MASS Design Group has announced its acquisition of Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Atkin Olshin Schade Architects (AOS) in a move they say will offer an enhancement of the relationship the two have built already through years of collaboration. 

The merger makes the new combined entity Santa Fe’s largest architectural office, with further opportunity to leverage AOS’s Philadelphia operation in order to pursue “innovative approaches to preservation, adaptive reuse, and design for mission-focused organizations throughout the northeast and nationally.”

It comes just under a month after MASS’s co-founder Michael Murphy left the firm to take a position on faculty at Georgia Tech University, handing over the reins to his former Senior Principal and Managing Director Christian Benimana and Patricia Gruits as well as the firm’s co-founder and current Chief Design Officer Alan Ricks.

“After collaborating — and being neighbors — for years, we are excited to bring our teams together under one roof,” Shawn Evans, the previous Principal of AOS’s Santa Fe office, said of their partnership. “There is excitement for what the future holds given the incredible talent brought together with this partnership. We are pleased to join the MASS team and know that it will help us provide capacity in the Santa Fe community and beyond for years to come.” 

MASS Principal Jospeh Kunkel has been working with Evans for over a decade on projects such as the Wa-Di housing development that serves Santa Fe’s Indigenous community. Kunkel, who is a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, has since been instrumental in developing the Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab at MASS along with AOS and will be aided by the addition of new Senior Principal Garron Yepa and Jemez Pueblo, who are members of the Navajo (Diné) and Walatowa nations respectively.

“This partnership strengthens our capacity to mentor and train the next generation of Native and non-Native designers, who are committed to addressing Indian Country’s biggest challenges,” Kunkel said finally. 

With the merger, the new combined offices will have a total of 18 staffers.