Maria Flores Kearns

Position
Visiting Fellow, June 10 to July 7, 2019
Bio/Description

Maria Flores Kearns (M. Arch. Rice University). Flores Kearns serves as Professor and Director of the Department of Architecture at the Escuela Internacional de Diseño y Arquitectura (EIDA) of the Universidad Ana G. Méndez (UAGM) Gurabo campus. She has been adjunct professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico and is a member of the Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas de Puerto Rico (CAAPPR), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). She is principal licensed architect at FLORES KEARNS, PSC since 2013. Her practice is deeply invested in environmental and climatic considerations related to the extant practice of architecture in the tropics. Adaptive reuse of existing buildings, cultural perceptions of local geography and context, the relationship between architecture and landscape, and water retention strategies through materiality and form are some of the subjects of her current work in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Recently, Flores Kearns has been actively involved in post-hurricanes Irma and María reconstruction efforts in Puerto Rico. While at Princeton, Flores Kearns’s research will explore the possibility of rehabilitation and adaptive strategies for existing structures within a research and conceptual framework. She will examine global precedents on community engagement, resilience, ecological responsiveness and sustainability to develop a design strategy and prototype for a demonstrative area in San Juan.