Marcela was born in Cali, Colombia and raised in South Florida. Marcela completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida in Interior Design and pursued a master’s in architecture at the University of Miami. During her studies, Marcela interned at several design firms including Glavovic Studio and Brillhart Architecture and was a graduate teaching assistant to various architecture courses. The driving force behind her studies stemmed from her interest in the intersection of creativity and talent across socioeconomic divides. Marcela studied the ways in which co-working space could be tailored to address social connectivity issues in Latin America, namely Cali, Colombia, where urban-stratification strategies indirectly cause socio-economic segregation.