José Martins is founder of M-AO (Martins Architecture Office).
He was graduated in Architecture by Faculty of Architecture at the University of Oporto and has a Master degree in Architecture and Urban Culture at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya/ Centre Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.
He practiced in the De Architekten Cie - Architecture & Planning Office, Research & Development in Amsterdam where has worked with Frits van Dongen.
His disciplinar approach varies between theory and practice. Regularly publishes architecture books and do architecture curating. From 2011 untill 2013 was President of the Braga regional section of the Portuguese Architectural Association, in 2012 had a scholarship from EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee being in Tokyo researching about Japanese contemporary architecture and in 2013 was co-founder of Ether a cultural compound that wants to set his a critical thoughts on the architecture field of operation.
In 2013 founded M-AO focused on architecture, conceptual development and cultural analysis. Built within a young and multidisciplinary team set to evolve different types of projects and to involve external consultants in the search of an overall solution. Its process and methodology run along the experimental posture, not only because the office philosophy believes in it, but mostly because architecture creativity is not a purely economic investment.