actLAB Information

actLAB is a collaborative studio working at the intersection of ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN, RESEARCH and SOCIAL ADVOCACY. We are driven by the social effect that architecture can activate and draw from urban complexities to inform our production of new ideas. Our projects range from highly detailed bespoke projects to community spaces in New York to remote locations in the Philippines. We are a global design practice shifting between our main studio in Brooklyn, New York and satellite operations in Sydney & Manila. actLAB was founded in 2013 by Aya Maceda, a Filipino-Australian architect and professor at Parsons School of Design. Aya is a M.S. Advanced Architectural Design graduate and former faculty of Columbia University GSAPP. She has served as a guest critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Columbia GSAPP, Parsons SCE and University of Technology, Sydney. She is a registered architect in Australia and brings with her extensive professional experience from prestigious practices in Sydney, Singapore and the Philippines specializing in the conceptualization to realization of complex, award-winning residential and institutional projects that enhance the public domain (from highly-detailed single dwellings to dense residential projects, public libraries and a university building). Aya is a recipient of the following awards: the Percival and Naomi Goodman Fellowship for social work in architecture from Columbia GSAPP; the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize for design excellence from Columbia GSAPP and the Westfield Fellowship for Technology from the American Australian Association.