Maryline Damour

After many years working in marketing, business development and public relations for firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PwC and Accenture, Maryline returned to school to study interior design at Parsons The New School for Design eventually co-founding Darmour Drake, a full-service design/build firm.

Originally from Haiti, Maryline has been actively involved in interior design projects in Haiti since the earthquake of 2010. She is currently developing a vocational school in Léogâne, Haiti focused on teaching safer building techniques and practices for the construction industry.

Maryline is also the founder of Kingston Design Connection, a network of designers, builders and home owners in Hudson Valley, New York.

Photo credit: Doug Menuez

Lisa Manne

Lisa Weisinger Manne is a performing arts and film producer whose work spans the fields of dance, theatre, opera and media. She has worked with leading international arts organizations, production companies and individual artists for over 30 year, including American Ballet Theatre; Evidence, A Dance Company; The Metropolitan Opera; the Spoleto Festival/Italy; Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pina Bausch, Alessandra Ferri and Alfredo Arias, among others.

Lisa is a founding board member of Oficina Design and En Avant Foundation and supports a number of educational and performing arts organizations.

Lisa lives in Riverdale in the Bronx with her husband, son and apricot labradoodle.

Photo credit: Chris Maggio

Braulio Amado

Braulio Amado is a Graphic Designer and Illustrator from Portugal, currently living in New York City. Braulio was amongst the first people that gave us a hand when we weren't even a formal entity, and he has been involved in our fundraising efforts since then. His generosity and get-stuff-done attitude is instrumental at Oficina. 

Braulio draws everyday, his vibrant work has appeared in the New York Times, Businessweek, WIRED, and more, and he’s collaborated with artists including Beck, Frank Ocean, Róisín Murphy, and Robyn. He also co-runs the NYC multi-purpose art space Sixth Street Haunted House (SSHH).

Photo credit: Chris Maggio

João Xavier

João Xavier studied chemical engineering in Lisbon, Portugal, where he was born and grew up.

He moved to the Netherlands in 2002 to study wastewater treatment, then to Boston in 2006 and finally to New York in 2010 where he became a scientist at the Sloan Kettering Institute. In his daytime job, investigates the evolution of social interaction in bacteria, including those that live in our gut and are important to our health.

João received a New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Quanta, and Wired.

Jonathan Boulet-Groulx

Jonathan is a Canadian visual communication specialist who lives in Haiti since 2020 and has been visiting the country for work and leisure since 2003. Jonathan and Joana met by a fortunate chance in a café in Leogane, Haiti and have been exchanging ideas since then.

Jonathan holds a Masters degree in communication and is a self-taught photographer and videographer; his documentary work is focused on vulnerable communities and marginalized issues. His thoughtful advice has proved crucial to our work at Oficina.

Jonathan currently works for the United Nations on Gender Based Violence and Peace Building projects, before that Jonathan, spent 15 years working with NGO’s and community organizations.

On his off time, he greatly appreciates reading about design, architecture, urbanism and social participation.

Gardy Guiteau

Gardy is a Social Justice Educator and K-16 Administrator trained in social diversity, social equity awareness, and intergroup dialogue facilitation. Gardy currently serves as the director of Equity and Inclusion at the Newark Academy in New Jersey, he has over 15 years of experience working in secondary schools, colleges and universities, community and non-profits organizations, and industry.

Gardy is also the founding Chair of the Dyaspora Coordinating Committee, a non-profit organization that works to cultivate, uplift, and celebrate the experiences of Africans in and across the Americas, in particular between Haiti and the USA.

Joana Torres

Joana Torres is an architect and project manager with over 15 years of experience in architecture, design-build, and social impact design.

Originally from Portugal, she earned a Master’s degree in Architecture, Urbanism, and Building Sciences from the Technical University of Delft in 2004. Prior to founding Oficina, Joana was a project manager for residential, retail, and commercial projects at architecture firms including EOA and ODA (New York), Merge Architects (Boston), JDWA (Rotterdam), and Jorge Mario Jauregui (Rio de Janeiro).

In 2016, Joana founded Oficina Design, a nonprofit that delivers human-centered architecture and construction to underserved communities and develops participatory tools to involve local residents throughout projects and beyond. Joana is involved in all aspects of each project, from pre-schematic design to the end of construction and post-occupancy phases.

Joana also serves as Architectural Director at the Heliotrope Foundation, a nonprofit that supports communities through creative responses to rebuild after natural disasters, economic devastation, and moments of social crisis. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board of Building Dignity, a platform exploring design strategies for domestic violence emergency housing that promote dignity, self-determination, and security for survivors.

Bambuterra

Bambuterra is a design, engineering and construction company that uses bamboo as a construction material. Bambuterra is based in Mexico City and is led by civil engineer Veronica Giraldo and architect Luisa Giraldo, with whom we collaborate since 2011.

Bambuterra creates and executes innovative and sustainable projects, products and services, combining artisanal techniques with technologies that provide low environmental impact and seek high social impact.