Born in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, Ma received a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering in Architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Also he became close to Rem Koolhaas on the first Harvard Project on the City, which he organized resulting in the book The Great Leap Forward.
Included amongst MADA s.p.a.m's works are Qingpu Community Island in Shanghai, the Centennial TV and Radio Center in Xi'an, and Tianyi Square in Ningbo.
Ma was the Dean of the University of Southern California School of Architecture from January 2007 through June 2017.
[1] In April 2020, Ma began serving as a member of the Board of Governors for the historic The School of Architecture[2] founded by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932.