PORTFOLIO
Table of Content
Research_Community Works Island Hosterly 2010-2012 Water Park 2015-2017
Academic_Teaching Works Poetic Acts 2018-2020 1:1 Systematic Territories 2018-2019 Responsive Artifacts 2014-2021 Landscape Lab + Hosterly 2015 Alternative School 2019 Shelter 2019
Research_Professional Works Parallel Thoughts 2017 Into the Woods 2019 Snow Shelter 2021
Academic_MLA Student Works Blowing in the wind 2022 Displaced Matter 2023 Landing for Dissolving the Limits 2023-2024
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Island Hosterly
Charigué Hosterly Cultural Center 2010-2012 Community Work by Matéricos Periféricos Entre Rios, Argentina TASK Performed: Member of Matéricos Periféricos
The constructions on Charigué Island serve as tangible expressions of the ever-changing and unstable nature of the terrain, all while striving to minimize their environmental impact. These structures evolve and transform with the passage of time, adjusting their functions to harmonize with the seasons, establishing a profound dialectical relationship between the eternal and the ephemeral.
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Water Plaza and Fish Market
2015-2017 Community Work by Matéricos Periféricos Pueblo Esther, Argentina
TASK Performed: Member of Matéricos Periféricos_Assistant Professor and Project Coordination. This project involved providing technical assistance for the comprehensive enhancement of the site, considering not only physical transformations but also community integration and design participation among neighbors, students, and professors. The objective was to collaboratively teach and learn, fostering the co-creation of a space. The chosen site was a neglected public space at the top of the Paraná canyon where a vulnerable settlement barely sustained itself. The primary focus was on creating water supply infrastructure while simultaneously integrating the community into a public space. This included establishing a space for a shermen's market, playgrounds, and shaded areas, aiming to enhance both the physical environment and communal interactions.
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Poetic Acts
2018-2020 Associate Professor at Taller Valderrama, UNR Actions performed at Pueblo Esther, Argentina TASK Performed: CoAuthor and Professor in charge
Comprising a series of collective actions, this initiative aims to cultivate the sensitivity and perceptual abilities of students to engage with the phenomenological aspects of landscapes through their bodies. Participants undertake a form of territorial mapping using their bodies, attempting to measure and perceive space through various sensory dimensions. This involves recognizing the physical dimensions and the performative qualities of materials. Additionally, the project includes the creation of ephemeral spatial devices designed to unveil latent conditions of landscapes. These devices facilitate a 1:1 scale transformative action, offering a unique approach to understanding and interacting with the environment.
From top to bottom: Poetic Act to comprehend the dynamic forces of the Paraná River through measurement instruments designed by students; Poetic Act to understand the space we occupy and the dimensions of a territory through linear elements; and Poetic Act to comprehend the qualities of the Argentine Pampa landscape through wind measurement instruments.
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1:1 Systematic Territories
2018-2019 Associate Professor at Taller Valderrama, UNR TASK Performed: Author and Professor in charge "Sistematic Territories" is an annual project undertaken with my rst-year architecture students at UNR. The project involves constructing basic measurement instruments to survey the existing topography of the study site. Subsequently, we generate the necessary planimetry, using it as the basis to create 1:1 scale models of the discovered topography crafted from recycled materials. The exercise culminates in the exhibition of these models, providing an immersive experience of a studied and transformed territory, inviting participants to walk through the tangible representation.
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Responsive Artifacts
2014-2021 Associate Professor at Taller Valderrama, UNR
These artifacts possess the remarkable ability to respond, adapt, and transform within their interactions with the natural phenomena of a specic site. Essentially, they can capture, engage in dialogue, and unveil latent (biotic and abiotic) phenomena within the territory, undergoing internal transformations as they interact. Biotic and abiotic processes in nature are intricately linked to a dynamic synthesis of forces, densities, temperatures, and pressures. These differences fundamentally shape, transform, and constitute the structures of beings, territories, and the behaviors of organisms over time. Functioning as interface machines between humans and the broader natural environment, responsive artifacts activate or reveal latent phenomena without dictating the nal outcome of the interaction. In essence, they establish precise yet open conditions for nature to act, allowing for accidental processes to unfold and unexpected patterns to emerge. When it comes to water, these artifacts delve into the contingent and ephemeral qualities of a shape-shifting and ever-moving territory. They meticulously study the biotic and abiotic phenomena present in water-land edge situations. In forest environments, they scrutinize the evolving conditions of light ltered through trees, examining sieves, reflections, lights, shadows, topographic modications from roots, and patterns of branch and leaf accumulation on the ground, as well as the atmospheric effects generated by humidity.
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Landscape Lab + Hosterly
2015 Teaching Assistant at Taller Valderrama, UNR Authors_ A.Pila, C.Ibarra 2nd year undergrad level Puerto Ruiz, Argentina
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Alternative School
2019 Associate Professor at Taller Valderrama, UNR Authors_ G.Vega 2nd year undergrad level Pueblo Esther, Argentina
Guido operates with a keen awareness of the ongoing sedimentation and erosion processes within the Paraná River territory, embodying a resolute vision for his school project: to ensure that the school's footprint expands in tandem with the growing population set to inhabit and utilize its facilities in the years to come. With this objective in mind, he strategically situates his school within the river's territory, employing barriers to facilitate sedimentation and reclaim land from the river. These barriers serve a dual purpose by not only directing the water but also sculpting the ravine's prole, envisioning a decade-long expansion of the territory. Guido meticulously plans and designs the spaces adjacent to these future extensions, ensuring seamless connectivity with existing structures as the school grows. This forward-thinking approach reflects Guido's commitment to fostering an environment where teaching and learning are perceived as continuous processes of growth and transformation, resonating deeply within the poetic essence of the project.
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Arch.School Shelter
2019 Associate Professor at Taller Valderrama, UNR Designer and Professor in charge Rosario, Argentina Award: Creation Grant FNA Education Ministery Argentina
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Parallel Thoughts
AADK Art Residency 2017 Research and Spacial Installation Authors: Renata Berta, J.G.Hernández Murcia, Spain Award: 2016 Formation Grant FNA Education Ministery Argentina “In AADK Spain, Centro Negra, they research about the vernacular architecture and they articulate, through formal poetics, the relationship or equilibrium and interdependency of the old and new materials, as well as the construction methods before and after the industrial era. This artwork is an almost archeological path of search and selection of element, classied by their matter, their time, and their size to reorganize them in three pieces which display relations of a nity and contraposition in a poetic way.” Elena Azzedín, AADK artistic director
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Into the woods
Architectural Association School_ SummerBuild Hooke Park 2019 Research and Spacial Installation Authors: Renata Berta, M.Jamienson Dorset,UK Award: Architectural Association Grant
As participants in the Summerbuild workshop, we were afforded the valuable opportunity to contribute to the construction of Master's students' project theses. Notably, I collaborated with Matt Jamienson on a project involving the design and construction of a bar for an event held on the Hooke Park campus during our tenure. Our task involved reimagining an existing structure and crafting the bar counter. Given the brief timeframe for which the bar would be utilized and the abundance of available resources, we opted for an innovative approach—stacking wood to form the boundaries and support for the bar. This solution not only proved functional but also incurred no additional expenses, aside from the considerable energy expended in maneuvering substantial logs from one location to another. The wood pieces were strategically overlaid and secured with load tapes or ratchets, effectively creating a stable structure. Once the event concluded, the assembled wooden components were disassembled and stored for future use without any signicant alteration. This resourceful and efcient method allowed us to meet the project requirements while demonstrating a sustainable approach to temporary constructions.
Territory of study Andes Mountain Range
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Snow as Raw material First action Snow material expression Accumulate produces a series of Richard Long Work vernacular architectures when there are certain physical conditions in the territory. Among these, is the phenomenon of dark matter as a protective and insulating layer, which allows the snow or water in solid-state to accumulate and last in triangular piles when it’s in contact with surfaces of a greater density.
Snow Shelter
Aldeas Planetarias Workshop Digital Futures Platform 2021 Research on Dynamic Villages Authors: Renata Berta
The property that snow has of I understood that I can collaborate in the crystalizing in given geometries and of formation of the vernacular snow attaching to darker and denser architectures through a series of devices I materials is amplied in the natural plant in the territory to increase the effects phenomenon of the Avalanches as a of the mentioned actions. Accumulation temporal moment in which a great (as a sedimentation phenomenon amount of snow pours over a territory produced by a stick embedded in the with great force and creates territory), containment (retaining the snow formations. The specic place of study is shed by the avalanches in the mountains the “Catedral” Mountain, in Bariloche. with flexible meshes, a well know instrument used as avalanche barrier in ski centers) and excavation (to discover an spatiality in the interior of the snow accumulations which occurs by one´s own action, without premeditation).
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Snow Shelter
Aldeas Planetarias Workshop Digital Futures Platform 2021 Research on Dynamic Villages Authors: Renata Berta
The nal proposal aim to couple the time of architecture with the time of nature, allowing the shelter to disappear once the snow melts since the architecture is not longer required.
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Blowing in the wind
MLA II_1st year Studio Proposal 2022 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, US Authors: Renata Berta
In my architectural project, the core concept revolves around engaging with the tangible presence and subtle absence of the wind within the landscape. As I traversed the dynamic terrain, particularly the salt marsh and its interplay with the forest, I discerned varying intensities of the wind. This sensory experience, intimately tied to our bodies, becomes a narrative of the site's conditions—its topography, vegetation, time, climate, and tides. Choosing to work within the phragmites area, symbolic of resilience, I observed the challenge of navigating the thickening reeds, where the wind's presence is elusive. To address this, I strategically designed voids and adjusted heights, creating pathways that redirect the wind. Two distinct routes, aligned with prevailing southwest and northwest winds, offer contrasting encounters—whether feeling the wind at my back, gazing at the sunset, or turning to face an intense breeze. Central to my proposal is the idea of the site as a living record of the wind's dance with the reeds. Through diagrams, I envision the landscape's transformation during a southwest storm, amplifying open spaces and influencing the reeds' movement towards the forest. This dynamic recording becomes a reflective instrument, fostering a profound connection to the land.
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Blowing in the wind
MLA II_1st year Studio Proposal 2022 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, US Authors: Renata Berta
Displaced Matter
MLA II_1st year Studio Proposal 2023 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, US Authors: Renata Berta Professor: Gavin Zeitz
"Displaced Matter" is a project centered on manipulating materials within a territory to accelerate ecological processes. The proposal emerges from encounters during the design process, with a focus on slag as a unique material found in the site. The intricate interconnection of materials within the territory is recognized, forming a new entity symbolically, socially, and ecologically. The project delves into four key moments of the site: material arrival, settlement, manipulation, and relocation for ecological activation. The ecological activation actions encompass removing slag to rehabilitate the site, using slag fragments for habitable spaces, inserting devices for intertidal zone growth, incising the pond berm to reconnect waters, and connecting elevations to allow rainwater to erode rell soil. Each action is named, such as "The Cove" and "The Catcher," involving the manipulation of materials to create new ecological conditions. Visitor engagement is emphasized, with spaces designed for both inhabiting and recognizing changes over time. The project envisions a loop of placing, settling, displacing, and replacing materials to generate a more robust and heterogeneous ecology in the territory. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of these stages and proposes that, from collapse, extraction, and land loss, a resilient and diverse ecology can emerge. The narrative concludes by highlighting the perpetual nature of these stages, forming a continuous loop of ecological transformation
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Landing for dissolving the limits body_site_material
2023-24 RISD MLA II_On going thesis
Professors: T.Torres Campos, E. Duarte, S. Kitchen, F. Santos
Within this ongoing project, “Landing for Dissolving the Limits_Body, Site, Material,” I conceptualize the body not merely as an instrument but also as a site and material that resonates and vibrates with the forces and processes of the landscape. Using embodied experiences as a means of connecting with the land, I extrapolate their insights to diverse mediums, including material explorations with clay, glass, and experiential drawings. My work advocates for a paradigm shift in architecture that acknowledges the intrinsic relationship among humans, non-human entities, materials, and the land. I aim to challenge prevalent design approaches that equate sustainability with the exclusion of human presence from landscapes. I contend that such a stance ultimately weakens the crucial link required between humans and nature to achieve true sustainability method_landing _where, when, and how do the boundaries between body, site, and material dissolve? _01_Embodied actions Where my body ends and the site begins? Recording on-site actions to understand the external forces impacting my body and examining the forces that my body is exerting on the site. _02_Noun to verbs actions into Material Explorations With the information decoded from the videos, I will translate them into drawings and non-representational models, enabling a deeper exploration of these interactions. Translating
Embodied
_03_Responsive architecture Spaces capable of evolving and adapting to the changing conditions of a landscape To achieve responsive architecture, it’s crucial to shift our focus from mere outcomes to an immersive, embodied, and action-oriented process. Equally vital is recognizing that our spaces are integral components of a natural system with its own inherent logics. Every action we take on the landscape has the potential to activate, nullify, or block other processes specic to that time and place.
01_Embodied Actions performed at RISD Beach From Top to Bottom: Floating, Landing, Digging, Filling, Walking.
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Landing for dissolving the limits body_site_material
2023-24 RISD MLA II_On going thesis
Professors: T.Torres Campos, E. Duarte, S. Kitchen, F. Santos
02_Noun To verbs: Experiments with glass, clay, textiles.
Reading the Salt Marsh
Actions Sequence
Digging
Harvesting Common Reed and Salt Marsh grasses
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Weaving the Mosquito Channels with salt marsh grasses
03_Getting to a Responsive Architecture
2024 portfolio Arch. Renata Berta