About

Global Leaders Committed to Eliminating Forced Labor

In the fall of 2020, Grace Farms Foundation’s CEO and Founder Sharon Prince launched the Design for Freedom movement to design and build more humanely. Design for Freedom reimagines architecture by raising awareness and inspiring responses to disrupt forced labor in the building materials supply chain.

Within a short time, Design for Freedom and its Working Group has raised global awareness, with noted recognition from Fast Company (Most Creative People in Business 2022) and Connecticut Green Building Council (Trailblazer Award, November 2022), and created institutional responses through media, high-level events such as the Design for Freedom Summit, and international Pilot Projects including the Black Chapel by Theaster Gates (21st Serpentine Pavilion, U.K.) and Nina Cooke John’s Harriet Tubman Monument (Newark, NJ).

This select group of more than 100 leaders is spearheading a radical paradigm shift and mobilizing the full ecosystem of the built environment.

In 2024, Grace Farms joined the United Nations Global Compact, reinforcing our commitment to aligning our strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. Design for Freedom has also been accepted as a partner organization of Alliance 8.7, joining forces with over 400 leading organizations committed to eradicating forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor.

 

Grace Farms Foundation
Partners
Working Group
The Hummingbird
Grace Farms Foundation Partners Working Group The Hummingbird

Grace Farms is a cultural and humanitarian center in New Canaan, Connecticut that brings together people across sectors to explore nature, arts, justice, community, and faith at the SANAA-designed River building, on 80 acres of publicly accessible natural landscape.
 
Its humanitarian work to end modern slavery and foster more grace and peace in the local and global community includes leading the Design for Freedom movement. Launched in 2020 by Grace Farms’ CEO and Founder Sharon Prince, Design for Freedom reimagines architecture by raising awareness and inspiring responses to disrupt forced labor in the building materials supply chain. The Design for Freedom Working Group comprises more than 100 leaders who together are spearheading a radical paradigm shift and mobilizing the full ecosystem of the built environment.
 
This collaborative approach to comprehensively address humanitarian issues and generate new outcomes is reflected across all of the initiatives and spaces of Grace Farms.

Design for Freedom Summit 2025 Sponsors

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in-kind sponsors

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2024 Media Partners

Design for Freedom Working Group Members

(as of September 2025)

Jane Abernethy | Humanscale, Chief Sustainability Officer

Keith Amann | Related Companies, VP, Sustainability

Illya Azaroff FAIA | +Lab, Principal and AIA President

Iwan Baan | Photographer and Published Author

Lindsay Baker | Living Future, CEO

Barbara BatShalom | BuildingEase, Founder & CEO

Kyle Bergman | Architecture and Design Film Festival, Founder

Kai Uwe-Bergmann, FAIA | BIG, Partner

Deborah Berke, FAIA | Yale School of Architecture, Dean, and TenBerke, Founder

Phillip Bernstein, FAIA | Yale School of Architecture, Associate Dean and Professor Adjunct

Rebecca Best | Material Bank, EVP Sustainability & Market Engagement

Annie Bevan | Mindful Materials, CEO

Gordon Boggis | Carnegie, CEO

Frances Bronet | Pratt Institute, President

Victoria Cabanos | Stuart Lynn, Managing Principal/CEO

Myrrh Caplan, LEED Fellow | Skanska, National Senior Vice President Sustainability

Amb. (ret.) Luis C.deBaca | Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Paul Clemence | Architectural Photographer and Author

Tim Conway | Shaw Industries, Vice President Sustainability

Rick Cook, FAIA | COOKFOX Architects, Founding Partner

Jill Crawford | Type A Projects, Founding Partner

Michael Crosbie, Ph.d, FAIA | University of Hartford, Professor 

Curtis Clay | US Dept. of State, OBO, Director of Architecture

Diana Darling | The Architect’s Newspaper, CEO, Co-Founder, and Publisher

Dirk Denison, FAIA | Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), College of Architecture, MCHAP Director and Professor

Raj Deshpande | Saint Gobain NA, Senior Director ESG Sustainability & Compliance

Angel Dizon | Northwestern University, Senior Associate Vice President of Facilities

Graham Dodd | ARUP Fellow, Director Materials and Fabrication

Jennifer Downey | Turner Construction, Director Environmental Social Governance

Anna Dyson | Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA), Founding Director

Rand Ekman, FAIA, LEED Fellow  | HKS, Principal and Chief Sustainability Officer

Louis Fusco , FASLA | Louis Fusco Landscape Architects, Principal

Julia Gamolina  | Madame Architect, Founder & Ennead, Director of Business Development

Jared Gilbert | COOKFOX Architects, Associate Partner

Lisa Goodwin-Robbins | Kalin Associates, Associate Principal

Meredith Gore, PhD. | University of Maryland, Professor

Jay Gorman | Sciame Construction, Vice President

Brad Grant | Howard University, Professor, Department of Architecture

Michael Green, AIBC, FRAIC | MGA, President and CEO

Conor Grennan | NYU Stern, Dean of MBA Students

Elizabeth Grennan | Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, Chief Client Officer

Gabe Guilliams, PE | BuroHappold Engineering, Partner

Joanna Hall | Global Coalition on Sustainability, SustainChain, President

Pete Hamill | Turner Construction Company, Senior Vice President, Strategic Development and New England Principal

Felix Heisel | Cornell Circular Construction Lab, Director

Eric Höweler, FAIA | Höweler + Yoon, Co-founder & Principal

Florian Idenburg | SO – IL, Founding Principal

Nina Cooke John | Studio Cooke John Architecture + Design, Founder and Principal

Susan Jones, FAIA | atelierjones, Founder, Architect

Diana Kellogg | Diana Kellogg Architects, Founder

Leslie P. King, Esq. | Cozen O’Connor, Member

Andrew Klemmer | Paratus Group, President & Founder 

Evelyn Lee, FAIA | Practice of Architecture, Founder and 2025 President, American Institute of Architects

Vivian Lee | Gensler, Design Director

Jing Liu | SO – IL, Founding Principal

Shawn MacDonald, Ph.D. | Verité, CEO

Sammy Medina | New York Review of Architecture, Editor

Sydney Mainster | The Durst Organization, VP of Sustainability & Design Management

Vardhan Mehta | Acelab, Co-founder & CEO

Peter Miller | Palette Architecture, Founding Partner

Joseph Mizzi | Sciame Construction, President

Amy Musanti | Assa Abloy, Director of Sustainable Building Solutions

Tateo Nakajima, FRSA FIOA | ARUP, Fellow

Patricia Saldaña Natke, FAIA | UrbanWorks, Founding Partner and President

Signe Nielsen, FASLA | MNLA Landscape Architects, Principal

Eddie Opara, AIGA | Pentagram, Partner

Nat Oppenheimer | TYLIN, Senior Vice President

Debbie Propst | MillerKnoll, President Global Retail

Suchi Reddy, FAIA | REDDYMADE, Founding Principal

Quilian Riano | Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Dean

Alan Ricks, Int FRIBA | MASS Design Group, Founding Principal and Co-Executive Director

Antonio Rillosi | ExtraVega, CEO & Founder

Yiselle Santos Rivera | YSR, LLC, Founder & CEO, AIA President 2027

Jonsara Ruth | Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons School of Design, Design Director & Co-Founder

Christopher Sharples | SHoP Architects, Founding Principal

Nasreen Sheikh | Founder, Empowerment Collective

Hayes Slade | Slade Architecture, Co-Founder & Principal

James Slade, FAIA | Slade Architecture, Founder Partner

Raphael Sperry | ARUP, Associate Principal and Global Social Equity Leader

Franca Trubiano, Ph.D. | University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, Associate Professor in Architecture and Chair, Graduate Group of Architecture

Brian Ulicny, Ph.D. | Raytheon Intelligence & Space, Associate Director, Research; Analytics and Machine Intelligence Group

Claire Weisz, FAIA | WXY architecture + urban design, Principal-in-Charge

David Wildman | Bloomberg LP, Global Head Facilities, Sustainability Ops and MEP Infrastructure

Yumiko Yamada | SANAA, Partner and AIA Japan, President 2024

Kim Yao, FAIA | ARO, Principal

GRACE FARMS

Sharon Prince | CEO and Founder

Chelsea Thatcher | Chief Strategy Officer and Founding Creative Director

Nora Rizzo | Ethical Materials Director

Brigid Abraham | Design for Freedom Project Manager

Elaine Mitchel-Hill | International Lead, Design for Freedom

Toshihiro Oki | Architectural Advisor

Adam Thatcher | Co-Founder and CEO Grace Farms Foods

Elizabeth Rapuano | Chief Communications Officer

Ashley Sikora | Director of Marketing

A symbol of freedom across time and cultures, the Design for Freedom hummingbird emblem embodies the spirit of survivors and our role in safeguarding them. The hummingbird’s vibrant colors, piercing gaze, and uplifted wings exude a relentless energy and optimism. A silhouette forms from the shape of the hummingbird and poignantly reminds us of the modern slavery that has been hidden in plain sight for too long.