Alumnus Brendan MacFarlane to give 2016 commencement address

SCI-Arc is pleased to announce that alumnus Brendan MacFarlane (B.Arch ’84) will give the commencement address to the 2016 graduating class. MacFarlane joins the ranks of a prestigious roster of past speakers including Mayor Eric Garcetti and Sir Peter Cook. Students, their families, faculty and guests are invited to participate in the all-school ceremony on Sunday, September 11, where degrees are conferred to graduating students in the B.Arch, M.Arch and post-professional programs.

“Brendan represents the best of SCI-Arc,” said Hernan Diaz Alonso. “Not only for the extraordinary quality of the work of his firm Jacob + MacFarlane, but also because of his larger than life love and generosity for architecture. It is always a pleasure to welcome him back ‘home.’”

In 1992, MacFarlane co-founded the office of Jakob + MacFarlane, a multi-disciplinary architecture and design agency based in Paris, France. Educated in New Zealand and in the United States (SCI-Arc, Harvard Graduate School of Design), MacFarlane, in collaboration with Dominique Jakob, has completed a series of high-profile architecture projects in France, notably the Docks – City of Fashion and Design in Paris and the Cube Orange and Euronews Television Headquarters in Lyon. Future projects include a Dance and Music Conservatory in Noisy-le-Sec, the reconstruction of a cinema complex for Gaumont-Pathé in Paris and the construction of a mixed-use tower and public square in Knokke-Heist, Belgium.

MacFarlane has taught in architecture schools around the world, notably at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, SCI-Arc, the University of Florida, the Bartlett School of Architecture and is a visiting juror at the Architectural Association in London.

The work of Jakob + MacFarlane has been recognized by architecture institutions around the world, most recently with the International Architecture Award by the Chicago Athenaeum in 2014 and a nomination for the Mies van der Rohe European Architecture Award in 2015. Their work has also been featured in high-profile international publications, including Architectural Record, A+U, Architecture Now and the Architectural Review.