Maria Cynthia y. Funk

Bringing Harmony At All Levels: The Essence Of Architecture Is The Creation Of A Compassionate Society.

MARIA CYNTHIA Y. FUNK Associate Dean of the Environment Studies Cluster of the De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, SDAAR

Maria Cynthia Y. Funk, endearingly called Choie by all who know her, is currently the Associate Dean of the Environment Studies Cluster of the De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, School of Design and Arts since 2016, serving 4 programs: Architecture, Interior Design, Industrial Design, and Fashion Design & Merchandising.

In 2009, she joined the Benildean roster of faculty while keeping her architectural practice—thus bridging the gap between theory and practice and gaining a greater understanding of the importance of this bond. In 2015, she received a study grant to take her Master’s Degree in Advanced Architecture at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.

Funk’s research-based design studio Atelier Funk Architecture seeks the same transformation, with a further goal of documenting how their designs could be tested, generalized, and shared with others. The vision is sturdy, and the road long but Funk bears the hope that as we get started now, we shall eventually get there.

For the United Architects of the Philippines for the Fiscal Year 2018-19, she serves as Chair for the Committee on Academe-Industry Linkage of the Commission on Education.

A veteran in community and global issues, her further studies and work combined afford her possibilities to constantly seek solutions to problems through meaningful design, architecture, and education.

We are at a time when architecture is no longer about just the process and the result of design and planning, building and materiality. Amidst the employment of advanced technologies, this architecture holds hands with the greater call to a more inclusive, collaborative, and traversal approach in the creation of an empathetic civilization, lived by a compassionate society.