the impact of design on health, social, and environmental outcomes; and and translating research into guidelines that can be used to advocate for policy change.

Currently, Amie is supporting the firm’s COVID-19 research and leading Maternal Health projects with IHI and PATH in Africa and South Asia. Blending human-centered design practices with evidence-based research, Amie has collaborated with Ariadne Labs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to investigate the Impact of Design on Clinical Care in Childbirth, worked with the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to design for the spatial needs of children with Cerebral Palsy, and coordinated the production of National Health Infrastructure Standards for the Liberian Ministry of Health.

Prior to joining MASS, Amie worked for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Beijing, WORK Architecture Company in New York City, and EnSitu, S.A. in Panama. Amie received her Master of Architecture and a Certificate in Urban Policy & Planning from Princeton University.