Expanding the Archive: A 2021 Graduate Thesis Film

Expanding the Archive presents the work of SCI-Arc’s 2021 Graduate Thesis students. Emerging out of a time of crisis and transformation, the architectural projects featured in this film expand not only what is included within architecture, but also how to do the work of architecture in the present, how to speculate, how to engage in current issues, and how to communicate architecture’s purpose to the wider world. Expanding the Archive captures the planetary scope of architectural thinking at SCI-Arc, showcasing projects which have been conceived, developed, and shared across time zones, cities, and social contexts, linked by the collective act of imagining alternative futures while also engaging architecture’s past. The film features a broad spectrum of SCI-Arc projects, revealing the sheer diversity of ideas among the student body about what architecture is, who it can be for, and how it engages with design and the built environment as it is, and as it might be in the future. Together, these projects testify to the power of imagination to generate optimism out of crisis and reset the standards of what architecture can be.