Maria A. is an architect and a parishioner at St. Mary’s. Over the last several months, she has served as principal architectural advisor to St. Mary’s expansion and renovation project and has tirelessly worked to help make St. Mary’s vision a reality. In her advisory capacity, Maria has helped guide and focus the decision-making process, drafted four alternative design concepts for the church to consider, spearheaded the efforts for complying with the county’s zoning requirements, engaged parishioners in providing feedback and incorporated this feedback in a revised design concept.
When Maria was in third grade, she won a third place in a national painting competition. She laughs about it but recognizes in it the passion for arts and design that drove her throughout her life.
Born in Iasi, Romania, Maria attended the school of architecture there — a rigorous 6-year program with tough admission exams and a challenging curriculum (only 15 of her cohort of 33 students graduated). She arrived in the US in Sept. 1996 through a visa lottery program.
Maria calls herself a “Renaissance person”—someone who is not satisfied with repetitive tasks, who has thrived on the diversity of challenges that her varied choices of projects have enabled.
In her 25-year architectural career in the U.S., Maria gained broad experience with wide-ranging projects – from office buildings to multi-family residential with over 400 apartments, lab buildings for FDA, church and school renovations and single-family homes. She also taught interior design at the Art Institute of D.C. – an experience she found very rewarding.
The greatest source of joy in her career has been to put her work in the service of others. The goal that most excites her as an architect is to improve the quality of people’s lives by enhancing the quality of the spaces they inhabit.
When the Campaign Steering Committee invited Maria to help with the renovation project, she immediately accepted. St. Mary’s had already commissioned a conceptual architectural design but could not determine the next steps.
Maria realized that the issue was one of process-- going in circles among multiple options (buy, build from scratch, raze the current building, redesign, etc.). This was something Maria had encountered many times. She knew she could help.
First, she set out helping us better define what we wanted by:
- Dropping options that were not viable and narrowing the field
- Starting on a blank slate to consider more design options
- Drafting and presenting four conceptual designs based on priority needs to help the committee and parish council make an informed decision.
- In the option that the committee chose and proposed to the parish council, Maria’s criteria included:
- Reconfiguration and refocus on priority needs
- Optimal use
- Flexibility
- The ability to re-purpose a space to accommodate future needs
- Cost
Maria’s contribution gave us direction, focus, a viable conceptual design, and guidance on navigating the county’s zoning intricacies. It also allowed the church to avoid the considerable expense of purchasing these services. Maria has done all this with love, dedication, and enthusiasm.
“I love people at St. Mary’s,” she says, “and doing something that will contribute to their happiness is so rewarding. People at St. Mary are grateful people. You never hear complaints. They know how to appreciate what they receive. It was natural to help. I did so with much happiness. It is God’s work.”
Stay tuned for a peek at the design to date in one of the future issues of The Veil!
