Marina Otero

Dr. Marina Otero Verzier is an architect and researcher. She is a Lecturer in Architecture at Harvarad GSD, where she teaches the MDES Open Project Storing Climates. At GSAPP, Columbia University, New York, Otero is the Dean’s Visiting Assistant Professor, leading the Data Mourning clinic- an education initiative focused on the intersection between digital infrastructures and climate catastrophe- by invitation of Dean Andres Jaque.

In 2022, Otero received Harvard’s Wheelwright Prize for her project on the future of data storage. She collaborated with the Supercomputing Center of the DIPC to develop alternative models for storing data, such as the project Computational Compost, first presented at Tabakalera. Otero was also invited by Chile’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation to participate as an expert in the development of the country’s first National Data Centers Plan, working alongside Resistencia SocioAmbiental – Quilicura and other local communities on the front lines of extractivism.

Otero is the author of En las Profundidades de la Nube (2024), a book on data storage and sovereignty in the AI era. The book proposes new paradigms and aesthetics for data storage, integrating architecture, preservation, and digital culture.

Otero served as the Head of the MA Social Design program at Design Academy Eindhoven from 2020 to 2023. From 2015 to 2022, she was the Director of Research at Het Nieuwe Instituut, where she led initiatives focused on labor, extraction, and mental health from an architectural and post-anthropocentric perspective, including Automated Landscapes, BURN-OUT, and Lithium: States of Exhaustion. Previously, she was the Director of Global Network Programming at Studio-X, Columbia GSAPP.

Otero has curated exhibitions such as Wet Dreams at Mayrit, Madrid Biennial of Design and Architecture, CentroCentro (2024), Compulsive Desires: On Lithium Extraction and Rebellious Mountains at Galería Municipal do Porto (2023), Work, Body, Leisure at the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), and After Belonging at the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2016). She has co-edited Automated Landscapes (2023), Lithium: States of Exhaustion (2021), A Matter of Data (2021), More-than-Human (2020), Architecture of Appropriation (2019), Work,Body, Leisure (2018), and After Belonging (2016), among others.

Since 2023, Otero has been a member of the newly founded Architecture Advisory Committee of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in Madrid. She has also been a member of the Columbia GSAPP Alumni Board since 2023.

Otero studied at TU Delft, ETSA Madrid, and Columbia GSAPP. In 2016, she received her PhD from ETSA Madrid.