Markus Berger

Markus Berger is a Professor in the Department of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he serves as a registered architect (SBA, Netherlands) and founder/director of The Repair Atelier. His work critically examines repair, circular economy, and waste streams as frameworks for sustainable transformation of everyday environments through creative reuse of discarded materials and spaces.

Berger holds a Diplomingenieur für Architektur from the Technische Universität Wien, Austria, with international teaching and professional experience shaping his ethical and cultural perspectives on design. His research interrogates traditional architectural practices by challenging concepts of authorship, originality, and authenticity through artistic interventions in discarded objects and spaces.

Central to his scholarship are sustainable design futures emphasizing recontextualization of waste materials, deconstruction of cultural narratives in discarded environments, and responsible remaking processes. Berger co-coordinates RISD's Nature–Culture–Sustainability Studies (NCSS) concentration and teaches the year-long Sustainability Lab The Remainder, investigating innovative applications of waste fibers.

Berger co-founded and co-edited Int|AR: The Journal on Interventions and Adaptive Reuse (2009–2029) and co-edited influential volumes including Intervention and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice (Birkhäuser, 2021) and Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Routledge, 2024). His 2024 Somerson Sustainability Innovation Fund grant with Ayako Maruyama supports reharvest repair—a project networking Rhode Island industrial waste streams and collaborating with students to reimagine materials through community partnerships.

The Repair Atelier functions as his primary collaborative hub for experimental deconstruction and reinterpretation of discarded resources, while his editorial role with INTERIORITY extends his influence in global sustainability discourse.