Hernán Díaz Alonso with Sir Peter Cook

Since the 1960s, Sir Peter Cook has maintained an interest in the theoretical field of architecture and examining the future through the medium of drawing. In his ongoing series of works entitled Arcadia, produced continuously throughout his career, drawing has freed him from the constraints of sites and economics, reinventing the look and function of cities through a range of unique, innovative designs, inspired by his suburban English upbringing. Another notable project, developed between 1963 and 1966, Plug-in City (also exhibited in ICA’s Living City), showed various iterations of prefabricated modular residences or ‘capsules,’ modes of transportation, and other essential services that ‘plug in’ to one central hyper structure. In the 1970s, these designs softened and started to involve layers and vegetation.

Based in London, Cook is a founding member of experimental British architecture collective Archigram. He has served as an educator since 1964, teaching at the AA, Bartlett, Frankfurt, Harvard, and SCI-Arc. Cook’s notable designs include Kunsthaus in Graz (with C. Fournier) and several university buildings in Vienna, Queensland, Bournemouth, and Frankfurt. He has published ten books, the latest of which are Speculations, Drawings in MOMA, Pompidou, M+, and DAM. Cook is currently involved in NEOM.

Hernán Díaz Alonso assumed the role of SCI-Arc director beginning in the 2015 academic year. He has been a distinguished faculty member since 2001, serving in several leadership roles, including coordinator of the graduate thesis program from 2007–10, and graduate programs chair from 2010–15. He is widely credited with spearheading SCI-Arc’s transition to digital technologies, and he played a key role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum over the last decade.

In parallel to his role at SCI-Arc, Díaz Alonso is principal of the Los Angeles–based architecture office HDA-x (formerly Xefirotarch). His multidisciplinary practice is praised for its work at the intersection of design, animation, interactive environments, and radical architectural explorations.