mercedes peralta (Buenos Aires, AR)
between Graz/Vienna, AT    
merrperalta@gmail.com / @outofstock_ba

Mercedes (arg, ita) is an architect, founder of side_projects, and current Senior Lecturer at •TU Vienna.

With a background that weaves together architecture, art direction, spatial design, and research, Mercedes Peralta’s practice explores how material, form, and atmosphere generate meaning across everyday rituals and broader cultural narratives. Her work links media and scales—graphic, spatial, editorial, and conceptual—combining design sensitivity with strategic thinking. She approaches design as a relational, tentacular practice—attuned to the multispecies, material, and historical entanglements that shape environments and ways of knowing. Her interests are attentive to situated knowledges, landscape, and storytelling methodologies. In 2022, she initiated a PhD project titled Architecture as a Body of Material Landscapes, under the supervision of artist Milica Tomić. The investigation focuses on the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes, a 19th-century water reservoir in Buenos Aires. The project dives into the colonial dynamics and geographical contexts embedded in its making—understanding the building as a manifest “anatomy” of a larger imperial apparatus...A body that mediates between materials, infrastructures, and landscapes, revealing aesthetic, political, and ecological narratives at play.

In parallel, she holds a small media collaboration with the landscape architecture studio •studio boden, for whom she developed a new media identity, including its online presence (website design, content strategy, etc.). Between 2022-2024 she has been university assistant/assistant professor & researcher at the •Institut für Architektur und Landschaft at TU Graz working in projects related to teaching, research, and further pedagogical endeavors related to education in architecture. Previously, she was a Research Associate at the •Harvard Graduate School of Design’s •Office for Urbanization (2018-2021).

Mercedes holds an MArch II degree and a Certificate in Media and Modernity from Princeton School of Architecture (2017) in addition to her professional diploma in architecture from Universidad de Buenos Aires (2012). Before Harvard, she worked in New York (2017-2018). Teaching experience includes Masters Studio & Seminars at TU Graz, Design Studio at Princeton SoA, MLA Thesis at Harvard GSD, and Studio at Universidad de Buenos Aires (FADU). She has also been a guest crit at Boston Architectural College and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Mercedes was part of the Princeton-Columbia research and design team for Beatriz Colomina’s and Mark Wigley’s Istambul Biennial •“Are We Human?” (2016), which got published as •“Are We Human? The Design of the Species. 2 Seconds, 2 Days, 2 Years, 200 Years, 200,000 Years”. Together with Mauricio Loyola, she presented •“Performative Materiality,” in the 2017 ECAADE conference at Sapienza Università di Roma.

In Buenos Aires, Mercedes practiced as an architectural designer through various initiatives involving a craft and material oriented focus, from the building of temporary installations to the design of small domestic spaces, and medium scale public works, among which •Estudio cV’s Alcorta Monument stands out. She also studied art and painting (2006-2014) with artists Nahuel Vecino and Héctor Meana. Her written work appears in •Summa+ Magazine, where she has been a permanent collaborator between 2013 and 2015. Projects include design-research and editorial work on the re-use of obsolete infrastructure in Buenos Aires, mobility-oriented design in Miami, branding and cultural heritage, identity systems, and the design/curatorship of Harvard’s •Future of the American City initiative. Other academic leadership work involved the planning and convening of Harvard GSD’s Office for Urbanization conference •“Landscape as Urbanism in the Americas” to be held in March 2020 (postponed due to Covid-19). She is co-author of a recent Harvard GSD book and research publication, •“50 Species-Towns” which presents ideas for new planning schemes of towns in China. The book dives into agrarian imaginaries as a locus for new design schemes and narratives, after critical reading of agricultural modernization processes. Other recent editorial and curatorial work features a co-edited volume, •“NESS.docs 02: Landscape as Urbanism in the Americas” with •NESS, Florencia Rodriguez, and Jeannette Sordi. This volume has been translated into Spanish by PLOT magazine in 2021, as •“Paisaje como Urbanismo en las Américas.” Towards a new building regime linking materials and environment as research topics between architecture and landscape, Mercedes has also completed the Healthier Materials & Sustainable Buildings Certificate from •Parsons Healthy Materials Lab.