María Arana Zubiate is an architect, researcher, and curator. She has extensive professional experience as a collaborator in various architecture and urban planning studios, where she has participated in the drafting of General and Partial Urban Development Plans, as well as in Execution Projects and Construction Management.
She is a founding partner of Urbanbat, a social initiative cooperative dedicated to research, the design of participatory processes for urban regeneration, and the production of critical culture around urban transformations. Through its work, Urbanbat promotes social innovation and citizen creativity to foster a culture of participation that contributes to the care and improvement of the environment.

As a curator, she has organized projects and events for Azkuna Zentroa–Alhóndiga Bilbao, has been part of the curatorial committee of the 5th Culture and Citizenship Meeting organized by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and has co-directed for 13 years URBANBATfest, the annual festival of architecture, urban planning, and social innovation in Bilbao. Since 2021, she has been the curator of Mugak/, the International Architecture Biennial of Euskadi.
She has developed cultural and mediation projects related to territory for CICUS (Seville), Oiasso Museum (Irun), La Térmica (Málaga), the Basque Institute of Architecture, and Matadero Madrid, among others.
Together with the Bilbao City Council, she coordinated local participation in the European Human Cities Project, which led to collaborations with Tallinn Design Festival, Aalto University, and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana, among other European institutions linked to design.

She has lectured at various forums and conferences in Spain and across Europe, including the Burgos Culture Forum, FAD Awards (Barcelona), Entropía (Zaragoza), Bizkaia Design Week, Carlos III University of Madrid, the School of Architecture of Madrid, the Gernika Peace Museum, the Biennial of Architecture and Childhood (Pontevedra), and Tallinn Design Week.

As an educator, she is part of the teaching staff of the Master’s in Design for Social Change at the European Institute of Design Kunsthall, and the Master’s in Practice and Theory in Contemporary Arts and Culture at Azkuna Zentroa–Alhóndiga Bilbao and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).