Karla Sierralta León, AIA, is a Venezuelan-American architect and educator. A native of Maracaibo, she earned her professional architecture degree from La Universidad del Zulia and an M.Arch from the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Fulbright-LASPAU grantee. Her hyphenated identity and experiences as part of the Venezuelan diaspora inform her work on cross-cultural translation, belonging, and culturally grounded design.

At the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Architecture, she is an Associate Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Sierralta teaches studios and seminars that explore the process and agency of architectural design. She coordinates the first-year Design Fundamentals I studio and has led the Design Exchange: Peace Memorial program with the Nagaoka Institute of Design in Japan since 2017.

Before joining the faculty at UHM, Sierralta was a Studio Associate Professor at the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where she curated foundational graduate studios and taught across the curriculum. She has also served on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Universidad Rafael Urdaneta, and La Universidad del Zulia.

RESEARCH & CREATIVE WORK

Sierralta is a registered architect in Hawai‘i and Illinois. She has served on the AIA Honolulu Board of Directors, is a member of the UH Community Design Center start-up team, and was co-president of the Chicago Architectural Club. Most recently, she co-founded the Hawai‘i Housing Lab and played a key role in envisioning the UH Campus Design Lab.

In parallel with her academic work, she conducts design and research as Strawn Sierralta, a practice she co-founded in 2003, centered on reimagining architectural typologies, redefining fundamentals, and enacting civic impact through design. Projects have addressed memory, loss, and hidden histories of place; freedom; preservation of natural and cultural resources; democratization of urban space; resilience; and visions of renewable futures.

Strawn Sierralta’s work has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally for innovation, social impact, and design excellence, with honors from the AIA, ACSA, Fast Company, Good Design, SEGD, The Architect’s Newspaper, and others. Recent projects include Beyond Wayfinding, ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i Campus, Other Spaces, and the Holistic Housing Design Toolkit.