María is a designer and co-founder at Juntos Projects, an award-winning studio that explores contemporary craft through color, form, and natural materials.

Her work is driven by a belief that creative career is a practice of collaboration, creativity, and an entrepreneurial one, an evolving dialogue between intuition, discipline, community, and the realities of sustaining a creative life.

With a background in the arts, including roles at the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum, she approaches teaching through a curatorial lens shaped by visual culture, storytelling, and public engagement. This foundation informs her commitment to helping emerging designers identify their voice, build sustainable practices, and navigate the creative industry with clarity and confidence.

Juntos Projects sets itself apart through a deep commitment to craftsmanship, responsible manufacturing, and a small-studio approach that prioritizes quality. Rather than fabricating in-house or abroad, we have built long-term partnerships with skilled local manufacturers, allowing us to remain closely connected to the production process and ensuring ethical and sustainable practices with the infrastructure to scale. Our distinct aesthetic vision has led us to develop proprietary color finishes and to place material experimentation at the core of our design process, resulting in a recognizable design language and pieces that are difficult to replicate by larger competitors.

At Juntos Projects, Huiza and her partner, architect Abraham Bendheim, draw from personal histories that span South America and North America, and from their foundations in fine arts and architecture. Their collaborative practice explores the convergence of design, memory, and craftsmanship. This studio experience anchors her teaching, allowing her to bridge concept and execution, material research and business strategy, craft and entrepreneurship.

She has been recognized with several awards, including The Architect’s Newspaper Best Product Awards (2025) and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair Editors’ Award for Best Emerging Designer (2024). Her work has been featured in Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, Dezeen, Sight Unseen, Business of Home, and other leading design publications.