Born and educated in Buenos Aires, Mariana Ibañez has been teaching at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) for 10 years after working closely in London with globally-celebrated Zaha Hadid, her mentor, who passed away this winter leaving the world her iconic structures. Today, Ibañez and her partner Simon Kim have their own closely watched firm called Ibañez Kim where they experiment each year in a different city with a construct that explores the relationship between urbanism and how we move through the city. They also have a lab called Immersive Kinematics where they do much of their research and prototyping.

We sat down with Ibañez to discuss how she sees the role of architects in a world in which some are in dire need for basic housing, while others have a responsibility to experiment with technology and push the envelope. Her insights into biomimetics and the crossover of disciplines from robotics to material science to artificial intelligence is a long way from a Staedtler Mars pencil.