Roberto Rovira

Shallow Depth

The work of this exhibition was the first collaboration among Jason Chandler, Jacek J. Kolasinski and Roberto Rovira, an architect, an artist and a landscape architect, respectively. The exhibition collapses the disciplinary boundaries of these three educators to reveal the … +

SiteDisPlacement

Site DisPlacement explored some of the material limits and potentials of cardboard to shape space and create infrastructure for people and vegetation. The material origin and waste stream of cardboard was additionally be researched +

Icemappings

The themes of transformation and time in the landscape were explored using these 33 blocks of ice, each one weighing over 400 pounds and frozen with the petals of over 400 roses. Done in collaboration with performers from music, theater and dance, the blocks’ gradual melting lasted a period of 23 hours, during +

Drydock Loom

Constructed out of 13,000 feet of intensely colored blue, acrylic line, individual lengths of string were attached to the existing pipes of an abandoned drydock. Spaced 2ft on center, approximately 16ft off the ground, the variation in the tension of each line created an evanescent blue gradient in the drydock’s colossal +

Phragmites Line

100 upright stalks of 6 ft tall wetlands grasses (Phragmites) were set approximately 5 ft apart to create a single file line that crossed several city courtyards and building interiors and exteriors, ending in a gallery exhibit. +

Migrating Forest

100 Christmas trees discarded in January were collected and ‘transplanted’ into a tight urban alley, creating an evergreen forest with a narrow path in between.  The forest was subsequently moved to two distinct locations several blocks away over a two week period. +

Lemon Drainfield

The drainage patterns of a popular public lawn at Rhode Island School of Design were ‘drawn’ with over two thousand lemons–their pattern representing the flow of water throughout the site. Founded in 1996 in Providence, RI, Guerrilla Gardens focused on developing the medium of the “semi-anonymous” +

Inverted Forest

Hundreds of ‘invasive’ shrubs were suspended with twine from the underside of two buildings’ fire escapes.  The inverted foliage created a rustling yellow band of leaves above passersby.  The floor was covered with 6 inches of dry leaves. Founded in 1996 in Providence, RI, Guerrilla Gardens focused on developing the medium of the “semi-anonymous” +

Ice Webs

Three 12ft by 12ft panels made of bronze screen mesh and framed with copper tubing were hung from trees at a prominent urban intersection in the middle of Winter.  The panels were misted with water and subsequently froze into translucent ‘webs’ that thawed during the  day and were frozen again at night for a +

Butterfly Field

These translucent kevlar wings were commissioned as a measure to scare birds from the vineyards at Stags’ Leap Winery in the Napa Valley. +

Vinespheres

Hollow 6 to 7 ft diameter spheres made of vineyard cuttings and twine were rolled on to the waterfront at the conclusion of the vineyards’ pruning season in the Napa Valley. +

Installations

Installations provide a medium with which to sketch in three dimensions and experiment with material, time, and space, unencumbered by the needs of permanent architecture. The medium provides an opportunity to imagine the possible while provoking an awareness of the unexpected.
Anonymous installations deployed and suddenly removed throughout the city (“Guerrilla Gardens”) are vehicles with which to transform a site and provoke a critical evaluation of its possibilities. They impart the memory of a spectacle, insert a shift into the grain of a site, and attempt to communicate an otherwise unseen, extraordinary richness.