Markus Berger is an artist, designer, writer and researcher, but foremost a teacher. He is a registered architect (SBA) in the Netherlands and the founder and director of The Repair Atelier, a collaborative space to rethink and reuse discarded and broken objects and in the process, also “repair” the communities that form around them.
Berger holds a Diplomingenieur für Architektur from the Technische Universität Wien in Austria and has, since he graduated, worked, taught and lived in many parts of the world, which shaped his sensibility for ethics, aesthetics and values. His work, research, writing and teaching critiques conventional architectural thinking and practices and explores how art and design interventions can activate change in the built environment. Berger co-founded and co-edited Int|AR: The Journal on Interventions and Adaptive Reuse, which addresses such issues as preservation, conservation, alteration and interventions. His latest co-edited books are Intervention and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice (Birkhauser, 2021) and Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Routledge, 2023).
Berger’s other published essays include Consumption: Use, Waste, Aesthetics and Repair in the US, which appeared in Upgrade: Making Things Better, edited by Silke Langenberg, ETH Zurich (Hanje Catz Verlag, 2023); and Death of the Architect: Appropriation and Interior Architecture (Routledge, 2018). Forthcoming essays include Repair: Sustainable Design Futures; Repairing Design: Damage, Care and Fragility; Imagination as an Act: Extended Realities in Interior Urbanism; An Interior Approach to Education and Adaptive Reuse; and Theorizing Interior Design: Identity, Practice, Education.
Berger serves on the editorial boards of the journals INTERIORITY (Indonesia) and SISU-LINE (Estonia).
Academic areas of interest
Forms of modification, transformation, intervention, reuse and repair are central to Berger’s research and work as an artist, architect, designer, editor and writer. Taking over something already existing (an ordinary object or another work of architecture or art) to make a new work initiates a whole set of radical potentialities. Repair and reuse unsettles ideas of single authorship, originality and authenticity established by traditional art history, and putting the “old” and the “new” together in inventive configurations sets into motion the many possibilities of recontextualization. Berger’s current work through the Repair Atelier engages discarded spaces, buildings, objects and materials by deconstructing and reinterpreting them to find new meaning, form and expression, rather than seeing them as unwanted or broken. The initial forms, uses and stories of these objects, as well as what was lost from them when they were discarded, are a central part of this critical inquiry. The process of reconstruction or remaking responds to these stories and inquiries and imbues each of them with an identity that is both its own as well as one shaped by the new and vital relationship.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
INTAR 2397-03 - DESIGN THESIS PREP
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 2397-03
DESIGN THESIS PREP
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: W | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Markus Berger, Nick Haus HeywoodLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 305Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This seminar is the second of the three-part Design Thesis sequence in the department of Interior Architecture. This course is designed to assist students in identifying a thesis topic and respective design project through discussions that include studies of precedents, site related issues, program, and regulations, all of which are specific to adaptive reuse. Through group discussion and individual interviews, outline proposals will be approved in principle, requiring each student to prepare a feasibility report for their proposed Design Thesis. This completed feasibility report will be submitted for evaluation at the end of the Fall semester. Approved proposals will proceed to the next course in the sequence, where the proposal will be further refined, culminating in the design phase that will take place during the following Spring semester.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies
INTAR 23ST-01 - ADVANCED DESIGN STUDIOS
LevelUndergraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Fall 2024
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 23ST-01
ADVANCED DESIGN STUDIOS
LevelUndergraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodFall 2024
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: TTH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Markus BergerLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 304; Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 301Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Choice of advanced design studios offered by the Department of Interior Architecture. Details & studio descriptions are made available to pre-registered students.
Estimated Cost of Materials: Varies depending on required studio course supplies or related travel. Anticipated costs will be provided in advance, and announced during the lottery studio presentations held in the department.
Major Requirement | BFA, MDes, MA Interior Studies
Spring 2025 Courses
INTAR 2361-01 - PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Spring 2025
Credits 3
FormatLecture
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 2361-01
PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodSpring 2025
Credits3
FormatLecture
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2025-02-13 to 2025-05-23
Times: T | 9:40 AM - 12:40 PMInstructor(s): Markus BergerLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 611Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Spring 2025 seminar, Principles of (Adaptive) Reuse, explores the reuse and repair of structures and objects through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on translation and transformation in reuse and repair. The course investigates methods of re-harvesting (finding and using discarded and waste materials), repair, and transformation in design and design interventions guided by the student’s interest in a topic.
Students will engage with these topics by analyzing and synthesizing materiality, use, reuse, and repair and the environmental impact of existing and new structures. Additionally, the course examines the feasibility of reuse concerning construction practices and sustainability.
The semester is structured around case studies of completed projects in adaptive reuse and repair, providing a practical demonstration of key architecture and design principles within the context of existing and new structures. Through this course, students will develop a deep understanding of the design processes required for implementing reuse and repair principles, equipping them with the skills and knowledge necessary for sustainable futures. Throughout the semester, assigned papers and projects will help students investigate and apply these methods, further enhancing their preparedness and confidence in the fields of their interests.
Preference is given to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.
Undergraduates in Furniture Design, Industrial Design and Architecture are eligible to enroll by permission of instructor.
Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse
INTAR 3351-01 - THE SCRAP LAB
LevelUndergraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Spring 2025
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 3351-01
THE SCRAP LAB
LevelUndergraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodSpring 2025
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2025-02-13 to 2025-05-23
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Markus BergerLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 610Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Closed
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Are you eager to transform waste into innovation? Join The Scrap Lab, a dynamic interdisciplinary studio that addresses resource depletion and waste generation by reactivating leftovers, offcuts, and solid waste into new, meaningful objects and materials. In this studio, you'll engage with obsolete and discarded items, reinterpreting them to discover new meanings and expressions. The term ‘discarded’ will involve an interrogation of preconceived notions to see and value the potentials embedded in the discard and allow them to unfold into alternative futures.
Phase One, Exploration and Reimagining, involves field visits to thrift stores, landfills, and factories to reanalyze "waste" as a realm of possibilities, delving into the Ten R's of Circularity—Refuse, Reduce, Rethink, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, Recycle, and Recover—through lectures and investigations. Phase Two, Design Research and Experimentation, focuses on harvesting objects by beginning to translate selected discarded items and engaging in design research, making, and testing to build a spectrum of possibilities without the pressure of final products. Phase Three, Prototyping and Presentation, entails project development by prototyping and testing a fully developed project aimed at potential solutions, culminating in a showcase where you participate in a final exhibition and create zines to highlight the embedded potential of your transformed materials.
