Mar Santamaria

Mar Santamaria, born in Palma in 1972, architect and urban planner for the Barcelona School of Architecture, where she has been an associate professor with the Department or Urban Planning and Territorial Organisation for more than a decade. 

Her professional activity is linked to digital technology, spatial analysis, urban planning and public policy on an international scale. She is a co-founder of 300.000 Km/s (www.300000kms.net), an agency exploring the potential of big data and the new IT paradigms to improve urban analysis, planning strategy and decision-making. Over the course of her career she has been active in fields such as environmental health, financial regulation, mobility, residential vulnerability and the digital divide. In recognition of her work, she has received the S+T+ARTS Award (2019) and the Spanish Urban Planning Award (2020). 

She has also promoted participatory workshops for the specialised and general public, and given lectures in universities and international institutions such as EPFL Lausanne, the Welsh School of Architecture, TU Braunschweig, ETSAB and the IAAC. Her work has also been shown in international cultural institutions, such as the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2021, 2016), BOZAR Brussels (2020), Ars Electronica (2019) and the Chicago Arts Institute (2015). A pioneer in Spain on the use of open data for urban polices, and in promoting skills among citizens, she has worked as an expert in drafting the Spanish and Catalan 2030 Urban Agendas.

Photo: Pere Virgili