Vanessa D. Ferreira is a Brazilian architect, designer, and researcher working at the intersection of art education, material culture, and socially engaged design. She holds both a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Urbanism and a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where her research examined grassroots housing movements and collective forms of spatial production.

Her current research explores making as a form of knowledge production, with a focus on embodied learning, authorship, and imagination in art and design education. Her work investigates how sensory experience, material engagement, and creative practice can foster autonomy, belonging, and critical awareness in diverse educational contexts.

Alongside her academic work, Vanessa develops community-based initiatives that expand access to design and fabrication tools. She is the founder of Practical Carpentry, a project that teaches accessible woodworking using low-cost and portable tools, enabling individuals to build independently without access to traditional workshops. Her practice bridges theory and action, positioning making as both a pedagogical strategy and a form of social transformation.

Her broader research agenda advances what she defines as a Pedagogy of Sensible Experience, an approach that understands learning as an embodied, relational, and materially grounded process. By integrating critical pedagogy, artistic practice, and design justice, her work repositions making as a site of authorship, agency, and collective knowledge production across diverse educational and community contexts.