Maria leads urbanSEED’s design team. She is a licensed architect and holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Universidad de Los Andes and a dual Master’s degree in Architecture, and City and Regional Planning (with a concentration in Housing and Community Development) from UC Berkeley.

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An award-winning architect with close to 15 years of experience, Maria has worked on a wide range of projects exploring collaborative practices between architecture and urban planning, and stretching from institutional to housing projects. Her work has consistently focused on sustainable design and planning approaches including energy efficient strategies, resilient development and participatory processes to respond to the specifics of each end-user and place and empower communities with the necessary tools to improve and shape the spaces they live in. Her most recent work includes typological studies on housing, and urban rehabilitation projects with a focus on resilience including green infrastructure and public space design.

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Maria is interested in collaborative practices in both architecture and planning to provide communities with the necessary tools to improve and shape the spaces they live in. She is also the co-founder of BUILDING LOCAL, a non-profit organization which organizes international design-build workshops exploring the aesthetic, assembly and tectonic qualities of vernacular materials and construction techniques such as earth, stone, bamboo and wood.

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She is currently an adjunsct professor at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and has

been involved in architectural education in the US.