Dr. Maria Panta completed her PhD research degree titled, ‘Approaches to the resilience and the potential for adaptation through community-driven construction projects in the global South’, at Canterbury School of Architecture in 2018 (funded by the University for the Creative Arts, UK). She undertook her primary research in rural Ghana building a school canteen as part of a local community-driven organization.
Since 2017 Maria has collaborating with an British NGO in Cyprus as the Project Coordinator, Trainer & Teacher on Adobe brick-making and building, funded by ERASMUS + within the framework of ‘EU GREEN VILLAGE – SUSTAINABLE BUILDING – CONTEMPORARY APPLICATIONS OF ADOBE BRICK’. She teaches EU students and teachers on Erasmus + program about Sustainability, Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage. The aim is to promote the local craft of earth building, specifically the locally produced adobe brick, as one of the pathways towards sustainability and the empowerment of rural communities in Cyprus.
In 2011 Maria joined Reset Development, a London-based charity, on a two-year research based project titled the ‘Affordable Low-Carbon and Cyclone resilient Housing in South West Bangladesh’, funded by the Department for International Development (DfID-UK).
She became an associate of Women’s Design Service (WDS) in 2010 and got involved in community-led design projects for sustainable neighbourhoods in London using participatory planning consultations in order to influence planning in the boroughs, and a WDS Lottery-funded project aimed at improving public toilet provision.
She undertook her RIBA Part II at London South Bank University with the research-based thesis titled ‘Seven City Farms in London’, discussing sustainability and community-based adaptation in London.