Kimberley Berney is an architect and scenographer based in Switzerland. After completing her BA degree at EPF Lausanne, she obtained her MA degree in Architecture at ETH Zürich, where she conducted The Inhabited Garden: Community-led Care for Aging in the City, a project carried out through an intersectional feminist lens. Research focused on intergenerational rituals of care that were lost through the witch-hunts and which marked the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Issues relating to gardens and in particular to architecture’s relationship with and responsibility towards nature were addressed. The development of cartographic tools led to the emergence of methods of architectural and urban planning that respected organic cycles and took the ‘extra-human’ into account. Berney is particularly interested by environmental politics in architecture, socialist eco-feminism, and spatial justice – issues which remain at the forefront of her work.
Berney has developed a hands-on independent practice focusing on developing aesthetic, environmental, and culturally sustainable approaches to building – inspired by a reflective presence and stance. Fascinated by craftsmanship, her approach is research-based, combining the development of ingenious constructive details with material investigation. She has previously worked as an architect in Stockholm, Lausanne, Basel, and Zurich. Alongside this, Berney has worked for the Chair of Digital Architectonics (ETHZ) and was selected to represent the Parity Group (ETHZ) as co-curator for the Seven Questions Curatorial lecture series (Studio Jan de Vylder). Always curious to explore the intersection of architecture with other fields, she is the co-founder of Scènes Nocturnes, an association that organises workshops for scenographic construction and cultural events (2016), and the research group Mycelium Fungus for the development of sustainable materials at EPFL (2018). More recently, she has collaborated with URBZ, a participatory planning and design collective for the Explore festival in Geneva. Her set design projects have been presented at La Manufacture in Lausanne (2021) and at the Belluard Bollwerk Festival in Fribourg (2022).
