SCI-Arc 2024 Commencement Honors Defiance, Optimism, and Villainy

On September 8, SCI-Arc celebrated the outgoing Class of 2024 with its 52nd commencement ceremony. Capping off the renowned 2024 Graduate Thesis Weekend which featured three days of engaging reviews by faculty and guest critics, SCI-Arc’s commencement honored the innovative thinking, immense work, and stalwart dedication of this year’s graduation undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students.

As students, faculty, and loved ones gathered in the heat of September, shadowed once more by the P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S-designed Graduation Pavilion, SCI-Arc Director Hernán Díaz Alonso began in his opening remarks, “Today is the culmination of a journey. It marks the end of one period in your life and the beginning of a new one. So, let's take this day to enjoy that.”

Following a brief and rousing introduction, Díaz Alonso then brought to the stage commencement speaker Neil Denari, SCI-Arc’s third Director, who encouraged the Class of 2024 to defy definition, as the school has taught them to do.

"[SCI-Arc is] a school that tells a history of dissent, experimentation, resistance, but most of all, optimism. And everyone who graduates from the school carries that history,” shared Denari. “It's an institute that's exerted an enormous amount of influence in our field and in the world. It's a school founded, energized, and guided by an ambitious and world-renowned faculty, a group of people who've always said, ‘You know what? Thanks, but we're going to do it another way.’”

Denari explained to the crowd at large that “we're here altogether, not as mere survivors of challenges, [but] as designers of futures.”

“And to the graduates,” he continued, “take the knowledge, the experiences, and the friendships you've gained. Embrace discomfort, take risks, and always be obsessive in your search for excellence.”

SCi-Arc’s student speaker Ian Fennimore took an incongruous turn in his speech, invoking worthy characteristics of villains, as a new way to frame his burgeoning fellow architecture graduates.

“There is even something inherently villainous about the beginning of SCI-Arc, which carries through all the way to today,” he said. “It's that rebellious, ten-toes-down bravery that we will do what we do because we believe in it, that just doesn't exist everywhere else; that idea of deep satisfaction driving unapologetically radical action that still holds true 52 years to date.”

Fennimore continued, sharing that what makes SCI-Arc truly special “isn't just the work, [but] the genuine desire we have to truly see one another succeed. That kind of support is rare, and I think it's what makes this place more than a school. It's actually a family.”

A common through line emerging between this year commencement addresses became that the uniqueness of SCI-Arc is not only in its refusal to accept traditional frameworks, but its full-hearted embrace of experimentation and community. Fennimore concluded, “As we step into this next phase of our careers, I challenge all of us to channel our inner villain and seek radical change: Don’t look up to anyone. Don't accept anything for what it is. This is our time to become the next generation of creatives… Class of 2024, we are inevitable.”

Vice Director John Enright then presented 2024 graduation awards (full list below), before Díaz Alonso wrapped up the event with his closing remarks, saying, “SCI-Arc is a very unique place, and you're part of that. It's okay to say that you're part of a different breed of architects. It's a different way to think about architecture. And we really mean it, and we really try to live it day by day.”

“So please, Class of 2024, stand up, rise, take a bow… Now follow the lights and the music. The party's about to start.”

GRADUATION AWARDS 2024

SCI-Arc Service Award
Faculty input as it relates to service (coordinate with program chairs)
- Miho Asada (B.Arch)
- Jillian Louise Leedy (M.Arch 1)
- Raunak Chaudhary (M.Arch 2)

Bronze Alpha Rho Chi Medal
Faculty input as it relates to leadership, service and professional merit (coordinate with program chairs)
- Jessica Vasilisa Skitalinsky (B.Arch)

AIA Medal for Academic Excellence
No faculty input, TOP GPA (confirm with program chairs)
- Maria Kuraeva (B.Arch)
- Caroline Georgea Hayes (M.Arch 1)

SCI-Arc Thesis Peer Recognition Awards
Collectively conferred by the members of the B.Arch, M.Arch 1 + 2 Classes of 2024 to one of their peers for an outstanding thesis project.
- Nicolás Barreda (B.Arch)
- Kelly Nicole Dix Van (M.Arch 2)

Graduation with Distinction
No faculty input, Top 10% GPA for each program (confirm with program chairs)
- Nicolás Barreda (B.Arch)
- HaoNan Duan (B.Arch)
- Selina Gottloeber (B.Arch)
- Ha Young Jacy Jun (B.Arch)
- Maria Kuraeva (B.Arch)
- Lila Sarraf (B.Arch)
- Caroline Georgea Hayes (M.Arch 1)
- Jillian Louise Leedy (M.Arch 1)
- Austin Neumann (M.Arch 1)
- Joharatulmajd Raaiq (M.Arch 1)
- Ronnie Chaudhary (M.Arch 2)
- Kelly Nicole Dix Van (M.Arch 2)
- Benjamin Casey Brown Elmer (M.Arch 2)
- Evangelos Koutsioumpas (MS Architectural Technologies)
- Sivaraman Krishnan (MS Architectural Technologies)
- Tianxiao Peng (MS Architectural Technologies)
- Yi An Yang (MS Architectural Technologies)
- Tshegofatso Laone Joy Dintsi (MS Design Theory and Pedagogy)
- Nur Esin Karaosman (MS Design Theory and Pedagogy)
- Wei Cheng Ding (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Wenhao Huang (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Alejandro Loor (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Fang Shu (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Ana Reyes Cid (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Qiqi Kristin Wang (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Wendi Yan (MS Fiction and Entertainment)
- Hongjian Qin (MS Synthetic Landscapes)

Merit Undergraduate Thesis Awards
In recognition of an outstanding undergraduate thesis project
- Nicolás Barreda (B.Arch)
- Peihao Jin and Zamen Lin (B.Arch)
- Selina Gottloeber and Ida Malin Adervall (B.Arch)
- Matthew Scholtz (B.Arch)
- Barbara Weiwen Soo (B.Arch)

Merit Graduate Thesis Awards
In recognition of an outstanding graduate thesis project.
- Tara Afsari and Chuen Wu (M.Arch 1)
- Jessica DoSouto (M.Arch 1)
- Christian Leonte Filip and Jillian Louise Leedy (M.Arch 1)
- Caroline Georgea Hayes (M.Arch 1)
- Aram Radfar (M.Arch 1)
- Naseem Ariana Soltani (M.Arch 1)
- Mohamad Ahmed Omar AlSharif (M.Arch 2)
- Ke Chen and Yibo Yuan (M.Arch 2)
- Chengxin Cui (M.Arch 2)
- Kelly Nicole Dix Van (M.Arch 2)
- Ian Fennimore (M.Arch 2)
- Richard Wayne Marshall III (M.Arch 2)

Hsinming Fung + Craig Hodgetts Postgraduate Thesis Prize
For the best postgraduate project of the year.
- Evangelos Koutsioumpas (MS Architectural Technologies)
- Nur Esin Karaosman (MS Design Theory and Pedagogy)
- Fang Shu (MS Fiction and Entertainment)

Blythe and Thom Mayne Undergraduate Thesis Prize
For the best undergraduate thesis of the year, reflecting SCI-Arc’s core mission to test the limits of architecture.
- Zili He and Wenan Hu (B.Arch)

SCI-Arc Gehry Prize
For the best graduate thesis of the year, reflecting SCI-Arc’s core mission to test the limits of architecture.
- Michael Lane Boldt (M.Arch 1)
- Benjamin Casey Brown Elmer (M.Arch 2)