General Architecture Collaborative creates inclusive, thoughtfully designed projects that sustain communities and the environment. We are a 501c-3 nonprofit in the United States and a social enterprise in Rwanda. Our’s is a different approach to practice. We work with individuals, organizations, institutions, communities, and industries dedicated to the creation of a more equitable and just world through design, research, and advocacy.
A Different Approach to Practice
Design
We are an award winning nonprofit design group with expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, and strategic design. Our work is focused on designing housing, healthcare, educational and cultural projects that serve underrepresented and developing communities which use the entire project life cycle for research to construction to create thoughtful and inclusive processes. Our goal is to bring together individuals and organizations interested in contributing to innovative, impactful and empowering design projects that build sustainable and socially equitable spaces, with communities most often overlooked by contemporary design practices and global development.
Research
Our research is focused on sustainable materials and making practices which combine innovative techniques, technologies, and methods with regional and cultural making traditions that are human-centered, life-cycle conscious, fair, and equitable. This work has produced a series of collaborations with institutions and industries as well as reports for the World Bank, and the United Nations. Research also includes developing methods for skill-building, communication, and innovation. Sharing innovative research and development, and using the job sites as training grounds, so that community members are empowered with skills to build houses that are more sustainable for themselves, their families, their communities and the environment.
Advocacy
We work with communities and organizations on strategic planning, project research and development, and implementation. We help funders navigate unfamiliar building processes and cultures, and work to ensure a community’s needs and aspirations are part of a collaborative process and reflected in the spaces we create. Our approach to community and project advocacy is grounded in community engagement, training & education, and best practices. These three principles guide our design process and project implementation. Collaboration and community-centered spaces are made possible through the interplay of exceptional design, superior and sustainable construction, and dynamic research and development.
Our Team
Partners:
James Setzler
James Setzler is a GA Collaborative Principal and Co-Founder, and a Registered Architect in the US. He has a broad background in both contemporary and traditional building technologies. His interests have led him to work in both architecture and contracting offices, and his work as an estimator and construction manager lends him a holistic view of the design field. He has managed the design and construction of award-winning projects that include museums, high-end residences, and master plans.
Yutaka Sho
Yutaka Sho’s is a Principal and Co-Founder of GA Collaborative. Her research focuses on the roles of architecture and planning in development, humanitarian and post-calamity contexts. Yutaka has taught architectural design studios and theory at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda, and is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University.
Leighton Beaman
Leighton is a GA Collaborative Principal and Co-Founder. His research and interests focus on affects and material technologies within design culture for environmental responsibility, and socially conscious design practices. Leighton Beaman is currently an Associate Professor of Practice at Cornell University. He has been named a MacDowell Fellow, an American Institute of Architects Emerging Practitioner, and a University of Virginia Teaching Fellow in Architecture.
Studio:
Marie Claire Musengayire
Designer
Procurement Manager
Patrice Ndababonye
Senior Designer
Project Manager
Julia Ocejo Vivanco
Designer
Researcher
Nicolas Kalimba Rugamba
Designer
Project Manager
Cynthia Twagirayezu
Designer
Project Manager
Marie Rose Ukwizabigira
Designer
Project Manager
Iris Gomm
Designer
Researcher
Mia Shepard
Designer
Researcher
Eric Mutabazi Kayijuka
Architect
Project Manager
Collaborators:
Zaneta Hong
Materials Research
Landscape Architecture
Strategic Design
Graphics
Alex MacInnis
Filmaker
Fatou Dieye
Strategic Planning
Building Codes + Regulations
Katie Garner
Advocacy Strategy
Media Strategy
Minerve Dukunde
Designer
Architect
Can Cakmak
Designer
Graphics
Alex Pineda
Construction Research
Designer
Vittorio Lovato
Graphics
Research
Irene Maria Suescum Garzozi
Designer
Visualizations
Awards & Media
Awards:
Azure Magazine Design Award
Architecture + Social Good
2023
Architizer A+ Award
Architecture for Good
2022
Architizer A+ Award
Community Architecture
2022
Design Honor Award
BLT International Design Awards
2022
Honor Award - Architecture
Society of American Registered Architects, NY
2022
Sustainable Architecture, Special Citation
Dezeen Design Awards
2022
Design Award
A’ Design, International
2022
Small Firm of the Year, NE
The Architect’s Newspaper
2021
Honor Award - Architecture
Society of American Registered Architects, NY
2021
Architizer, A+
Architecture for Good Design Award
2021
Game Changer
Metropolis Magazine
2020
Honor Award
American Institute of Architects, VA
Honor Award
2020
Honorable Mention - International Architecture
Architecture Master Prize
2020
Great Places Award
Environmental Design Research Association,
2014
Press + Publications
Soil: Maison Masoro
Courtenay Smith & Sean Topham, Houses That Can Save the World, Thames & Hudson
2022
General Architecture Collaborative works with Rwandan village to build community centre
Jon Astbury, Dezeen
2022
Practice for Impact
Leighton Beaman, in The Practices of Architecture: Three Fields, One Discipline, (ed. Miguel Guitared), Routledge
2022
Solutions in Soil: Here’s Why All Architects Should Reconsider Compressed Earth Blocks
Pascal Hogue, Architizer
2022
Factories for Urban Living: Retooling 21st-Century Production
Rafael Luna, Production Urbanism, AD Magazine, Wiley Press
2021
Justice's Three Jobs
William Richards, Architect, Zonda Media
2021
Game Changers 2020: Diana Anderson and General Architecture Collaborative on Wellness and Community
Lila Alan, Metropolis Magazine, Sandow
2020
Looking Like Developed: Aesthetics and Ethics in Rwandan Housing Projects
Yutaka Sho, Journal of Architectural Education, Volume 68, Issue 2 Taylor & Francis
2014
Building Community Through Creative Construction
Tyler Survant, Arch Daily
2014
Exhibitions
The Rwanda Housing Project
Syracuse University, School of Architecture
Syracuse, NY, USA
2024
Making and Breaking from Materials
Architectural Institute of Japan
Tokyo, Japan
2023
Playing Well With Others
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism
Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Seoul, Korea
2019
General Architecture Collaborative
The Business of Design Exhibition
Yale University School of Architecture
New Haven Connecticut, USA
2018
The Rwanda Conversations
Goethe Institut in Kigali + Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Science
Huye, Rwanda
2015
Afritecture: Building Social Change
Architekturmuseum der TUM
Munich, Germany
2014
Perpetual Peace Project
Kigali Institute of Science & Technology + Slough Foundation
Kigali, Rwanda
2011
Tirana Local: Albanian Cultural Delivery Service on Rails
People Meet in Architecture: Biennale Architettura: La Biennale di Venezia
Venice, Italy
2010