Maria Rius Ruiz works at the intersection of art, architecture and design.
She holds a PhD and a Master of Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (ETSAB, UPC) with highest honors. She also studied space and graphic design at the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the Barcelona School of Art and Design (EINA). Maria has received several prestigious fellowships, including the Center for Canadian Architecture (CCA) Fellowship, the La Caixa Fellowship, and the Arquia Scholarship.
Maria teaches at the Yale School of Architecture (YSOA). Previously, she taught at various institutions such as Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Princeton University School of Architecture (SoA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB), among others.
In 2013, she co-founded NUA arquitectures, an architecture and design studio that has consistently been recognized as one of the emerging young studios in Spain and Europe. The studio’s work explores architecture at different scales through strategies sensitive to the history of sites and the environment. NUA has been selected in the FAD 2018 Awards, was a finalist in the 14th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Town Planning, and nominated for the European Contemporary Architecture Award - Mies van der Rohe 2019 awards, among others. NUA’s work has been widely published and exhibited, including the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016. Maria co-directed NUA for over a decade.
Since 2025, Maria has been leading her own creative studio based between New York and Tarragona.