Please note this is a free event that will take place at New Canaan Library.

Join architects Alan Ricks and Caitlin Taylor for a conversation about design, foodways, and justice.

Alan Ricks is a Founding Principal and Co-Executive Director of MASS Design Group, whose mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. He leads strategy and design of the 140-person firm, which has worked in twenty countries, on projects that range from design to research to policy—a portfolio that continues to expand the role of design in advancing a more just world.

MASS Design Group has received the National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and was named Firm of the Year by the American Institute of Architects in 2022. In 2020, the organization was also recognized as Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal.

Caitlin Taylor is an architect and farmer; she is the co-founder of Four Root Farm, an organic vegetable farm in East Haddam where she lives with her family. She has many years of interdisciplinary experience in the fields of architecture and construction, systems design, and farming and agroecology. Currently working at the interface between our built environment and our food systems, she addresses the generational opportunity of redesigning and rebuilding regional food infrastructure through design and development projects at a range of scales.

Alongside regular academic appointments at Yale School of Architecture and a period as the Interim Managing Director of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, she is proud to be a member of the MASS community, where she was the Principal leading the Food Systems Design Lab from 2018-2023. Caitlin has a degree in Biochemistry from Wesleyan University, a Masters of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture, and has lectured widely on her award-winning architecture portfolio.

Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of live events that extends the site’s historic role as a gathering place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. This talk is co-hosted by New Canaan Library and supported in part by the New Canaan Community Foundation.