Mónica Ponce de León

A National Design Award winner, Ponce de León has focused on the application of robotic technology to building fabrication and architecture education.

[3] Prior to establishing her own practice MPdL Studio in 2011, she was the founding partner with Nader Tehrani in the award-winning firm Office dA.

[2] At Michigan, Ponce de Leon with Associate Dean Milton Curry, also inaugurated an architecture preparatory program for high school students in Detroit.

[7] In 2016, Ponce de León served as co-curator, alongside Log editor Cynthia Davidson, of the exhibition at the United States Pavilion for the 15th International Biennale of Architecture in Venice, Italy.

[8] The exhibition, entitled "The Architectural Imagination" and to be organized and hosted by Taubman College, will engage specific sites in Detroit, and feature projects from 12 teams of architects from across the United States.

[9][10] Among others, her projects include: Fabricating Coincidences in New York, Helios House in Los Angeles, Macallen Building and the Interfaith Chapel in Boston, and Dining Services at 200 West and Conrad Hilton in Lower Manhattan.

Propped against the brick wall that encloses the garden along its northern edge, the piece is made of perforated steel plate that has been folded, origami style, into a canopy of cascading metal.

Viewed from straight ahead, the folds collapse into a single plane; as you move around, the forms expand into space, like an escalator for the eye.

"[12] Of her Dining Services project, Paul Goldberger of The New Yorker writes in 2010, "spectacular cafeteria, with a swooping white plaster ceiling and columns, a modernist take on Gaudi that plays off deftly against Cobb's geometric shell.