The opportunity to build an entire university campus from scratch, with a mandate to offer solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems, is a rare thing. But in the rapidly developing East African country of Rwanda, a conjunction of groundbreaking design, government support, and philanthropic commitment has led to the completion later this year of what’s expected to be the first carbon-positive university in the world: the 3,400-acre Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA).

Underlying the carbon-positive achievement (pulling more greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere than the project’s construction and operation emit) is a way of working that MASS Design Group, the project’s architect, has been developing through its building in Rwanda and elsewhere for the last 15 years. Premised on the understanding that major capital projects represent an investment in a place and its community, and that each design decision offers an opportunity to optimize that investment, the campus exemplifies the holistic engagement with contextual materials and methods that is the hallmark of the firm’s work.