SCI-Arc Announces Spring 2024 Public Programs
SCI-Arc is proud to continue its commitment to maintaining a robust platform for interdisciplinary discourse with its spring 2024 series of public programs. SCI-Arc’s spring 2024 program will include lectures, book releases, and exhibitions featuring influential figures from a wide range of cultural practices including upcoming lecturers Benedetta Tagliabue, Hitoshi Abe, Mahfuz Sultan, Gabriela Carillo, and more.
On March 29, SCI-Arc faculty Mira Henry and Matthew Au will celebrate the release of their book Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests. Organized around a collection of buildings and material systems developed by Henry and Au’s firm Current Interests over the past five years, the book brings together images, drawings, and descriptive reflections to invoke a richly layered set of conversations that ground the duo’s collaborative process.
The 2024 Spring Show Exhibition will be on view throughout the SCI-Arc building after an opening reception on April 27. SCI-Arc design faculty Gordon Kipping (M.Arch ’95) will also present a new exhibition Maison de Cartes, opening with a reception on April 12, viewable in the SCI-Arc Gallery through June 2.
Visit SCI-Arc's Events page for more information about upcoming lectures. All events are listed in Pacific Standard Time and are broadcast live online on SCI-Arc’s Livestream and Facebook page.
January 8 Hernán Díaz Alonso + Sir Peter Cook Conversation
February 2 B(l)ackspace: Episode 4 Discussion Event
February 7 Markus Miessen Lecture
February 21 Gabriela Carillo Lecture
March 6 Benedetta Tagliabue Lecture
March 13 Hitoshi Abe Lecture
March 22 Full Spectrum Symposium
March 27 Ali Rahim Lecture
March 29 Current Interests Book Launch
April 3 Mahfuz Sultan Lecture
April 12 Gordon Kipping Exhibition
April 27 Spring Show 2024 Exhibition
LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, CONVERSATIONS
January 8, 6pm PT
Conversation
W.M. Keck Hall
Hernán Díaz Alonso in conversation 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. 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.
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February 2, 6pm PT
Discussion Event
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
B(l)ackspace: Episode 4
Picking up where January's Career Week and Open Studio leave off, B(l)ackspace: Episode 4 delves into the intersection of identity, representation, and authenticity within creative entrepreneurship. Special guests include Amazon Music executive, Byron Merritt (M.Arch '99); Tobi Ashiru, co-founder of Poche Design Studio; and Silas Munro, co-founder of Polymode. This episode is hosted by La'keem Timothy (M.Arch '24). After the conversation, audience members can enjoy a mini flea market of students' personal works.
B(l)ackspace aims to provide a safe and reimagined space for the SCI-Arc community, with free drinks, delicious food, good music, and even better conversations.
BLACK: /blak/ adjective
1. A color that absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them
2. Of African or Aboriginal ancestry
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February 7, 6pm PT
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Markus Miessen: Agonistic Assemblies –– On the Spatial Politics of Horizontality
Markus Miessen is an architect and writer, director of Studio Miessen, and in 2021 was appointed Professor of Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg, where he holds the Chair of the City of Esch. Miessen has previously taught at the Architectural Association, London, the Berlage Institute Rotterdam, has been a Harvard GSD Fellow, and has held professorships at Städelschule, Frankfurt, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He received his PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London, supervised by Eyal Weizman. The initiator of the Participation tetralogy, his work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics. As a spatial consultant, he currently works with The Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism. He previously worked with the European Commission, non-governmental organisations, the Republic of Slovenia during their presidency of the EU council, as well as numerous cultural and art institutions worldwide.
Amongst many other books and writings, Miessen is the author of The Nightmare of Participation and Crossbenching: Towards Participation as Critical Spatial Practice. He has edited volumes such as Para-Platforms: on the spatial politics of right-wing populism, and The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict. Together with Nikolaus Hirsch, he is the editor of the book series Critical Spatial Practice. Miessen’s new book Agonistic Assemblies (On the Spatial Politics of Horizontality) will be published by Sternberg Press in December 2023.
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February 21, 6pm PST
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Gabriela Carrillo
Principal, Taller Gabriela Carrillo, Mexico
Gabriela Carrillo started her eponymous Studio in 2019, as a collaborative and interdisciplinary space for architectural work. She is a co-founder of Colectivo C733, dedicated to developing public projects in Mexico. Previously, she was a partner at Taller Rocha Carrillo for over nine years. With over twenty years of experience, she has received numerous accolades, including the Emerging Voices Award in 2014, the Federico Mariscal Chair, the highest recognition for professional practice by the Faculty of Architecture at UNAM, and the Médaille d'OR from the French Academy of Architecture. She was named "Architect of the Year" by Architectural Review in London in 2017 and by Architectural Digest Mexico in 2020 and 2023 and was granted The Royal Academy Dorfman Award 2023. Gabriela has also been a member of the National System of Art Creators and since 2021, an academic member of the Academy of Architecture of Mexico, Mexico City chapter.
Carrillo has been an academic at the Faculty of Architecture, UNAM, since 2003, and she currently leads the research and graduation seminar Estudio RX. She has taught at prestigious institutions such as Harvard GSD, Kent State University, and the WAVE program in Venice, Italy, among others. Her work has been exhibited and honored in various national and international biennials, and featured in renowned publications like Domus, Casabella, Arquitectura Viva, and Architectural Review, among others.
Taller Gabriela Carrillo is a space dedicated to collaborative and interdisciplinary practices, comprising a team of architects who strongly believe in the potential of architectural work and embrace the richness of diversity, who create architectural proposals, across various scales, that revolve around observation, recognition, and utmost respect for the territory. Theory, practice, research, and the processes themselves serve as the tools for constructing ideas centered on spatial interventions.
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March 6, 6pm PT
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Benedetta Tagliabue: SEWING THE URBAN FABRIC
Principal and Director at EMBT Architects, President of Fundació Enric Miralles
In this lecture, Tagliabue will introduce the studio's approach by discussing a selection of representative projects, projects currently in development and recently completed. Throughout the conversation, she will explore key research themes such as environmental sustainability, interpretivism, and conjuncturalism. Spatial, material, and atmospheric examples of landscapes, buildings, and objects at multiple scales and temporalities will be used to illustrate these themes.
Benedetta Tagliabue is the principal of the studio she co-founded with Enric Miralles in 1994 and co-authored several projects in Europe and Asia that were recognized with prestigious awards. She is also the President of Fundació Enric Miralles, a centre that promotes emerging experimental architecture.
Tagliabue is an internationally renowned architect with works and direct commissions worldwide, as principal and director of EMBT Architects, founded with Enric Miralles (1955-2000) in 1994, with offices in Barcelona (HQ), Shanghai, and Paris, and President of Fundació Enric Miralles.
The architecture of EMBT Architects draws on a rich array of design instrumentalities and results from intensively imaginative, innovative, and creative design processes characterized by a sensitive and contextual exploration of cultures, practices, technologies, and materialities.
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March 13, 6pm PT
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Hitoshi Abe: Remix
Principal, Atelier Hitoshi Abe
Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA
Director, Paul I. and Hisako Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, UCLA
Hitoshi Abe is a professor and former Chair in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA and the Director of the UCLA Paul I. and Hisako Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.
Since 1992, when he established Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Dr. Abe has maintained an active international design practice based in Sendai, Japan. As a successful designer and educator who continuously lectures and publishes throughout his career, Hitoshi Abe has earned a position among the leaders in the field of Architecture and Urban Design for his ability to initiate productive interdisciplinary collaborations and establish professional partnerships with various constituencies. With growing geography in its portfolio, Atelier Hitoshi Abe opened its second office in Los Angeles in 2008. In 2011, together with a group of Japanese Architects, Hitoshi Abe initiated the Arch-Aid network—a voluntary network of architects established to help reconstruct the damaged community by the 2011 East Japan Great Earthquake and Tsunami. In 2017, he opened the xLAB at UCLA, which serves as an international think tank that examines architecture's elastic boundaries through interdisciplinary collaboration.
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March 27, 6pm PT
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Ali Rahim
Ali Rahim is an architect and founding Director of CAP NY Shanghai. Rahim has twenty-five years of design and management experience in Boston and New York City. Rahim holds a master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University, where he won the Honor Award for Excellence in Design and the Kinney Travelling Fellowship. Active in education, Rahim is a Professor of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and has previously served as the Zaha Hadid Studio Visiting Design Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Architecture Design Professor at Yale University, and a Visiting Architecture Design Professor at Harvard University.
Rahim has authored and co-edited books on contemporary design including Catalytic Formations (2011) in Chinese with additional projects and texts, Turbulence (2011), Elegance (2007) with Hina Jamelle, Catalytic Formations: Architecture and Digital Design (2006) in its second edition, Contemporary Techniques in Architecture (2002), and Contemporary Processes in Architecture (2000).
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April 3, 6pm PT
Lecture
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Mahfuz Sultan: Notes on ‘Point Break’ (1991)
Director, Clocks, New York City
Kathryn Bigelow's film Point Break (1991) is a red thread that has run through many (if not all) of the projects that we have worked on over the last several years. It's as good a red herring as any to orient our work from 2020-2024.
Mahfuz Sultan is an architect, director, and writer based in New York City and Los Angeles.
He is co-founder of the multidisciplinary practice Clocks alongside his partner Chloe Sultan—a practice that spans film, art direction, live performance, spatial design, graphic design, exhibition-making, and publication.
Clocks has worked with collaborators including 52 Walker/David Zwirner, Dreamcrew, Louis Vuitton, Nike, Off-White™️, Saint Heron, Virgil Abloh, and Vogue, among others. Mahfuz and Chloe are also co-founders alongside Virgil Abloh of a collaborative studio called Architecture.
Mahfuz’s writings have appeared in numerous publications including Art Papers, Harvard Design Magazine, Kaleidoscope, PIN-UP, and 032c, where he is currently a Contributing Editor.
Prior to founding Clocks, Mahfuz completed the Master of Architecture program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2020 and worked at Herzog & de Meuron.
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BOOK RELEASES + GENERAL EVENTS
March 22, 5pm PT
Book Release + Symposium
W.M Keck Lecture Hall
Elena Manferdini + Jasmine Benyamin
Full Spectrum: Colour in Contemporary Architecture
Full Spectrum: Colour in Contemporary Architecture edited by Elena Manferdini and Jasmine Benyamin
Published by RIBA
Color is architecture’s sharpest tool in the box. It has indexed everything from the feminine, cosmetic, and vulgar to the pure, intrinsic, and embodied. Attitudes to color are constantly shifting. They have played a central role in the history of architecture: from the polychromy of the ancients to the great white interiors of high modernism; the figurative flourishes of postmodernism to the embodied sublime of contemporary building systems and facades.
In contemporary architecture, color has emerged as a powerful mode of working and an impactful political proposition. The second digital age has ushered paradigmatic shifts in how architects engage it. Employing the full spectrum of color requires a projective mode of action—one that anticipates nascent futures. It aids in the democratization of visual culture, opening the field to enable a multiplicity of identities by introducing new references and embracing new voices. This volume explores the operative role of color in current practice by proffering visions not of idealized other worlds, but rather radical reimaginings of our present one.
Elena Manferdini is the principal and owner of Atelier Manferdini in Los Angeles and Graduate Programs Chair at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). With a body of work that spans public art, architecture, and industrial design, her eponymous Atelier has created work that uplifts the human spirit. Her design is known for its vibrant colors, meaningful narratives and its high attention to novel materials and craft. Manferdini has more than 20 years of professional experience and she is a leading voice in contemporary design culture and education. In 2019, Manferdini was honored with the ICON Award as part of the LA Design Festival, which is a prize that recognizes iconic women who have made an indelible mark on Los Angeles, culture, and society in general through their work, character, and creative leadership.
Jasmine Benyamin is a historian, theorist, and critic with more than 25 years of combined professional and academic experience in the US and UK. She was previously Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning and currently serves as guest lecturer at University of Southern California (USC). A recipient of numerous awards, her recent interdisciplinary research addresses architectural manifestations in art practice and popular culture, with a particular focus on film and photography. She holds bachelor’s degrees in architecture and French literature from Columbia University, a Master of Architecture degree from Yale University and a PhD from Princeton University. In addition to editing and translating several books on architecture, her essays and reviews have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies. Her most recent book, entitled MASTERcrit, is forthcoming with ORO Editions.
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March 29, 6pm PT
Book Release
Kappe Library
Mira Henry + Matthew Au
Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests
Publisher: Princeton SoA; 1st edition (2023)
Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests is an unfolding portrait of the Los Angeles-based architecture and design practice Current Interests, led by Matthew Au and Mira Henry. Organized around a collection of buildings and material systems developed by Current Interests over the past five years, the book brings together images, drawings, and descriptive reflections to invoke a richly layered set of conversations that ground the duo’s collaborative process. With gathering as a framework, Current Interests argue for a design practice defined by ongoing acts of material construction that contend with the lived conditions of the built environment. Curtains, tables, facades, and urban blocks share space and are equally handled with technical specificity and poetic care. At the book’s center is an immersive visual essay and text by Au and Henry on the practice of collecting and photographing the microhistories of LA’s unknown architectures. Accompanying contributions include an introduction by Mónica Ponce de León, along with timely essays by Sylvia Lavin and Victor J. Jones.
Current Interests is a Los Angeles-based architectural design studio founded by Matthew Au and Mira Henry. As a creative collaboration, Current Interests’ built work is grounded in notions of material specificity, color relationships, assembly details, and an engagement in critical cultural thinking. Matthew and Mira are design faculty at SCI-Arc and have visiting faculty appointments at Princeton University and Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Au’s academic work is deeply influenced by the history of conceptual art practice as he examines the spaces and tools of production, and the lines of communication that connect the worlds of design and building. He holds a Bachelor of Art and Art History from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Henry’s formal research and writing focus on architecture, race, and materiality. She is the recipient of the 2019 Architectural League Prize, Henry Adams AIA Award, and Archiprix International Gold Medal. Henry holds a Bachelor of Art History from the University of Chicago and a Master of Architecture from University of California, Los Angeles.
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EXHIBITIONS
April 12–June 2
Exhibition
SCI-Arc Gallery
Gordon Kipping: Maison de Cartes
Opening Reception April 12, 6pm PT
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April 27
Exhibition
SCI-Arc Building
Spring Show 2024
Opening Reception April 27, 6pm PT