Marya Demetra Kanakis
Ekphrasis Design Lab

selected projects / info

Marya is a Greek-American architect, writer, and founder of Ekphrasis Design Lab, a Chicago-based architecture and design strategy practice that explores nature, technology, and media. Her previous experience and collaborations include urban design research for SOM, landscape architecture and geological architecture for Kanye West, installations for Haworth, while grounded by almost a decade of architectural experience in Chicago’s healthcare scene. In 2023, she was a contributor in the Chicago Architecture Biennial with her reading room exhibition + public programming, ‘Bookscapes’ which explored new media and the environmental impact of the publishing industry (featuring Contango Journal, Ben Denzer, Archival Consciousness, Laura Coombs, Phillip Denny, Mattaforma, Ian Erickson, and more). She currently teaches at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago as well as the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture. Previously taught courses include a graduate studio at IIT, titled ‘Biohybridity: Future Hospitals, Landscapes of Care, and Community Health’ (where students analyzed the complex relationships between humans, pathogens, structures, landscapes, and governing policies), and a short term course at Harvard GSD with CoCo Tin, titled ‘OffCUT(s)’ (which was a provocation in designing with forgotten remnants of the construction industry).

Her work has been exhibited in Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability’s Climate Action Week, ‘Technoscape. L’architettura dell’ingegneria’ at the MAXXI Museum (SOM), the Venice Architecture Biennale (SOM), UN Climate Change Conference COP26 (Strelka KB), and various independent spaces. Marya’s editorial work includes Future Tempos: Conversations in Architecture across Time and Media for ACTAR Press [purchase here], an interview of artist Bart Hess for Classics of the Future, a playful text on genetic alchemy for DISC Journal [purchase here], and contributions in USC’s Space Journal, IIT’s PhD Journal, Prometheus, and a forthcoming text on facial recognition archives in September Magazine.

Marya completed her studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Master of Design Studies in Ecology, 2023) where her thesis ‘Grafted Natures: The Ecology of Blurred Species’ explored intertwined histories of design authorship in plants and humans. She graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology (Bachelor of Architecture, Specialization in History and Theory, cum laude, 2019). She was also a visiting student at Università Iuav di Venezia.

In Spring 2025, she was recently selected as an Artist in Residence at the International Museum of Surgical Sciences where she is continuing research on ‘grafting’, archiving how the history of medical technology influenced Modernist architecture. Her current work explores curatorial practices of ecology.

ig: @maryakanakis
email: mdk@maryakanakis.com

chicago, il

Marya Demetra Kanakis ekphrasis design lab

Marya Demetra Kanakis
ekphrasis design lab