Most people think of architecture as grand skyscrapers, luxury buildings, and eye-catching designs.
Anabella Acevedo Peña sees it differently.
For her, the real impact of architecture comes from how it shapes everyday life—how it makes cities more welcoming, efficient, and sustainable for the people who live in them.
Her work spans historic restoration, housing projects, and urban revitalization, turning overlooked spaces into places people can actually use. Instead of tearing things down, she finds smarter ways to improve what’s already there, making cities feel more natural, practical, and welcoming, not just impressive from a distance.
She currently works at NAVA, an architecture and real estate development firm that believes design can do more than just shape buildings—it can build stronger, more resilient communities. Here, Anabella gets to do what she loves most: working at the crossroads of architecture, preservation, and community-driven design, helping create spaces that are built to last and meant for everyone.
But how do you keep housing affordable without cutting corners? How do you protect history while making space for the future? Anabella faces these questions every day, proving that thoughtful design can make cities work better for everyone.
Rebuilding Cities at NAVA
At NAVA, Anabella works on various projects, from adaptive reuse—giving new life to old buildings instead of tearing them down—, to ground-up development—essentially, new housing—. Both of these give the opportunity to include energy efficient solutions that contribute with the development of environmentally conscious architecture. With a focus on residential projects and passive architecture, NAVA takes a thoughtful approach to urban revitalization, blending sustainability with a deep respect for both history and the people who bring cities to life.
Anabella’s work blends design, history, and sustainability to create lasting spaces. At 14 White Street in Tribeca, she co-leads the interior design of a luxury residence, balancing modern comfort with recognizing the historic character of the area. In Rhinebeck, she’s helping turn 6 Mulberry, an abandoned school, into affordable housing for 40 residents, handling zoning, cost-effectiveness, permits, energy efficiency, and design, while also co-leading construction.
She’s also involved in other sustainable housing projects across New York and New England, focusing on low-carbon materials, sustainable construction methods, and eco-friendly construction. No matter the scale, her goal is the same—creating housing for everyone, that is thoughtful, sustainable, and built to last.
Her work at NAVA proves that old buildings don’t need to be torn down to be useful again. With thoughtful design, they can be preserved and adapted for modern life. Additionally, new developments can respond to the current world demands with conscious design and cost-efficient solutions, contributing to the environment, cities, and society needs.
Photo Courtesy: Anabella Acevedo Peña
How Caracas Shaped Her Thinking
Anabella’s interest in architecture and the built environment started while she was growing up in Caracas, Venezuela. Anabella saw how cities could be beautiful but also deeply unequal. Expensive high-rises stood right next to informal settlements that lacked basic services.
This contrast made her think about why cities work well for some but not for others. She wanted to find ways to make architecture more useful to everyone.
She studied architecture at Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), where she graduated Cum Laude and complemented this with a year of international exchange at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, one of the top universities in Latin America with a strong global reputation. Living in a different city allowed her to see, analyze and understand that its urban policies shaped the built environment differently from Caracas. This sparked her interest in urban planning and the influence it has over cities.
Anabella didn’t just want to stay within academia and her architecture studies, she wanted to bring this to real life. With Fundación Espacio, she worked in the CCScity450 project in both planned neighborhoods and spontaneous settlements (slums), helping communities reclaim public spaces after the 2017 Venezuelan protests. Later, in CCScity450 Comunidades, she led projects in five slums, proving that even small changes, like a bench or a mural, can spark a sense of belonging and rootedness.
More than design, she worked side by side with locals, authorities, and organizations to raise funds, run workshops, and cut through red tape, making sure these transformations truly lasted and were effective.
Bringing Her Ideas to New York City
To expand her impact, Anabella moved to New York City to earn a Master’s in Urban Planning and Urban Design at CUNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA and first in her class.
Her studies centered on the challenges that shape cities today, from cost-effective housing and how to weave it into fast-growing urban areas, to urban informality and the lessons city planners can learn from self-built communities.
Anabella also focused on sustainable development, exploring ways to design cities that are not only built for the future but also remain affordable, livable, and deeply connected to the people who call them home.
During her studies, she compared how housing works in Caracas and New York City, looking at zoning laws, cost-effective policies, and how different governments handle urban growth. This research helped her develop ideas that combine her insights from past and current experiences, exploring how cities can change and what they would look like in the future.
Photo Courtesy: Anabella Acevedo Peña
Researching Better Housing Solutions
Anabella isn’t just designing buildings, she’s exploring new ways to think about housing and urban development. As a founding member of The Collective | Collective, a design and research studio, she works with the J Max Bond Center on creative proposals for using air rights and leveraging latent zoning opportunities to address the housing crisis in the US. She also researches how underused urban spaces can be transformed to challenges of health, job, income, and education; and has published studies on self-built communities and alternative housing models, pushing the boundaries of traditional city planning.
Her research includes:
The Power of Air: An upcoming publication proposing a new air rights marketplace to activate capital and drive equitable development, securing the future of housing in New York City.
“Slumniverse” – A study published by the Observatory of Latin America and the New School, looking at how informal housing in cities around the world functions. Instead of seeing these neighborhoods as problems, she argues that they offer creative solutions that can be developed to address housing and urban challenges.
“Bogotá Bazuca” (2025) – An upcoming publication on experimental cartography, featuring a spherical map that reimagines mapping conventions through unconventional visualizations.
Photo Courtesy: Anabella Acevedo Peña
Facing the Challenges of Urban Growth
Working in both Caracas and New York has shown Anabella the different ways cities struggle with growth.
In Caracas, she worked on community-led projects, helping people improve their neighborhoods even when government support was limited. In New York, she deals with strict zoning laws and regulations, which even if they slow down processes, ultimately ensure safety for the city.
She has also seen in some cases how outdated zoning rules limit what cities can do. Many regulations were written in the early 20th century, before modern urban challenges and sustainability concerns. These old rules can make it harder to build mixed-use developments, energy-efficient housing, and adaptable living spaces—even when the demand for them is high.
Anabella believes that cities can and should rethink their zoning laws to allow for more creative and flexible solutions. New York City is currently taking a step into that direction with City of Yes, an ambitious update to NYC's zoning code. Understanding zoning, architecture and sustainability from an integrated and holistic perspective, has turned Anabella into a passionate future-thinker that constantly envisions upcoming scenarios for the built environment.
Shaping the Future of Cities
Anabella believes that cities should focus on long-term solutions rather than short-term profits, ensuring that new developments serve everybody. As more initiatives hit the ground, she is also delivering hers, contributing with her own input and thorough proposals.
She is committed to restoring buildings instead of demolishing them, proving that adaptive reuse is a smarter, more sustainable choice. She’s also exploring how self-built communities can help solve housing shortages, believing they offer lessons city planners can’t ignore. Beyond design, she’s advocating for better zoning laws to make cities more flexible, adaptable, and livable.
As cities continue to grow, Anabella remains focused on creating spaces that feel connected, accessible, and designed for the people who use them. Through her architecture, research, and advocacy, she is helping to redefine urban development, making it more sustainable, cost-efficient, and responsive to modern challenges.
