SCIArc Magazine No. 2 (Spring 2011) by SCI-Arc

SCI-ISSUE 002

Building Announcement Eric Owen Moss

Public Programs

Recollecting Forward: Building Celebration

L.A. Architecture School SCI-Arc Buys Its Unorthodox Home Roger Vincent

Campus News

Faculty Profile: Marcelo Spina John Enright

11 12

Materials Beyond Materials: Composite Tectonics Conference Marcelo Spina

Graduate Thesis Weekend Fabrizio Gallanti

Student News

SCI-Arc Walk Around: Undergraduate Thesis 2011 Peter Cook

15 Publications 16 Alumni Fund Scholarship Leadership 17

Alumni Council Dean Nota

Alumni Events Class Notes

20 BOMBSHELL: SCI-Arc/Caltech Solar Decathlon

SCI-Arc, is an idea and an ideal. The idea[l] is fragile; at best, it comes and goes. And to characterize it is not so simple. I think we’re after the tension between alternative ways of thinking about buildings and cities, the tension between ways of seeing and thinking. The truth of SCI-Arc is the tension between possibilities. Your psychoanalyst may advise you to avoid tension and stress. SCI-Arc, at its best, is the quintessential venue for both. SCI-Arc has no interest in students or faculty who parrot the standard bromides, whatever they may be. Rather, we want you to tell us what should have been or could have been. You’re not here to ratify what I say. You’re here to contest it. That’s the spirit of the school. If the school loses that spirit, even if it owns the city, it’s lost. So, I have to say, paradoxically, especially today, the idea[l] is primary, not the building itself. There are people who once argued, that the SCI-Arc idea had a certain life or time frame, and when that time ended, when it’s lost its resilience, its institutional life should be finished. And something new would inevitably arrive to replace it. An idea appears, fragile at first. An institution evolves to implement that point of view. The Paris commune is a for instance. Burgeoning content, energy, comes into focus, flourishes, then dissipates and disappears. Let’s see whether there are multiple energies and multiple vantage points that can continue to arrive, and, in turn be supplanted over the years is the perpetual SCI-Arc question. How SCI-Arc continues to be a venue for re-imagining the meanings of building will determine the durability and relevance of its content. We’ll be judged by what’s in the building, not the ownership. There’s really no SCI-Arc without Ray Kappe. There’s really no SCI-Arc without Mike Rotondi. There’s really no SCI-Arc without Neil Denari. And those directors each contributed to the SCI-Arc pro forma in very substantial ways. But when Chris and Ming and I arrived eight years ago, the context was entirely new; a very different world with very different concerns. I think it’s important, from our perspective, to understand what issues we faced, and what we did, and undid in order to make what has happened today happen. How did we do it? Initially we had issues of survival, of sustaining accreditation, of insufficient funds, of thesis direction and content. What we did was to re-imagine the pedagogy and administrative premises of the school. We did that, not alone, but collectively, especially with the intelligence and support of an unusual faculty which contributed its vision to the new vision of SCI-Arc. We discovered new tools, and established a new institutional mindset.

This is a crucial moment for SCI-Arc, and, in the end, we will succeed or fail depending on how we exploit the opportunity we’ve created.

On January 26, 2011, Eric Owen Moss announced that SCI-Arc will purchase the land and the original Santa Fe Freight Depot building that make up the school’s campus on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles.

So when you sit in your design studio today, and somebody tells you, “risk, speculate, courage,” SCI-Arc’s success with the building purchase is a behavioral model for the personal and intellectual qualities we prize. We did it with the building. SCI-Arc’s future depends on that credo: what we do IN the building. Nice to have a building, too, by the way. In the SCI-Arc case, ownership ratifies the contents. Please don’t forget that. I especially want to acknowledge a few people who were essential to this process. Some remain, some have moved on. As I said, there is no school without the initiators: Kappe and his group, Michael and his group, and Neil Denari. But in terms of dealing with the current concerns, Ian Robertson was crucial. Ian was the board chair when we started, worked with Chris Genik and Ming and me, laying out a course and a set of priorities that ultimately, landed us where we are today. Ming Fung directed the rebuilding of the graduate program. Chris Genik, ditto for the undergraduate program. Then others came along and contributed in significant ways. Next was Hernan Diaz Alonso in a critical role. Wind back the clock five or six years, and the thesis program was in tatters. Hernan lead the rebuilding of its contents. Alexis Rochas took over the Making and Meaning program. It had three enrollees at the time. Now eighty five young students appear for Making and Meaning. After a few years of fiscal stability we were able to hire new people in new positions that could complement those we already had, and help ourselves in areas where we were overextended or weak. This was also an important chapter because we had to acknowledge where we were good and, simultaneously, to be able to acknowledge where things could be improved. Jamie Bennett

TRANSCRIPTION: BUILDING ANNOUNCEMENT

Eric Owen Moss

We named the process Make It New. We created a constructive schizophrenia at the school. And here’s what that means: we decided not to contest every adversary that wasn’t a SCI-Arc believer, but instead to acquiesce and to solve certain elementary problems. One, finances. Two, the legal and institutional structure of the board and administration. Three, NAAB and WASC. We resolved these finally in a neat, discreet, business-like way because we understood that if we didn’t solve those operational problems, the durability of the school was in doubt. We understood the task and, step by step, we managed over a period of years to put the solutions in place. There are people who have said, “It’s good you were able to take care of the commercial real estate business of SCI-Arc, so the school could continue its work on the architecture discourse.” The implication is that the business of SCI-Arc and SCI-Arc’s pedagogical discourse are separate and discrete subjects. They’re not. What’s important is to understand the unity of the business purpose and the academic role of the school. It’s one subject. What we will have achieved when escrow completes in April is a clear manifestation of the SCI-Arc belief system. I’m terribly naïve. I’m an innocent like all of you, and we think things are doable and plausible and makeable and buildable that lots of people doubt can ever be achieved. Why not our own building? No money. Never happen. Forget it. SCI-Arc has been a vagabond school for forty years; and, to a large extent we played that up. We emphasized that. And frankly, what choice did we have? The guys with the buildings? They’re the establishment. SCI-Arc, on the other hand, we’re the Bedouins, we’re the vagabonds. We keep the game moving. SCI-Arc’s light. SCI-Arc’s quick, SCI-Arc’s dexterous. We are, and building or not, we’ll remain so. That’s how we survive. The capacity of SCI-Arc to move quickly and dexterously enabled us to remake the institutional structure of the school. We remade the school calendar. When Ming and I were going around talking to all the graduate students about shifting the thesis from January to September, I was confronted by a group of students who said, “Moss, you’re doing this for money, you’re doing this for money.” And I said, “Yes, money is a factor. The business model facilitates the pedagogical model.” And finally we all agreed. We were able to correlate the aspirations of the students and faculty with the words “cash,” “dinero,” “capital,” and were no longer ipso facto vilified. At an early point in the administration, in 2002, SCI-Arc was asymptotic to operational incapacity. Ian Robertson said, “There’s no more SCI-Arc.” And we said, “Great. We’ll invent another one.”

appeared, fortuitously roughly two years ago, and SCI-Arc had an experienced and sophisticated C.O.O. for the first time. Jamie Bennett was a man with a very different history, a very different pedigree, far from the SCI-Arc administrative norm. Many of you here have come to know him, and, if you haven’t, you should stop by and say hello. Jamie became an essential and productive voice applying a new admixture of business and pedagogy, particularly with respect to the building purchase. And when we began to actually work on the building project, I was told by sophisticated, experienced business types who run local banks and commercial real estate firms, “Moss, you can’t talk to the people on the other side of that table. That’s not your venue. Business types on our team have to talk to other business types on the other team because SCI-Arc architects can’t carry on that conversation”. The critics were right, and the critics were wrong. We knew the architect/educators were best qualified to carry the building discussion forward. But we had to alter our form and modify our content and we did. The Maddux/Moss talks are anecdotal, but the story may be useful to some of you as an example of an interesting problem solving initiative. The only thing I ever could talk to John Maddux about was football. John had a couple of sons who played football at a local high school, and I have a little boy named Miller, who trained with a coach at that same school. So football became our only subtext, over four or five lunches; we never talked about the SCI-Arc building or the property. Just focused on a subject we could enjoy sharing. Perhaps this is a lesson for you. It was for me. Life is personal. Could be that the way to make projects or to arrive at important conclusions in potentially contentious circumstances, is to find a personal basis for the exchange. John and I developed a mutual trust and confidence, and the building purchase strategy evolved quite naturally from that. Ultimately we came to the point where we could talk about other subjects. Not long thereafter, Jamie Bennett jumped into the discussion, and he has nursed the project along for probably two years, with its ebbs and flows, until the resolution at the end of last week. Jamie stayed with it, keeping the communication lines open. And every once in a while, a little bit of football: Maddux comes over to my office and watches Miller throw the ball out front, things like that. It’s an odd story. It’s an odd story, and yet, it’s my sense, that without the football portion, the rest probably never happens. SCI-Arc is in escrow on the freight depot building and the parking lot—parcels A and D. The escrow will close end of April. And all of you and all of us, collectively, will hold hands, kiss good night, and parade off into the sunset. But watch it. We’re coming back in the morning to start again. Thank you very much.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

About Public Programs SCI-Arc Gallery exhibitions and public programming are funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

RECENT

Library Gallery Exhibition

Lecture

Curated by Eric Owen Moss for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 Austrian Pavilion, exhibitors included Hernan Diaz Alonso, Xefirotarch; Herwig Baumgartner and Scott Uriu, BplusU; Craig Hodgetts and Hsinming Fung, Hodgetts+Fung; Elena Manferdini, Atelier Manferdini; Alexis Rochas, I/O; and Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich, PATTERNS.

Lectures and discussions are broadcast live online at sciarc.edu/live. No reservations are required. Admission and parking are free. The SCI-Arc Gallery is open daily from 10am-6pm. The Library Gallery is open Monday-Friday, 10am—7pm and Saturday-Sunday, 12—6pm. SCI-Arc is located at 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. The building entrance and parking lot are located at 350 Merrick Street, between 4th Street and Traction Avenue. SCI-Arc Public Programs are subject to change beyond our control. For the most current information, please visit sciarc.edu or call 213.613.2200. To join SCI-Arc’s Public Programs email list, contact public_programs @sciarc.edu.

JORGE FRANCISCO LIERNUR

Austral group: a CIAM brigade in the far south; 1937—1948 Dean, School of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Torcuato Di Tella Universit, Buenos Aires Lecture

CHRISTIAN MOELLER Tangible Cartoons Artist, Los Angeles Lecture

HERNAN DIAZ ALONSO

The Forms of Plenty Principal, Xefirotarch; Graduate Programs Chair and Distinguished Faculty, SCI-Arc SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition

PATRICK TIGHE

Out of Memory with Composer, Ken Ueno and Fabricator, Machineous

AUDIENCE OF OBJECTS

Lecture

PAOLO CASCONE

Eco_Logic Design: Towards High-Tech Design, Low-Tech Construction Principal, COdesignLab Symposium

POLYTOPES: THE ARCHITECTURE OF SOUNDSCAPES

Staging new electronic and visual music to a discussion with composers and performers, participants included Juan Azulay, Jean Michael Crettaz, Craig Hodgetts, Lucy Pullen, Lance Putnam, Curtis Roads, Steve Roden, David Rosenbloom, and Carolina Trigo. Lecture

STEVEN HOLL

First Annual Raimund Abraham Memorial Lecture Principal, Steven Holl Architects, New York Lecture

MICHAEL ROTONDI

From the Center Principal, ROTO Architects; Distinguished Faculty, SCI-Arc Conference

MATERIAL BEYOND MATERIALS

Composite Tectonics Conference on Advanced Materials and Digital Manufacturing Keynote Speaker: Evan Douglis Principal, Evan Douglis Studio; Dean, Rensselaer Polytechnic Conference participants included D. Michelle Addington, Hernan Diaz Alonso, John Enright, Andreas Froech, Marcelyn Gow, Craig Hodgetts, Kurt Jordan, Bill Kreysler, Mike Lepech, Greg Lynn, Urs Meier, Achim Menges, Bill Pearson, Wolfgang Rieder, Marcelo Spina, Ruben Suare, Peter Testa, Devyn Weiser, and Tom Wiscombe. SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition

BARBARA BESTOR ¡Disco Silencio! Steven Holl

First Annual Raimund Abraham Memorial Lecture Celebrating Raimund Abraham’s legacy at SCI-Arc, Steven Holl was the first architect chosen to present his work in this series. Like Abraham, he is both a theorist and a builder, whose intense, poetic drawings project both an idealized vision of architectural form, as well as a challenge to realize that vision in a completed project. Featuring initial concept sketches and the projects they inspired, Holl shared his process and recent projects in a lecture before a packed audience of students and faculty.

Lecture

SANFORD KWINTER

This is Your Brain on Design Professor of Theory and Criticism, Co-Director Master in Design Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge Library Gallery Exhibition

WENDY HELDMANN

June 10—July 29 You Are So Beautiful and I Am A Fool Opening reception Friday, June 10, 7-9pm

UPCOMING

OUTSIDE SCI-ARC

SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition

Installation

July 29—September 11 Rawhide Eric Owen Moss and Jason Payne discuss the exhibition, reception to follow. Friday, July 29, 7pm

Nokia Plaza at LA Live, from April 9 The reALIize installation tributes three-time heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, designed by SCI-Arc faculty Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu of Oyler Wu Collaborative with artist Michael Kalish.

JASON PAYNE

School-Wide Exhibition

GRADUATE THESIS WEEEKEND

September 10—11 Work remains on view through September 16. Graduation Pavilion

THOM MAYNE

September 11, 5pm Commencement Address Founder and Design Director, Morphosis; Board of Trustees, SCI-Arc

reALIze

Symposium

DEBATING FUNDAMENTALS: PROBING THE AUTOPOIESIS OF ARCHITECTURE

Architectural Association, March 11 Organized by Patrik Schumacher, the debate was guided by the issues in his book, The Autopoiesis of Architecture. Participants included Marc Cousins, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Jeff Kipnis, Rem Koolhaas, Greg Lynn, Eric Owen Moss, Wolf D. Prix, Lars Spuybroek, Brett Steele, Mark Wigley, and Alejandro Zaera Polo. Exhibition

HYPERLINKS

September 19—September 30 Eric Owen Moss and the Best Thesis students discuss the exhibition, reception to follow. Friday, September 23, 7pm

The Art Institute of Chicago, December 11, 2010—July 20, 2011 Links between practices are resulting from advances in production processes, materials research, social and environmental concerns, and factors drawn from scientific and biological research. Featured SCI-Arc faculty and Gallery exhibitioners include Hernan Diaz Alonso, Xefirotarch; David Erdman, Davidclovers; Greg Lynn, FORM; Florencia Pita, mod; and Tom Wiscombe, EMERGENT.

Lecture

Faculty Lectures, Awards and Competitions

October 5, 7pm Memory is the Soil of Architecture Architect, Berlin W.M. Keck Hall

HSINMING FUNG AND CRAIG HODGETTS

SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition

SELECTED THESIS

ZVI HECKER

Lecture

ODILE DECQ

October 12, 7pm Principal, Architectes Urbanistas; Director, Special School of Architecture, Paris W.M. Keck Hall SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition

ODILE DECQ AND BENOIT CORNETTE, ARCHITECTES URBANISTES October 14—December 4 Anisotropy Eric Owen Moss and Odile Decq discuss the exhibition, reception to follow. Friday, October 14, 7pm Lecture

XU WEIGO

November 16, 7pm Dean, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Shenzen, China W.M. Keck Hall

reALIze Nokia Plaza at LA Live Oyler Wu Collaborative with artist Michael Kalish

Hyperlinks The Art Institute of Chicago Florencia Pita, cronopios

Competition-winning design for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Advanced Classroom Construction System ERIC OWEN MOSS

University of Applied Arts, Vienna, May 12 Build Your Cites on the Slopes of Vesuvius Tongju University, Beijing, December 8, 2010 Tsinghua University, Shenzen, November 15, 2010 Too Much is Not Enough: The Future of the City, and the City of the Future

Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ‘92) ¡Disco Silencio!, SCI-Arc Gallery

MICHAEL ROTONDI

University of Applied Arts, Vienna, June 9 MARCELO SPINA

Architecture Association, March 10 The Bartlett School of Architecture, March 9 Interstitial Mass: Figural And Embedded 2011 Architectural League Emerging Voices Award PATRICK TIGHE

2011 National AIA Honor Award Moving Picture Company, Santa Monica TOM WISCOMBE

Competition-winning design for the Civic Sports Center and 2013 National Games Arena, Shenyang, China PETER ZELLNER

L’ École Speciale D’Architecture, March 3 Inconsistencies

Patrick Tighe with composer Ken Ueno and fabrication by Machineous, Out of Memory, SCI-Arc Gallery

1. Celebration Balloons 2. Former SCI-Arc Director Ray Kappe and Shelly Kappe are served by Board of Trustees Member Bill Fain Alumni Luis Herrera (B.Arch ‘01), Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ‘94) Podium Projection 3. Board of Trustees Chairman Jerry Neuman and Eric Owen Moss deliver the state-of-the-school Board of Trustees Member Joe Day and SCI-Arc Chief Development Officer Bill Kramer W.M. Keck Lecture Hall 4. SCI-Arc Looking Southwest Gray Buildings ©2011 CyberCity, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, ©2011 Google

RECOLLECTING FORWARD BUILDING CELEBRATION

On April 30, 2011, over 400 alumni, Trustees, faculty members, former Directors and friends of SCI-Arc celebrated an historic milestone in the life of the school—the purchase of the SCI-Arc campus. For SCI-Arc, this is a significant goal realized, as the depot will be the first permanent home in a 39-year history. For the City of Los Angeles, this is an important moment in the growth of an underdeveloped area of the city. With the campus purchase, SCI-Arc becomes a permanent part of the educational and cultural evolution of the Arts District. The school will play a significant role in the longterm development of the area, which is the third major redevelopment zone in Downtown Los Angeles, along with LA Live and Grand Avenue. At this festive open house, entitled Recollecting Forward, guests were treated to tours of the campus, including the new Robot House, the Solar Decathlon Home, the Spring Show, and Barbara Bestor’s exhibition, ¡Disco Silencio! Eric Owen Moss delivered a state-of-the-school and thanked those who helped to make the purchase possible. In a fun twist, the Trustees served as waiters. Board chairs comment: The purchase of the campus building and property is an important landmark for SCI-ARC. It increases our credibility and our potential for funding, scholarships and overall endowment. May SCIARC continue to flourish! —Ray Kappe, FAIA (1972—1987, 1999—2002) What an important cornerstone for both the future of LA’s downtown and for SCI-Arc—congratulations! —Kurt Meyer (1989—1993)

Board of Trustees Member Merry Norris treats guests to her signature margaritas.

The acquisition of the building significantly advances the process of institutionalizing the business of SCI-Arc without affecting its rebellious spirit. The mission is intact and the school is safe in its new home. —David Lafaille (1993—1997) When SCI-Arc moved downtown the campus site became emblematic of the transition to America’s new knowledge (and design) based economy. SCI-Arc’s presence downtown has had a major impact—not just on the immediate area but in the whole City. —Ian Robertson (1997—1999, 2003—2007) SCI-ARC is and has always been a nomadic institution-—with the building purchase this nature will now be fully celebrated in the intellectual wandering it has long encouraged, a foraging for new ideas and new systems in an uncharted landscape. —John Geresi (2007—2010) The Trustees together with the leadership have worked hard to achieve this important milestone for the school. This acquisition guarantees the stability of SCI-Arc without compromising its forward-thinking nature. —Jerry Neuman (2010—Present)

L.A. ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL SCI-ARC BUYS ITS UNORTHODOX HOME

Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times

L.A.’S RENEGADE, NOMADIC ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL IS FINALLY PUTTING DOWN ROOTS The Southern California Institute of Architecture, one of the toprated schools in the country for design, bought itself a home in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. SCI-Arc, as it is commonly known, paid $23.1 million for a highly unorthodox school building. SCI-Arc bought a century-old rail freight depot that is a quarter of a mile long and about 37 feet wide. The school has been a tenant in the building for 10 years, having failed in an earlier attempt to buy the property. The missed opportunity was emblematic of the old SCI-Arc, school officials say, as a place where being ahead of the curve on architecture was prized but the more mundane business of running an institution was not. “We used to be considered one step ahead of the IRS, one step ahead of creditors,” Director Eric Owen Moss quipped. Those days are over, Moss said. The school now has an experienced chief operating officer and a more worldly board of trustees that has set SCI-Arc on a path to solvency and a more grounded future. “SCI-Arc’s capacity has evolved, and its understanding of itself as an institution has changed,” Moss said. “But I wouldn’t say SCIArc has gone Republican or Andrew Carnegie.” Combative bravado seems to be one of the few traditions at a pointedly nontraditional school. In 1972, a handful of faculty members, along with about 40 students, abruptly left Cal Poly Pomona after a rift between the dean of the school at the time and Ray Kappe, who headed the architecture department. Among the breakaway faculty members was Thom Mayne, who went on to win a Pritzker Prize at his Santa Monica firm Morphosis Architects. Mayne returned to the SCI-Arc fold this month as trustee. Other board members include architects Frank Gehry, Michael Rotondi and William Fain, and real estate developers Kevin Ratner and Tom Gilmore. SCI-Arc originally set up shop on a shoestring in a rented warehouse in Marina del Rey, garnering an international reputation as an avant-garde, if unaccredited, experimental school. SCI-Arc was a leader in innovative design, many agreed, but critics sniffed that it didn’t prepare students to build practical buildings or work in a conventional architecture firm. School officials dispute that characterization while cherishing their nontraditional style. The school is now fully accredited. Students study in a densely packed studio environment, working together with teachers on assigned design projects. Desks are

cluttered with computer screens, models and crumbs left behind from grueling late-night work sessions. The setup leaves lots of room for students to learn from each other as they “yak and exhibit,” Moss said. The absence of traditional school structure also appeals to teachers who disdain academic strictures. “Young architects from all over the world come to teach here,” he said. “You don’t have to put in 15 years to become chairman of something.” About 30% of the school’s 500 students are from overseas, said Jamie Bennett, the school’s new chief operating officer. It was Bennett who steered SCI-Arc through the complicated transaction approved by a federal Bankruptcy Court to buy the school property from Meruelo Maddux Properties. “Our mortgage payment will be less than our rent,” said Bennett, a former television executive who oversees daily operations at the campus, which stretches along Santa Fe Avenue from 3rd Street to the 4th Street bridge. Meruelo Maddux, the largest owner of industrial property in downtown Los Angeles, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009. Among its properties was the SCI-Arc campus, which was purchased in 2004 as part of a larger land acquisition for a planned apartment complex. The sale was a surprise and disappointment to SCI-Arc leaders, who had hoped to carve out the 2.5-acre campus in a purchase of their own. Real estate industry experts said at the time that SCI-Arc moved too slowly and was outmaneuvered by better-financed competitors. As a property owner, SCI-Arc is in for a cultural shift, said real estate lawyer Jerry Neuman, chairman of the school’s board of trustees. “When you have never been a landlord and always a tenant, the way you view the world is different,” Neuman said. Now, he said, SCI-Arc must contemplate such institutional building blocks as student housing and student services like a bookstore and placement office. “It’s a huge step forward for the institution, as well as a challenge,” Neuman said. Some brick-and-mortar amenities could help, said Los Angeles architect Douglas Hanson of Smart Architecture, at least when it comes to appealing to those who help pay tuition. Visitors first see the school as a skinny old building with a vast asphalt parking lot. “The parents are like, ‘Are you kidding?’” Hanson said. “Now they have gotten over the first hurdle. This really does set them up to be able to provide a campus environment for the students.” To Moss, an architect known for designing some of the most unusual office buildings in the region, the school’s location in an old but evolving district of the city is ideal. Downtown is in a dynamic state of complicated change involving business, housing, entertainment and recreation. What will the city do with the Los Angeles River? Moss asked. How will it extend the growing vibrancy of downtown across the river to Boyle Heights? “L.A. is on the world map, but the physical makeup of the city has a huge distance to go,” Moss said. “L.A.’s physical future and the planning future is ahead of it.”

Roger Vincent Roger Vincent has covered commercial real estate in Southern California since the mid 1980s and has seen its booms and busts. He writes about office, industrial, retail and hotel properties and the impact the real estate industry has on our economy.

RECOLLECTING FORWARD BUILDING CELEBRATION

What an important cornerstone for both the future of LA’s downtown and for SCI-Arc—congratulations! —Kurt Meyer (1989—1993)

L.A. ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL SCI-ARC BUYS ITS UNORTHODOX HOME

Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times

CAMPUS NEWS

Stäubli The development of the SCI-Arc robotics lab would not have been possible without the vital support of Stäubli Robotics. The world’s premier robotics manufacturer, Stäubli has provided SCI-Arc with over $300,000 worth of robotics equipment to establish the Robot House.

ROBOTICS (and Simulation) HOUSE: A MACHINE FOR DESIGNING IN

NEW POST-GRADUATE PROGRAM: EMERGING SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES

Further accelerating SCI-Arc’s pace in digital design and advanced prototyping, six state-of-the-art Stäubli robotic systems will allow students to create, conceptually and literally, intersecting opportunities for additive free-form fabrication, mechatronics, advanced composite materials, cybernetics, and digital choreography. Extending beyond a production facility, SCI-Arc Robot House offers a new design interface, preparing students to successfully integrate formal, technical, logistical, and material processes into advanced architectural design. The design potential of multi-robot cooperation between Arc-bots (architectural design robots) within their new home, itself an inhabitable design tool, will limber up design methodology, pedagogy and fundamental assumptions about the techniques and devices of making.

SCI-Arc launched its new post-graduate academic program, leading to the award of a Master of Design Research in Emerging Systems and Technologies (M.DesR/EST). EST is a rigorous, experimental post-professional degree program focused on data-based and physical investigations into the rapidly evolving fields of digital design, innovative fabrication methodologies, and new building systems. The program is positioned as a leading center for advanced research into emerging materials, robotics, and sustainable engineering. Testing new levels of environmental performance that will be the basis for experimental design practice in the 21st century, students are prepared to successfully integrate formal, technical, logistical, and material processes into advanced architectural design. The program is open to graduates in architecture, engineering, product design, and computer sciences who wish to develop advanced research and design skills in the context of emerging materials and new production paradigms, such as sustainable engineering and robotics, taking advantage of the new Robot House inside SCIArc’s main building. The trajectory of EST allows students to pursue design and technology positions in architecture firms and opens up a host of new career tracks in allied fields, including civil engineering, building systems design (an emerging field to which this program can make significant contributions), product design, and infrastructure design within large engineering and architecture conglomerates that are global players. SCI-Arc’s core faculty include Hernan Diaz Alonso, Marcelyn Gow, Elena Manferdini, Marcelo Spina, Peter Testa, and Tom Wiscombe.

Fletcher Jones Foundation Receiving one of the largest institutional gifts in SCI-Arc’s history, the Fletcher Jones Foundation approved a $200,000 grant to help fund construction of the SCI-Arc Robot House. The Fletcher Jones Foundation’s primary emphasis is to support private colleges and universities in California, with a particular interest in support that makes a difference that will have lasting benefits. SCI-Arc sincerely thanks the Fletcher Jones Foundation for its generous and timely grant.

GENERAL STUDIES CURRICULUM

Robotic System. RX160 PaintCS8C

In Fall 2011, SCI-Arc will launch its new General Studies curriculum in the undergraduate program, representing a fresh and innovative approach to teaching breadth of knowledge and critical thinking skills. Historically, the baccalaureate requirement for general education emanated out of the American university system as a broad selection of introductory courses offered in the most common subject areas—sciences, humanities, and social sciences. SCI-Arc satisfied this requirement by sending students to local colleges, reinforcing the university pro forma. Now, through an intensive effort, spearheaded by Eric Owen Moss, Hsinming Fung, John Enright and coordinated by Dora Epstein Jones, SCI-Arc will integrate general education into the undergraduate curriculum. With SCI-Arc oversight, the general studies curriculum will direct non-architectural content at students in an innovative manner. Following a foundation sequence in writing, physics, and math, the traditional “menu” of choices will be replaced in the latter semesters by a series of four flexible one-time elective seminars taught by leading thinkers, writers, theorists, and practitioners in a wide spectrum of fields and subject interests—from real estate development to biomimicry, media culture to particle physics. A permanent course in the history of ideas will serve as the cornerstone for this program, and will allow students to see and understand, critically, the basic complexity of all human concepts.

GETTY FOUNDATION AND NEA GRANTS AWARDED TO CREATE DIGITAL LECTURE ARCHIVE SCI-Arc received two major grants to create the SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive, a web archive to include more than 1,000 hours of key lectures and symposia from 1974 to the present, which will be accessible online, via phone apps, e-readers, and other new media. A transformative $200,000 grant from The Getty Foundation and a significant $70,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts—their largest award in the Design category this year—will be used to digitize, transcribe, curate, and present lectures by some of the most important architects, designers, and theorists during the past four decades, forming one of the most complete architectural archival collections of its kind in the world. “SCI-Arc’s lecture archive is unique and impressive,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. “Its contents illustrate how, for 40 years, the school has continued to assemble this record of the most outspoken, avant-garde architects from around the world. The record of lectures is especially useful going forward, suggesting what might be coming next, and, reciprocally, going backward to test whether what was claimed by the speakers was subsequently delivered.” Scheduled to launch in 2012, the archive will be designed with a sophisticated search engine, allowing access to all or specific parts of each lecture. The archive will make available never before seen footage of some of the most influential leaders in architecture and design, including Frank O. Gehry, Zaha Hadid, David Hockney, Rem Koolhaas, John Lautner, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Kazuyo Sejima, and many more. Among those portrayed are 12 winners of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. Reflecting SCIArc’s interdisciplinary approach, the collection will include lectures by major figures in art, film, critical thinking, and graphic design. The school currently hosts an collection of more than 200 select lectures, available at sciarc.edu/lectures.php.

FUTURE INITIATIVES’ CLEANTECH CORRIDOR COMPETITION In the fall of 2010, SCI-Arc announced the winners of the Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor and Green District Competition, an open ideas competition sponsored by SCI-Arc and The Architect’s Newspaper. A panel discussion with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, SCIArc Director Eric Owen Moss, Director of Academic Affairs Hsinming Fung, and organizing hosts Peter Zellner and David Bergman, coordinators of the SCI-Arc’s Future Initiatives Program was followed by a winners’ exhibition in the Library Gallery. “At the crux of this competition, was the question, ‘Why does architecture matter in the context of any form of large scale urban development?’” notes Zellner, “The answer would be that architecture matters because it shows we can give attention to all the things we live around and in. We ran the competition because of the tendency for these things to be looked at with a macro economic lens. What we’re asking in the end is, ‘What are the implications on the ground? What’s interesting about the Future Initiatives program at SCI-Arc?’ In the context of staging public competitions, is its ability to weld an understanding of the city’s economic performance to an architectural vision of the city.” The Future Initiatives program continues to develop the concepts explored by the Cleantech competition through a design studio led by Andrew Zago that will be exhibited this summer as part of the Little Tokyo Design Week.

DESIGN IMMERSION DAYS Design fills our world and permeates our everyday existence. Small objects, media, furniture, buildings, the city: nearly everything we use, live in, and touch have been designed. Who designs these things? How do they do it? How do they see the world around them and change it? Coordinated by Darin Johnstone, SCI-Arc has developed Design Immersion Days (DID) to introduce high school students to these issues in a brief but broad curriculum. Rising juniors and seniors will be offered the opportunity to explore careers in architecture and design or simply satisfy deep curiosities about how products, buildings, and environments are designed and made. This is done by working side by side with other students and those who have devoted their lives to reshaping the world around us. Through a series of lectures given by esteemed Los Angelesbased designers and field trips exploring the city of Los Angeles, students will be exposed to examples of design and modes of production at all scales. In the classroom and in the city, students will be introduced to fundamental ways of seeing, thinking, and doing that are essential for anyone interested in pursuing a degree and/or career in architecture or design.

SCI-ARC RANKS AMONG BEST ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS IN 2011 SCI-Arc was ranked second in the Design and Computer Applications categories of the recently published 2011 America’s Best Architecture Schools survey from DesignIntelligence. The B.Arch program took sixth place among the 20 top-ranked undergraduate architecture degree programs. This is the first year SCI-Arc’s undergraduate program is included in the DI rankings. “Notwithstanding SCI-Arc’s aversion to definition by polling, the latest DesignIntelligence survey lists us as the number two design school in the country,” said Director Eric Owen Moss in an announcement to the SCI-Arc community. “SCI-Arc is also ranked second in the Computer Applications category. From our perspective, these are two of the most critical areas of study in the SCI-Arc pedagogy.” Since 1999, DesignIntelligence has ranked accredited undergraduate and graduate architecture programs from the perspective of practitioners. Results are based on the hiring experience of firms surveyed, which are asked to evaluate recent architecture graduates in a range of critical and meaningful skills. In particular, respondents are asked to assess which programs are strongest in each skills category to best prepare students for professional architectural practice. The seven fundamental skill categories include Analysis and Planning, Communication, Computer Applications, Construction Methods and Materials, Design, Research and Theory, and Sustainable Design Practices and Principles.

Ahmanson Grant SCI-Arc received a new grant from The Ahmanson Foundation in support of Design Immersion Days. One of the most respected philanthropic organizations in Southern California, The Ahmanson Foundation strives to enhance the quality of life and cultural legacy of the Los Angeles community. Funding from The Ahmanson Foundation will help underwrite materials, supplies, software, and field trip costs for this new SCI-Arc program.

MARCELO SPINA FACULTY PROFILE John Enright

1. Prism Contemporary Art Gallery Los Angeles, 2010

2. Materials Beyond Materials Conference Hernan Diaz Alonso

John Enright John Enright, AIA, is co-founder and principal of the Los Angeles-based Griffin Enright Architects. Enright is the Undergraduate Program Chair at SCI-Arc, and has taught design studios and technology seminars at SCIArc, Syracuse University, the University of Houston, and the University of Southern California. His academic research focuses on design and building technology, including BIM and new digital paradigms as applied to fabrication and construction. He recently served on the advisory committee for the national AIA’s Educator Practitioners Network (EPN), and has been appointed to the Los Angeles Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel.

Marcelo Spina and his partner Georgina Huljich are co-principals of the Los Angeles-based architecture firm PATTERNS. Most recently named one of the Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York, the firm has garnered numerous design awards, including induction into the Architectural Record 2004 Design Vanguard. Their firm’s body of work ranges from smaller-scale installations and exhibitions to residential and larger-scale commercial projects. Spina has been teaching at SCI-Arc since 2001 and was recently named the coordinator for the new post-graduate program Emerging Systems and Technologies (EST). His successful Material Beyond Materials Conference, held in March, brought together leading companies invested in the fields of advanced materials and fabrication technologies with progressive architects and designers. I had the pleasure of teaching alongside Marcelo in the 2GA design studios a number of years ago. On one of our student field trips, we visited Pier Luigi Nervi’s St. Mary’s Church in San Francisco. He seemed enamored with a particular detail where the interior surface of the concrete volumes deformed to become the corner support for the hovering roof. It is an ambiguous moment in the project: structure, horizontal, and vertical surfaces conjoined to form one of the major supports for the building. I believe Marcelo is interested in just this kind of ambiguity in his work. He challenges our perceptions of space and envelope through a formal play of volume and surface. I recently had the chance to sit down with Marcelo to discuss his research, office work, and teaching at SCI-Arc. Combining advanced digital computational methods with exploration of formal techniques within a research-driven practice, PATTERNS’ work focuses on materiality and new methods of fabrication. This hybrid notion of the digital and the material engages a series of built projects that have a marked consistency of investigation. While the scale of the projects increase in size, the opportunity to focus the work within a series of spatial and formal interests has led to novel approaches in material invention. Evidenced in three projects, the Prism Contemporary Art Gallery in Los Angeles, the Jujuy Redux Apartment Building in Rosario, Argentina, and the Chengdu Fluid Core Yard office building in Chengdu, China, a trajectory regarding the firm’s interest in striated formal techniques challenges the notion of façade and envelope, yet with differing aspects regarding materiality and scale. At the Prism Contemporary Art Gallery, PATTERNS worked with 3Form, creating a resin-based composite polycarbonate panel system that slices horizontally along the façade. This deformation of surface creates, in their words, “subtle sensations by inducing a physical and optical dynamism that both challenge and enhance the pedestrian movement in the nearby iconic sunset strip.” The material resulting from the torsioned striations modulates the building’s surface, giving the effect of the street and sidewalk merging with the envelope. This subtle manipulation of surface, limited to the minimal street-side frontage, maximizes the ability of the envelope to engage with the context of Sunset Boulevard. Aluminum particles embedded in the panels at once read as plastic, metallic, and translucent, reinforcing the spatial ambiguity of the façade. While deference to the striated and horizontal is also manifest in the Jujuy Redux Apartment Building, exploring surface at a larger scale and twisting the vertical and horizontal envelope, creates a deeper spatial reading than achieved at the Prism Gallery. The concrete forms of the project transition from the horizontal plane of the balconies to the vertical parapet and guardrail, to finally merge with the building envelope. This transition merges two types of classic modernist notions of openings: an almost Miesian thin-plane floor plate on one side and the ubiquitous horizontal strip window on the other. The twisting geometric zone between these two is where a third type of aperture is created. Through the use of diagonal geometry and ruled surfaces, the spatial reading of what is envelope, window, floor, and wall are merged and blurred. The illusion gives the

Chengdu Fluid Core Yard, Research Facilities, Chengdu, China, 2010

impression of floors that are offset vertically, while opening the corner of the apartment’s mass to the city beyond. With a more embedded spatial effect, PATTERNS recently completed Chengdu Fluid Core Yard office building explores similar interests displayed at Prism and Jujuy Redux. Deploying a system of waffle hyperbolic-paraboloid surfaces that parallel the major diagonal circulation wedge into the project, a more robust volumetric reading is achieved. While much of the building mass is left in its generic cubic geometry, the familiar explorations of surface, aperture, and panelization are utilized to blur and stretch the building form. Merging the tectonic surfaces from planar to warped and back again, the surface and envelope investigation is pushed well into the building’s mass, creating a series of cantilevers and exterior spaces that break up the orthogonal. Working with Chinese manufacturer E-Grow, PATTERNS co-developed the E-GRFC panels (Glass Fiber Reinforced Formula Cement) to fabricate the complex forms of the building envelope. The reading of the panels is ambiguous. At times, the joints of the primary rectangular panels are expressed, while in the areas of maximum surface tension the panels merge, forming continuous smooth, expressive planes that amplify the volumetric modulation in the form of the waffle grid. All three projects share genetic similarity within the work of PATTERNS, evolving as the level of opportunity for spatial exploration increases. Maintaining a focused trajectory is evident from varying programs, sites, and scales. It would seem the major development is a deeper exploration of the spatial implications of similar methods of technique and formal material application. If we are to predict PATTERNS’ next step, it may land near the recent Lucent Saddles project, exhibited at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale Austrian Pavilion. The similar Henderson River Hub Hotel, Convention Center, and Exhibition Hall in vest an interest in the use of larger, primitive-based geometries through multiplied polygonal tetrahedron components that form volumetric aggregations. The effect of these newer projects, while maintaining the firm’s interest in ambiguity of surface and volume, no longer maintain the deference to the horizontal and striated. The formal manifestation is more cellular and less directional, and appears to be utilized as a system for tackling larger and more complex organizational strategies. No doubt, we will see this emerge in the coming years as PATTERNS continues to explore spatial and material sensations.

MATERIALS BEYOND MATERIALS: COMPOSITE TECTONICS CONFERENCE

Marcelo Spina

To investigate the relationships that currently exist among technological advances in materials, innovations in the building industry, and the current design discourse and pedagogy, SCI-Arc hosted Material Beyond Materials: Composite Tectonics. Exploring new design agendas and research opportunities resulting from the use of composite materials in architecture and other design fields, this two-day conference featured an extraordinary cast of speakers from all over the world and across diverse fields. The first of a series, Material Beyond Materials means to strengthen SCI-Arc’s design ethos and its continued commitment to innovation within the discipline and practice of architecture and material culture at large. What’s really the matter with material? Material, as a word and as a subject matter, has been at the center of discussions within academic conferences and books for almost a decade. However, in each of its takes, its use meant very different things, referring to either, in most cases, the particularities of a material or family of materials or, in others, the specific qualities emerging from its use. We live in an age of permanent mutation and continuous adaptation. Architecture is not exempt from change. Now, what if material itself was put into question? What if the assumption of material as the purest, most stable, and discrete property upon which we formulate and construct was wrong? Would often unstable things also become susceptible to change? Traditionally understood as the stable unit for the assembly of form, what if material itself became a form of assembly? In fact, since the advent of modernism, the relation between material and formal ethics has been at the center of disciplinary discourse and discussion. One could not imagine discussing modernity without implicitly or explicitly referencing the experiential transparency of glass, the structural slenderness of steel, or the expressive robustness of concrete. Nowadays, since the end of modernism, this transparent and ethical relation of cause and effect between material and form no longer holds.

North Technology Group, image courtesy of Bill Pearson, North Sails. Aramid fibre composite sail on mold at North Sails Factory

More recently, digital design and manufacturing technology have had profound effects on the discipline and practice of architecture. Widely known and accepted is architecture’s shift from an interest in solid volumes to complex topologies and surface articulation, combined with more fluid ways of integrating material form and tectonics. The contemporary ambition to liberate design from the old ethics and traditions of material constraints, tectonic assembly, or even on-site construction instigated a widespread interest and appeal for composite construction within the discipline and the practice of architecture.

Wolfgang Rieder, Reider Composites, image courtesy of Rieder. Fibre cement prototype facade for KAPSARC

Conceptually and technically opposed to the notion of “tectonic” implying the multiple and frequently mechanical assembly of discrete parts outside the axiom of “truth to materials or truth of materials,” composites afford architects and designers the synthetic and the anisotropic quality of plastic’s infinite versatility. Now let me be a bit specific here: Poised to revolutionize the building industry by streamlining material production, construction, and assembly, composites have the ability to absorb and subsume systems through embedding discrete components within surfaces of variable thickness. Composites can take on the role of finish, structure, and envelope in synthetic ways. They can contain and enclose Mechanical Engineering and Plumbing (MEP) components, move and adapt, transmit, or reflect. Due to many of the above, composites require advanced tooling and intricate molding processes. Manufacturing processes, automation, and robotics suggest that these processes will be made simpler and readily available, allowing architects to completely customize material. Composites also suggest a different relation to time and procedure since they can be made in many steps, as connections, materials, subassemblies, or other components are added or embedded. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP), Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC), Glass Reinforced Gypsum (GRG), Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP), and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Carbon (CFRC) are all in the rubric of composites, making their use in design flexible but very demanding. Composite Tectonics then implies a synthetic materiality and embedded forms of connection and assembly. Different from mechanical assemblies, which confound not only the building code but the overwhelming majority of the building industry, the connections within composites are adhesive, organically molded, and built in. When it comes to materiality, their versatility lies in their capacity to produce highly synthetic qualities. Containing material micro-particles inside a resin matrix, in the case of FRP, for instance, surfaces are able to mimic and augment known material finishes while producing new hybrid qualities. Composites may not have a stable “truth” to their material constituency. Their truth is malleable and, in their nature, lays the potential for generating endless material character and effects. Whether these effects are real or fake is more a function of context than substance. If one were to ask, following Louis Khan’s famous axiom, what then does a composite want to be? A provisional answer would be short and simple: Manifold. Over what is the significance of composites in contemporary design?

Participants D. Michelle Addington Hernan Diaz Alonso Evan Douglis John Enright Andreas Froech Marcelyn Gow Craig Hodgetts Kurt Jordan Bill Kreysler Mike Lepech Greg Lynn Urs Meier Achim Menges Bill Pearson Wolfgang Rieder Marcelo Spina Ruben Suare Peter Testa Devyn Weiser Tom Wiscombe Sponsors Material Beyond Materials was generously sponsored by Cook Composites & Polymers and Kreysler & Associates. Sustaining sponsorship was provided by Composites One. Participating sponsors included E-Grow, OLIN, Solid Concepts, and TEIJIN Aramid USA.

MARCELO SPINA FACULTY PROFILE John Enright

1. Prism Contemporary Art Gallery Los Angeles, 2010

2. Materials Beyond Materials Conference Hernan Diaz Alonso

Chengdu Fluid Core Yard, Research Facilities, Chengdu, China, 2010

MATERIALS BEYOND MATERIALS: COMPOSITE TECTONICS CONFERENCE

Marcelo Spina

North Technology Group, image courtesy of Bill Pearson, North Sails. Aramid fibre composite sail on mold at North Sails Factory

Wolfgang Rieder, Reider Composites, image courtesy of Rieder. Fibre cement prototype facade for KAPSARC

SCI-ARC WALK AROUND UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Peter Cook

1. Undergraduate Thesis Review Robert Gilson presents Quarentena to jurors. 2. Elana Pappoff Wither and Wield… a technological fairytale… Advisor: Devyn Weiser Special Advisor: Peter Cook Robert Gilson Quarentena Advisor: Devyn Weiser 3. Leigh Jester The Labyrinth and the Sectional Object Advisor: Andrew Zago Jaitip Srisomburanananont The Meat Locker: A Narrative of Irreconcilable Figures Advisor: Florencia Pita 4. Joanna-Maria Helinurm Crystal Parasol Constructions of Mind into Architecture Advisor: Michael Rotondi Special Advisor: Eric Owen Moss Phillip Ramirez Interval Space Advisor: Herwig Baumgartner Michael Young A Home Within A Home Advisor: Hernan Diaz Alonso Naureen Meyer The Cosmetic Limit Advisor: Andrew Zago 5. Graduate Thesis Review Yu-Shan Wu presents Sectional Figures to Thom Mayne and Elena Manferdini.

Sir Peter Cook Sir Peter Cook has been a SCI-Arc visiting faculty member since 1979. He is a founder of Archigram and former Director of the Institute for Contemporary Arts and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. His enduring relationship with the school has included lecturers and visits with students from the Architectural Association, the Staedelschule School in Frankfurt and the Bartlett. In 2009, Cook curated the London Eight exhibition in the SCI-Arc Library Gallery. Last year, his inspiring graduation commencement speech was elusively titled, Let’s Fly—It’s Architecture.

Johanna-Maria Helinurm’s project is really fascinating. I eavesdropped the last few minutes of the discussion and was surprised by how ‘crabby’ everybody was being. It’s a really fantastic project— and not easy to do. Earlier Thom (Mayne) whispered to me “Hey, that one in the corner, that’s a real ‘Bartlett’ project, isn’t it?” So maybe it suits my taste—his wasn’t a loose remark. I like its fullness of fine detail. It can, in a curious way, be compared with the Ramirez project—with the stacked-up theatres—that was praised with enthusiasm. But if you praise that one to the hills then you should praise this one to the hills? No? I’ve been struck many times in these last three days by what I would call ‘culture’ issues. If the kids on both sides of the Atlantic are using the same tools, reading the same blogs and books, there are cultural differences that are more noticeable. Let’s just, for the moment, say that there is a certain irritation on the part of Americans with intricacy, even a distaste for it. There was a project for a building on an avenue in São Paulo which everybody else on the jury really liked by the ‘Americanised’ Brazilian, especially its ‘money-shot.’ I found it a-la-mode and terribly bland. So I suspect American psychology is very comfortable with the reassurance of blandness. There is bland architecture and bland spiel. Which is far worse. It came out in bundles from the so-called Power to the People contraption by Belson and Cuadra. Loads of advertising-like rhetoric and a silly twisted armature that wasn’t even pretty. Yet miraculously (strangely) it was put in the end-of-day ‘prime-time’ slot with an all-star jury. Now what are we to deduce from that? Then there was nervousness about narrative—which I really do not share. Narrative, in the last thirty years, has led to some very interesting Thesis propositions, or their equivalent. Resistance to narrative, probably, has to do with its implicit passing of Doctrine. Many teachers, including some of the best, are secretly fearful of interference with their Doctrine. Myself, I’m fascinated by other peoples’ value-systems or observances. It extends me and helps me sharpen my own value systems. Undoubtedly one of the best Theses this year, Elana Pappoff, stuck to her guns, stuck to her narrative and produced a real Thesis procedure. The drawings were intricate, but clear, and intelligently complemented by an animation video. The fact that this was not digitally produced, but fashioned out of a plasticine material, rendered it more pungent than a slick run of animation. This seemed to unnerve Hernan (Diaz Alonso)—who has set his mind on the invincibility of the digital procedure. On the other hand, Neil Denari—who remains one of my favourite calm and objective critics, kept calling us back to the fact that the clue of sensitivity and response lay directly in the model. Such critics as these (and several others during the day) are gold dust. Seriously creative talents who can inspire students and articulate, without posture, come thicker on the ground at SCIArc juries than anywhere else right now. I was amused to hear the sound of the guitar wafting across the room (Adrian Ariosa, Experimental Dissonance Amplifier 009: Vienna Music Performance Laboratory): certainly extending the language of architecture! Another real ‘original’ was Peter Welsh with his baseball hall of fame in a small Eastern town. He irritated the hell out of some of the critics, but I feel he was better than they were making out. He was politically incorrect in that he was a PERSONALITY, very macho, very clear and very enthusiastic. Amongst some academic critics there’s a reaction to his clarity and that he says, “Great. This is what I’m doing and I’m enjoying it.” Surely one should be flexible in the discussion of projects. I’m always interested in the story about the student or the personality behind the motivation. Like Gilson with his amazing graphic ability and his weird scenario of putting people who are wicked with the environment into kind of ‘spherical prison cells.’ He’s from Northern California, so the environment and the valley condition is very normal to him. Northern and Southern California are also

Peter Cook

culturally loaded: Elana is proud of being from Orange County, so in the same small room you have Northern and Southern California. I like people who use their cultural confidence in a positive way. Johanna-Maria comes from Estonia and it makes her competitive in a certain way. It’s also Estonia via the class of Greg Lynn (at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna). Yet it’s not a Greg Lynn type of project. A piece of well-developed design by Christine Forster who had been a seamstress in Berlin, From Fold To Furrow, led to a serious and enjoyable discussion of approach, system, parts and maneuvers— prompted by a student who really knew about folding. It helps to have met all these people twice before and watched the development of the projects—leaving one somewhat critical of the coercion that seems to prevail—towards producing the big-board ‘money shot’ panel. In her case, this was quite unnecessary and forced. At the Bartlett, the AA, in Australia (and many American schools) the Asians come and try picking the nuances of ‘the game’. Like Li Wang from Shanghai who made a semi-conceptual ‘street’ project for Shanghai. At the final stage, a potentially interesting idea from the middle stage was dropped in favour of a Sejima-like building. Chickening-out for something that was more orthodox: I guess because she’s nervous to return home with something ‘weirdo’: she needs a job, she needs recognition from her (local) peers and that’s a definite factor. I think this affects graduate schools even more. Some Asians are very adept at capturing a cultural brick, but few are able to throw it back. It makes the more sophisticated or oblique layers of teaching and criticism unavailable. We have to avoid setting them up, yet we should not fall into the trap of simply giving them formulae. As many ask me how to do ‘Bartlett Style’ as you have people wanting to do ‘SCI-Arc Architecture.’ It’s particularly difficult in a good school—but all too disarmingly easy in a crap school. Don’t give up—and anyway, any minute they’re going to breed their own good schools, their own architecture, their own devious and wonderful value-systems and architecture: their culture is ready to surprise us.

GRADUATE THESIS WEEKEND

Fabrizio Gallanti, Abitare

When the summer starts, the school year ends—unless you are graduating from a master program at SCI-Arc. In 2006, the calendar and format for thesis presentations was reconsidered. While bachelor candidates present thesis work at the Undergraduate Thesis and Spring Show in April, master candidates spend an intensive summer with advisors in preparation for the Graduate Thesis Weekend in September. During a two-day event ending in an all-school graduation commencement, M.Archs present their work to jurors in a public exhibition. Architect and theorist Fabrizio Gallanti reflects on his experience as a juror in an excerpt from Abitare.

Best Thesis 2010 Leigh Jester Advisor: Andrew Zago Naureen Meyer Advisor: Andrew Zago Joshua Moratto Advisor: Eric Owen Moss Jaitip Srisomburananont Advisor: Florencia Pita Michael Young Advisor: Hernan Diaz Alonso

Design juries and visiting critics act upon a very much consolidated script that has become a default procedure. Nevertheless, at SCIArc more than ever, I felt the value of this methodology that sets the ambient for ideas and concepts to be later developed, either by the students themselves or from their faculty members. In the foreword to these intensive two days, the director of SCI-Arc, Eric Owen Moss wrote, “please get comfortable being uncomfortable”.

Selected Thesis 2010 Bjørk Christensen Owen Merrick Jonathon Stahl Advisor: Peter Testa Robert Eleazer Advisor: Marcelo Spina Kristen George Advisor: Tom Wiscombe Sona Gevorkyan Advisor: Elena Manferdini Nicholas Edward Kinney Advisor: Hernan Diaz Alonso

He was right. How does it work? Each student stands in front of his or her drawings, models, animations and/or videos and explains the project to a group of 10 people, who then comment. The advisor who followed the student in the design development participates in the dialogue as well. A multitude of voices, tendencies and positions arise, stimulated by the design. Sometimes the student is at the centre of the debate. Other times the conversations drift away, turning into a display of intellectual wit and knowledge. It can become cruel, it can become grotesque, it can reveal egos—and it can be meaningful and truly support the architectural debate. It can provide the students and the audience with tips and ideas to be developed later in one’s own practice. The total landscape of the projects defines, even if unstable and shifting, the identity of individual schools. An architecture school is less and less represented by its faculty, by the depth of the research, by the structure of the courses and by its pedagogical goals. The outcomes of the single courses and of the final degrees constitute the matter that helps to grab the spirit and current condition of each school. It is not a coincidence that the academic year at SCIArc begins with this event: first year graduate students are immersed in an intense and joyful mayhem: the idea, I guess, is to make them understand as soon as possible where they are headed.

Fabrizio Gallanti Fabrizio Gallanti is an architect based in Montréal, Canada, where he is the Associate Director of Programs at the Canadian Center for Architecture. He has written for international architectural magazines Domus, A+U, 32 and Abitare, where he had been a staff writer and consultant to the editor (2007—2011). He recently curated ARCHLiFE 010, an annual international seminar held in Saint Nazaire, France, that investigates timely issues and questions raised by architectural discourse within a globalized context. Since 2008 Gallanti has run framingark.blogspot.com, a blog dedicated to architecture inside the visual arts.

Jaitip Srisomburanananont and Joshua Moratto present to jurors.

Undergraduate Thesis

Undergraduate Thesis Elana Pappoff

Undergraduate Thesis Robert Gilson

Graduate Thesis Leigh Jester

Graduate Thesis Jaitip Srisomburanananont

Undergraduate Thesis Joanna-Maria Helinurm

Undergraduate Thesis Phillip Ramirez

Graduate Thesis Michael Young

Graduate Thesis Naureen Meyer

SCI-ARC WALK AROUND UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Peter Cook

Peter Cook

GRADUATE THESIS WEEKEND

Fabrizio Gallanti, Abitare

Jaitip Srisomburanananont and Joshua Moratto present to jurors.

STUDENT NEWS

NAUREEN MEYER, JUAN PABLO ZEPEDA, AND BENEDETTA FRATI EXHIBIT IN 2X8: SOURCE AT A+D MUSEUM

1. Stadium at LA Live Juan Pablo Zepeda, Benedetta Frati Advisors: Hsinming Fung, Eric Owen Moss 2. SCI-Arc Gallery Alexis Rochas, I/O, Still Robot, 2010

Celebrating the end of another successful academic year, the AIA|LA-sponsored 2x8 exhibition invited architecture and design schools across California to submit exceptional student work for an annual exhibition recognizing emerging talent. Every year, participating schools—including SCI-Arc, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and USC among others—choose two student projects each that exemplify the schools’ core vision. Designs are then judged by a noteworthy panel of architects and designers who select the winners of the AIA|LA AOC scholarship. Themed 2x8: Source, this year’s exhibition was hosted at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles; the May 7 opening reception featured an awards ceremony and official release of the first publication documenting eight years of 2x8. Projects nominated by SCIArc were The Cosmetic Limit, a graduate thesis project by Naureen Meyer (M.Arch ‘10), and Stadium at LA Live, an undergraduate vertical studio project by Juan Pablo Zepeda (B.Arch ‘10) and exchange student Benedetta Frati. Meyer took second place in the scholarship competition for her thesis project. Historically, 2x8’s audience has been a very culturally engaged public—including architects, interior designers, allied professionals, and the thousands of students of architecture and design who are, of course, at the core of this annual exhibition. However, this year’s 2x8 marked a departure from the exhibitions of recent years, and a return to the exhibition’s original format, in which participating students were given a set volume within the gallery space to provide their own interventions that best display their work and interact with its context. 2x8 2011 was also a transitional exhibit, looking toward the future with an invited faculty competition to design the 2012 edition.

Open Season 2011 SCI-Arc Career Connection Open Season facilitates introductions between current students and SCIArc alumni in the professional design world, encouraging alumni and professional partners to observe—and potentially recruit—students presenting their studio and thesis work. Participating firms and alumni include: 3Design and Architecture Aidin Khoei (M.Arch ‘02) Ball-Nogues Studio Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ’93) James Jones (M.Arch ’05) Gaston Nogues (B.Arch ’93) Bestor Architecture Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ‘92) Clive Wilkinson Architects Cosica Day HDR Laura Burkhalter Studio Laura Burkhalter (B.Arch ’00) design-initiatives Vlado Valkov (M.Arch ’04) Gabor + Allen Patrick Allen (M.Arch ’00) Glendale Urban Design Studio Stephanie Reich (M.Arch ’93) GMPA Architects Sangduk Mo (M.Arch ’08) HNTB Sang Dae Lee (M.Arch ’04) Ruben Markarian (B.Arch ’05) hughes umbanhowar architects John Umbanhowar (M.Arch ‘98) Jones, Partners: Architecture Steven Purvis (M.Arch ‘06) lee + mundwiler architects Cara Lee (M.Arch ‘96) Lehrer Architects Nerin Kadribegovic (M.Arch ’03) OLIN Shimoda Design Group Rail LA Alexander Webb (M.Arch ‘06) Scott Mitchell Design Scott Mitchell (M.Arch ’02) [ Studio Collective ] Christian Schultz (M.Arch ’01) Tima Winter Inc Design Tima Bell (M.Arch ‘00) New Student Events The admissions office is reaching out to prospective students. This year, events were held in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Sessions feature SCI-Arc faculty speakers, examples of faculty and student work, as well as portfolio reviews. SCI-Arc alumni have been active partners in encouraging attendance, providing venues, and sharing their experiences. If you would like to assist with the recruitment efforts, please contact kirstie@sciarc.edu.

Naureen Meyer, The Cosmetic Limit Advisor: Andrew Zago

Joseph Brown and Hop Pollonais, Auricle

LOS ANGELES RIVER ARTISTS AND BUSINESS ASSOCIATION AWARD JOSEPH BROWN AND HOPE POLLONAIS COMPETITION TO BUILD ON TRACTION AVENUE SCI-Arc students Joseph Brown (M.Arch ‘13) and Hope Pollonais (M.Arch ‘13) won a competition organized by the Los Angeles River Artist and Business Association (LARABA) to design a sculpture for Downtown LA’s first doggy park. Located on an oddly shaped 6,000 sq.ft. lot on the corner of Molino and 4th Streets, the Arts District Dog Park opened in summer 2010 and has since been a local success story. After seeing the lot sit unused, LAPD officer Jack Richter and neighborhood advocate John Saslow pitched the idea of a dog park to the Honda family, owners of the Honda Plaza in Little Tokyo. For the SCI-Arc design duo, “man’s best friend” has offered not only companionship but also inspiration for their winning installation, Auricle—which “celebrates the form and function of dog ear anatomy.” The sculpture seeks to engage and benefit owner and dog, using modules/stations to promote physical activity and relaxation. The proposed method of construction is steamed bent wood contoured to accomplish the differential form of the dog ear, as well as to maintain a material lightness on the already small site.

PUBLICATIONS

IN PRINT SCI-Arc Magazine Issue 002 Editor in Chief Hsinming Fung

SCI-Arc Gallery 2002-10 (AADCU, 2010) Over the last decade the Southern California Institute of Architecture has invited architects to trial their ideas in site-specific gallery designs, collaborating with SCI-Arc students in the realization of their installations. This comprehensive retrospective of 35 inspirational exhibitions includes photography, plans and architects’ comments, plus edited transcriptions of gallery discussions chaired by institute director Eric Owen Moss. Available: SCI-Arc Supply Store and Amazon REVIEW: SCI-ARC GALLERY 2002-10 For the past eight years, SCI-Arc has invited a succession of avant-garde architects, many of whom practice and teach in LA to create an installation as a collaborative venture in the SCI-Arc gallery. This handsome paperback documents 35 structures, and reprints the discussions between the participants and Eric Owen Moss—who contributed an installation of his own. The gallery is an awkward space, skinny and tall, and that challenges architects to defy its limitations. Each project is fabricated by students in-house and becomes an extension of the studios that give this school its reputation for turning out hands-on problem solvers. Some of the structures are pieces of buildings in the making: Michele Saee tested his concepts for the swirling glass facades of the Publicis drug store in Paris, and Jakob + MacFarlane were clearly thinking about their City of Fashion on the Seine. Others are largely conceptual, including Steven Holl’s elegant Porosity and Griffin Enright’s Keep Off the Grass. There’s a wonderful mix of ideas and it should encourage more aficionados of the new to venture downtown and see each project as it is staged. Joshua White has done a good job of documenting process and the final product in his photographs, but nothing beats the experience of walking through these high-tech follies. –Michael Webb, FORM Magazine

Cleantech Corridor: An Open Ideas Competition (SCI-Arc Publications, 2011), Edited by David Bergman and Peter Zellner What is it about this place? Why is it logical for Los Angeles to be a locus of activity for Cleantech industries? What can catalyze and make that happen? The answer, hopefully, is architectural and urban design. The Future Initiatives program held its second competition around Los Angeles urban issues, focusing on downtown’s Cleantech Corridor. Published with the support of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and sponsored by The Architect’s Newspaper, winning entries from 70 professional and student proposals from 11 countries are featured with jury discussions and essays. Available: SCI-Arc Supply Store

Log 21 Eric Owen Moss, Parametricism and Pied Piperism: Responding to Patrik Schumacher (Winter 2011) The Winter 2011 issue of Log features a tug-of-war of ideas and compelling reflections on where architecture might go, running across time from preservation to parametricism, with insightful entries from around the globe in between. Is parametricism the next great style after modernism or is our understanding of progress misguided altogether? Will preservation make its march around the world faster than the parametric Pied Piper? Leading voices chart new courses for form, note the blistering speed of preservation globally (with some doubts about its authenticity), dispel some myths, and tell true stories of names, weight, and archives. Available: Amazon

In the Absence of Raimund Abraham (Hatje Cantz, 2010) Edited by Peter Noever and Wolf D. Prix The architect Raimund Abraham (1933–2010) stood for radicalism and utopias. As a nonconformist, an essential critic, and champion of a fundamental architectural stance, Abraham campaigned tirelessly for architecture’s collective renewal. In honor of Raimund Abraham the Vienna Architecture Conference 2010 was staged. This publication documents the keynote lecture, speeches, and discussions held throughout the conference and a number of additional contributions. A DVD with Raimund Abraham’s last lecture, held only hours before his death, is enclosed in this publication. Available: Hatje Cantz

COMING SOON Onramp, No. 3 (SCI-Arc, September 2011) Edited by Florencia Pita A publication of selected work by SCI-Arc graduate and undergraduate students, the third edition of Onramp will feature diverse, compelling and unorthodox projects and essays from the 2009-2010 academic years.

Seoul Fortress Wall: Boundary and Beyond (September 2010) Jin-Ho Park and Eric Owen Moss Students from Inha University’s D-LAB (Department of Architecture) were instructed by professors Jin-Ho Park and Eric Owen Moss in an intense workshop to produce work which aims to explore creative concepts to develop projects with a mix of old and new traditions for the historic Seoul Fortress Wall.

Contributing Writers David Bergman Peter Cook John Enright Hsinming Fung Fabrizio Gallanti Darin Johnstone Dora Epstein Jones Eric Owen Moss Elisabeth Neigert (M.Arch ‘10) Marcelo Spina Peter Testa Roger Vincent Michael Webb Peter Zellner SCI-Arc Leadership Eric Owen Moss Director Hsinming Fung Director of Academic Affairs Hernan Diaz Alonso Graduate Programs Chair John Enright Undergraduate Program Chair Jamie Bennett Chief Operating Officer Office of Development and Alumni Affairs Bill Kramer Chief Development Officer Dawn Mori Associate Director of Corporate, Foundation and Government Relations Aimee Richer Associate Director of Annual Giving and Alumni Affairs Rebecca Silva Development and Alumni Affairs Associate SCI-Arc Publications Lisa Wiscombe Director of Publications and Creative Services, Editor Georgiana Ceausu Media and Public Relations

Raimund Abraham [UN]BUILT (2nd Revised and Enlarged Edition, Springer, 2011) The book is an updated edition and contains the complete work of architect Raimund Abraham to include his latest realized projects. Texts are by Raimund Abraham, Kenneth Frampton, John Hejduk, Eric Owen Moss, Wolf D. Prix, Wieland Schmied, and Lebbeus Woods. With an introductory essay by Norbert Miller. Available: Amazon

Photography Tamea Agle Karim Attoui Julian Brummitt Tiziana Costamagna Beth Dubber Awol Erizku Lida Mahabadi Patrick McMullan Sanna Fisher Payne Rafael Sampaio Rocha Jennie Warren Designed by SCI-Arc Publications ©2011 SCI-Arc Publications

STUDENT NEWS

NAUREEN MEYER, JUAN PABLO ZEPEDA, AND BENEDETTA FRATI EXHIBIT IN 2X8: SOURCE AT A+D MUSEUM

1. Stadium at LA Live Juan Pablo Zepeda, Benedetta Frati Advisors: Hsinming Fung, Eric Owen Moss 2. SCI-Arc Gallery Alexis Rochas, I/O, Still Robot, 2010

Naureen Meyer, The Cosmetic Limit Advisor: Andrew Zago

Joseph Brown and Hop Pollonais, Auricle

PUBLICATIONS

IN PRINT SCI-Arc Magazine Issue 002 Editor in Chief Hsinming Fung

David Hertz (B.Arch ‘83) Main Event 9, Los Angeles, 2010

Rahinah Ibrahim (M.Arch ‘90) GreenBuild Expo, Manchester, UK, 2010

Thom Mayne Architecture and Beauty Symposium, SCI-Arc Pavilion, 2010

ALUMNI FUND SCHOLARSHIP

LEADERSHIP

ALUM DONATES VANITY FAIR CAMPAIGN PROCEEDS TO ESTABLISH SCHOLARSHIP

SCI-ARC FOUNDER THOM MAYNE IS ELECTED TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

David Hertz (B.Arch ‘83), founder and president of Studio of Environmental Architecture (SEA), has been recognized for his contribution to the environmental and design communities for nearly three decades. His earliest achievements include the development and design use of Syndecrete, an advanced composite using natural minerals and recycled materials as its primary ingredients. His products of environmentally-friendly Syndecrete have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Smithsonian Museum of American History, and the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, receiving the 1990 Progressive Architecture Magazine’s Young Architects Competition, the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Competition and Forum, the 1993 Design Leadership Award sponsored by Inc. Magazine and Corporate Design, and an AIA Service Award for Craftsmanship. SEA has become a model for the environmentally conscious enterprise, winning the City of Santa Monica Sustainable Leadership Award in 2004 as well as the Eco-Home Network’s Sustainable Living Award—the same year he gained LEED accreditation. In 2008, Hertz was elected to the College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects as its youngest member. Selected by Rado watches and Vanity Fair in 2010 as an honoree for their “Unlimited Spirit” advertising campaign, celebrating philanthropic efforts led by design industry visionaries, Hertz hosted the campaign launch party at his private residence in Venice, California. Proceeds were donated to SCI-Arc to set up a scholarship fund for Sustainable Practice in design. The Scholarship for Sustainable Practice was awarded to B.Arch student and Solar Decathlon participant Paul Ferrier Cambon.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis has been elected a SCI-Arc Trustee. “Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. “His addition to the Board is indicative of the fact that SCI-Arc continues to re-imagine the content of architecture.” A product of the anti-establishment of the 1960s, Mayne was among seven faculty members and approximately 40 students who left Cal Poly Pomona in 1972 to create SCI-Arc, “a college without walls.” Since then, he has been a frequent guest, juror, lecturer, and generous supporter of the school. As SCI-Arc prepares to turn 40 next year, Mayne’s appointment to the Board of Trustees complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth physically and programmatically. “Thom is an incredible addition to the team at a time when SCI-Arc is reaching new levels of academic achievement with a Board striving to meet ever-increasing levels of excellence,” says Jerry Neuman, SCI-Arc Board Chairman. Mayne’s firm, Morphosis Architects, was founded as an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and rigorous research. Since its formation in 1972, the first year of SCI-Arc’s history, he has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture awards, more than 100 American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and numerous other design recognitions. Under his direction, the firm has been the subject of various group and solo exhibitions and are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco MOMA; the MAK in Vienna; the Israel Museum in Jerusalem; and the FRAC Centre in France. Some of his best-known commissions include the Caltrans Building in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Federal Building, 41 Cooper Square (The Cooper Union’s new academic building in Manhattan), the Phare Tower in Paris, and the FLOAT House (a pre-fabricated housing prototype in New Orleans). In addition to co-founding SCI-Arc, Mayne has remained active in academia. He has held teaching positions at Columbia, Yale (Eliel Saarinen Chair in 1991), Harvard Graduate School of Design (Eliot Noyes Chair in 1998), California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, SCI-Arc, Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and several other international institutions. He is currently a Distinguished Professor in the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Mayne holds a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California. He and his wife, Blythe Alison-Mayne, who holds an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, make their home in Los Angeles and New York.

RAHINAH IBRAHIM WOMEN IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT SCHOLARSHIP Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim (M.Arch ‘90) is no stranger to firsts. While at SCI-Arc, she won First Choice Design for implementation of Step Up on Second, a Santa Monica facility for the homeless community with mental illness. At 28, she became the first female project manager in Malaysia, working for a commercial property developer in Kuala Lumpur. In 2000, she led a committee at the University Putra Malaysia (UPM) in establishing a new architecture program. Last year, Ibrahim made a multi-year gift to establish the Women in the Built Environment Scholarship, the first of its kind at SCIArc. A scholarship recipient herself, Ibrahim has a strong commitment to giving back to open up opportunities to women who may otherwise not have the means to pursue their academic goals. Describing herself as a “late bloomer,” Ibrahim used her interest in art to communicate what she saw about people and the environment. After completing her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at the University of Washington in 1987, she pursued a Masters at SCI-Arc, where she “finally understood how to put all the complex issues together as an architect.” She completed her PhD in Construction Engineering and Management at Stanford in 2005. An Associate Professor and Deputy Dean for Research, Innovations, and Graduate studies at the Faculty of Design and Architecture, UPM, Ibrahim actively contributes to research in the field of innovative integrated design for sustainable product development. The first Women in the Built Environment Scholarship was awarded in Spring 2011 to M.Arch student Lanna B. Semel, who is also a participant in the Solar Decathlon.

REPORT FROM THE ALUMNI COUNCIL

Dear Fellow Alumni and Friends of SCI-Arc, Recollecting Forward—the title for SCI-Arc’s recent celebration for the purchase of its Santa Fe Depot building—is an apt title to describe the SCI-Arc experience that has existed for almost 4 decades. As one of the first graduates of SCI-Arc, and currently an active member of the Alumni Council, I feel fortunate to be part of an organization that continues to embrace change, to grow, and to prosper. With each passing year, the SCI-Arc alumni network has strengthened in both numbers and reputation. In establishing a permanent home for SCI-Arc in Downtown LA, this is yet another milestone in our extraordinary history. The potential for further growth is limitless. Included in the pages of this magazine are the recollections of our accomplishments over the last six months: new academic programs and facilities, new scholarships, new alumni-inspired venues for networking events, new continuing education opportunities, new leadership, and as always—new and innovative work that is reflective of the SCI-Arc spirit. Looking forward, I hope you will join me in shaping the content of what will be featured in SCI-Arc Magazine 003. We’d love to include more pieces written by alumni, photos of alumni at events, alumni projects and class notes, and of course, stories of alumni-established scholarships and philanthropic gifts that are essential for the continued growth of the school. To get more involved, or to share your ideas about the direction of SCI-Arc or the SCI-Arc Magazine, please contact Aimee Richer, SCI-Arc’s Associate Director, Annual Giving & Alumni Affairs, at aimee_richer@sciarc.edu. On behalf of the Alumni Council, thank you for your ongoing support of SCI-Arc making it what it is today. We eagerly embrace what is still yet to come… Sincerely,

Dean Nota, FAIA (B.Arch ’76) Founding Student and 2010/ 2011 Alumni Council Member

Board of Trustees SCI-Arc’s Board of Trustees is charged with the governance, accountability, and sustainability of the school. The board also works to ensure SCI-Arc upholds the mission it set out to accomplish 39 years ago: To test the limits of architecture in order to transform existing conditions into the designs of the future. Chairman Jerry Neuman Vice Chair Joe Day SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss Treasurer Dan Swartz Secretary Tom Gilmore Faculty Representative Dwayne Oyler Alumni Representative Paras Nanavati Student Representative Chris Skeens Board Members at Large William Fain Anthony Ferguson Frank O. Gehry John R. Geresi Elyse Grinstein (honorary) William Gruen Scott Hughes Ray Kappe (honorary) Thom Mayne Merry Norris Greg Otto Kevin Ratner Ian Robertson (honorary) Michael Rotondi Nick Seierup

1. Main Event 9 SCI-Arc Board of Trustees Member Merry Norris, Brendan MacFarlane (B.Arch ’84) Jan Perry, Eric Owen Moss Dean Nota (B.Arch ’76), Linda Nota Rick Gooding (B.Arch ’84), Annie Chu ( 2. New York Deborah Schneiderman (M.Arch ’96), Stephanie Bowling Zeigler, Eric Zeigler (M.Arch ’96), Gordon Kipping (M.Arch ’95), Jackie Greenberg (M.Arch ’95) Alumni Eric Raphael Battino (M.Arch ‘08), Matthew James Post (M.Arch ’07) and friend Hsinming Fung, Ate Atema (M.Arch ’93), Anne Reiselbach, Bill Kramer, Abigail Scheuer (M.Arch ’93), SCI-Arc Visual Studies Coordinator Andrew Zago 3. London Barbara Ann Spencer (B.Arch ’87) Ben Kikkawa (M.Arch ’09), Konstantinos Lambrinopoulos (M.Arch ’96) SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss Patrick Schumacher, Wolf D. Prix 4. Bay Area Jonathan Odom (B.Arch ’09) Chip Minnick (M.Arch ’98) Kamran Arshad (B.Arch ’95), Jackie Duncanson, William Duncanson (B.Arch ‘95), Emily Jagoda (M.Arch ‘95)

ALUMNI EVENTS

CLASS NOTES

MAIN EVENT 9

1970s

1990s

SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss welcomed alumni and guests, presenting the school’s key accomplishments in the last year, as well as recent leadership developments. Moss was followed by Chief Development Officer Bill Kramer, Board of Trustees Chairman Jerry Neuman, and Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry— herself a former admissions director at SCI-Arc. Perry presented Moss with a proclamation, naming SCI-Arc the education and innovation anchor of the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. This year’s Main Event ceremony honored alumnus Brendan MacFarlane (B.Arch ‘84), co-founder of Paris-based firm Jakob+MacFarlane, who received the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award for his significant contribution to the design and architecture professions. Last year’s honorees, alumni Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ‘92) and Jennifer Siegal (M.Arch ‘94), presented the award.

Dean Nota, FAIA (B.Arch ‘74), principal of Hermosa Beach-based Dean Nota Architect, recently completed two residential projects in the South Bay—the Yu Residence on the Hermosa Beach Strand and the Olivares Residence in Manhattan Beach. Both homes were shown in an exclusive Manhattan Beach home tour organized by Arts Manhattan in April. Nota’s work is featured in two new publications: Avi Friedman’s Narrow Houses, published by Princeton Architectural Press, and California Cool: Residential Modernism Reborn, by San Francisco photographer Russell Abraham.

Michael Poris (M.Arch ‘90) has recently completed 10 years of service on the SCI-Arc Board of Trustees. He is an active board member of the Heidleberg Project and the Architectural Salvage Warehouse, both in Detroit, as well as a museum committee member at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. His firm, Michael Poris Associates, was recently honored with seven Detroit Home Awards for two residential projects—taking first place in all categories entered. Poris is currently designing the Woodward Garden Block development in Midtown Detroit, which includes renovation of a historic theatre into a 1,200-person performance space, and designing a 60-unit HUD apartment building. In addition, Poris has been working with the City of Detroit Downtown Development Authority and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation on façade improvements and solar-powered lighting for six vacant historic downtown commercial buildings.

ALUMNI AND FRIENDS COCKTAIL RECEPTIONS: THE BAY AREA, LONDON, NEW ORLEANS AND NEW YORK To recognize and reconnect with SCI-Arc’s alumni, a series of national and international social events were created to bring alumni and friends closer to the school. Each event was led by a SCI-Arc director or chair and included key faculty. The first in the series of four Spring alumni events was February’s Bay Area Alumni and Friends Cocktail Party held at the offices of alumnus William Duncanson (B.Arch ‘95). This San Francisco event welcomed a wide range of SCI-Arc alums from Northern California. The London event in March was hosted at the Alison Jacques Gallery designed by alumnus Alexander Maybank (M.Arch ‘98), marking SCI-Arc’s first international alumni event. The party was attended by London-based alumni, as well neighboring European countries, including Greece and Italy. April’s New York City event was held at the Gasser Grunert Gallery in the Metal Shutter Houses designed by SCI-Arc alumnus Shigeru Ban, resulting in the biggest alumni turn-out yet—boasting almost 150 guests thanks to the reach of NYC Alumni Host Committee members Bill Brunner, Jon Drezner, Gordon Kipping, David Nosanchuk, Todd Rouhe, Abigail Scheuer, and Benita Welch. The final alumni event of the spring was May’s Alumni and Friends Cocktail Reception at the 2011 AIA Convention in New Orleans, held at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery.

1980s David Hidalgo (B.Arch ‘82) of David Hidalgo Architects had two projects featured in an article published last year by Urban Land Institute (ULI), “Retooling RETAIL Next-Generation Models.” His Plaza Mexico in Lynwood, California appeared in a different ULI piece that focused on models of economic recovery, while his La Gran Plaza in Forth Worth, Texas was listed among 10 shopping centers around the world that serve as exemplary revitalization projects. Hildago’s recent work has included commercial centers throughout Southern California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Nevada, with special emphasis on the renovation and rejuvenation of aging retail centers. Edmund Einy (B.Arch ‘84), a design director at gkkworks, has received a NEXT LA Design Award from AIA Los Angeles for his Grass-Road House in Simi Valley and a Design Award from AIA San Fernando Valley for a house designed by gkkworks in Alibaug, India. Morgan Connolly (M.Arch ‘85), owner of Morgan Connolly Architects, is currently developing a guide book for tours given by the Institute of Classical Art & Architecture in San Francisco. Connolly’s work also includes a research project on 18th century Swedish manor houses, sponsored by a grant she received from the Swedish government. Her recent projects include a winery in Northern California. Ned Engs (M.Arch ‘89) of E4 Architects appeared in an ArchDaily article discussing the challenges of practicing in a slow economy. The feature showcased several projects by Engs, including the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, the Alpine Street Residence in Pasadena, and the Avenue del Mar Residence in Carpinteria, California.

Elissa Scrafano (M.Arch ‘90) of Scrafano Architects received a 2010 AIA Design Award for the serene retreat designed for musician Nate Mendel. A collaboration between Scrafano Architects and Gus Duffy Architects, the project was also featured by Design Bureau Magazine. Scrafano’s collaborative architecture firm comprises several SCI-Arc alumni. Christopher Mercier (M.Arch ‘91) exhibited some of his recent paintings in the Solid Stripes Group Show hosted at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles. Among recent projects, Mercier and partner Douglas Pierson of the Inglewood-based (fer)Studio, together with Design East of La Brea (DeLab), hosted an event dubbed CaliFERnication to present their new master plan for the city of Inglewood, which includes an MTA station. Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ‘92) of Barbara Bestor Architecture has been nominated for a 2011 James Beard Foundation Award in the restaurant design category for Pitfire Pizza in Los Angeles. She produced a ceiling-mounted light sculpture for the 2010 MOCA Gala and recently designed ¡Disco Silencio! for the SCIArc Gallery, the latter featured widely in publications and blogs including T Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Dwell, LA Weekly, Interior Design, and Architect. Bestor is currently Chair of the Graduate School of Architecture at Woodbury University. Geofrey Collins (M.Arch ‘92), of Topanga-based studio Geofrey Collins Living Architecture, has designed a new house in Venice as well as a remodel in Mar Vista, California. Due for completion this year is a pyramid house in Tokyo.

Andrew Grieg (M.Arch ’92) is a founding director of UK-based Greig Ling Structural Engineers and Greig Ling Architecture, whose major projects include a flagship retail store in London’s West End, a Baptist Church in Tulsa, private residences throughout the UK, and conservation work in London. Recently completed buildings include a $1.7 million residential complex and a $6.6 million mixed-use scheme in London. Grieg serves as a senior lecturer in Tectonics and a visiting critic at the Kingston School of Architecture in London, where he founded the Constructed Environment Course for graduate students. He is also currently working on his own house in South London, where he lives with his wife and three children. Jason Shirriff (B.Arch ‘92) completed the 149 Mason St. Apartments, a 52-unit studio apartment transnational housing for formerly homeless individuals in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. In 2010, he won a personal architectural illustration Award of Excellence from the American Society of Illustrators for his ink design sketch Dubai Series #4. Shirriff is an Associate Architect at HKIT Architects in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jeremy Levine (M.Arch ‘93), principal of Jeremy Levine Design, is featured in Dwell’s special issue “100 Kitchens We Love” for his sustainable kitchen renovation project in which he took an old, small kitchen in Eagle Rock—a Los Angeles neighborhood— and opened it up to sunlight, warmth, and space. Most recently, Levine lectured at the Cavim Institute of Design and Architecture in Tel Aviv, Israel. Gaston Nogues (B.Arch ‘93) and Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ‘94) of BallNogues Studio were featured in Architect magazine in connection with their office move from Los Angeles’ Old Bank District to a much larger studio space in nearby Boyle Heights. The design duo was also nominated by Papermag in the magazine’s “Beautiful People 2011” edition. Ball-Nogues Studio is currently at work on a project commissioned by the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. Iris Anna Regn (M.Arch ’94) of DurfeeRegn is currently working on the Broodwork collaborative series, which includes multi-disciplinary exhibitions and programs to explore, understand, and interrelate the spaces of the individual, the family, and community in the city. Regn is also a contributing writer to the Herman Miller Lifework Blog. Jennifer Siegal (M.Arch ‘94) of the Los Angeles-based Office of Mobile Design received a Visions and Voices grant from University of Southern California, where she is a Visiting Professor. The grant will fund Motopia, a symposium on mobile and prefabricated architecture to be held at USC in November 2011. Siegal

lectured at the Adaptive Architecture conference on Bio-Inspired Materials at the Building Center in London. Her work is scheduled to be featured in Temporary Architecture Now from Taschen, Habiter un ConContainer froom Ouest France/Edilarge, Low Budget Houses from Loft Publications, and magazines including Azure and Fast Company. Siegal is expecting a baby girl on June 5. Jeffrey Allsbrook (M.Arch ‘95), co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Standard, has recently completed a new retail + restaurant complex in Laguna Beach, California. Informed by traditional Bahamian style, the concept store is the first restaurant design done by Standard and also marks the first time that Allsbrook’s firm has designed furniture. Standard is also responsible for the design of the James Perse and Jenni Kayne boutiques. Gordon Kipping (M.Arch ‘95), principal of New York-based G TECTS, has been named architect of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, which is set to occupy a 14,000 sq. ft. location in a new building across the street from the legendary Apollo Theatre. Kipping is collaborating with the NY office of Bruce Mau Design on the exhibition design. This summer, in addition to relocating to a new 5,000 sq. ft. office on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, G TECTS is scheduled to release its first monograph, G1—a 1,245-page mega-volume documenting 60 projects designed during the firm’s first 10 years. Janice Shimizu (M.Arch ‘97) and Joshua Coggeshall (M.Arch ‘97) of Shimizu + Coggeshall Architects won an AIA Indianapolis Merit Award for their Tuna Canyon Residence in Topanga, while a residence designed by the two on 25th Street in Santa Monica earned a LEED Platinum Certificate. Coggeshall is Graduate Director of the Architecture program at Ball State University in Indiana, where his thesis students won an R+D citation from Architect magazine in 2010. Shimizu is a design faculty member and just completed a project in collaboration with Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources. Andrea Lenardin Madden (M.Arch ‘98) contributed to the new publication In the Absence of Raimund Abraham, published by Hatje Cantz, in a follow up to the conference with the same name hosted by MAK Vienna. Edited by Peter Noever and Wolf Prix, the book also includes contributions by SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss, and faculty members Michael Rotondi and Alexis Rochas. Paola Giaconia (M.Arch ‘99) has recently completed work on the new Cultural Center of the medieval town of Ranica in Northern Italy, which houses a public library, an auditorium, a kindergarten, and a school for dance

and theatre. Early this year, the Center was selected by an international jury chaired by Swiss architect Aurelio Galfetti as the best public building completed in its Province in the last 10 years. Giaconia is a partner at Image, a consultancy based in Florence, Italy that unites editorial work, independent research, creative thinking, and communication in the field of architecture.

2000s Adam Goldstein (M.Arch ‘01) and Christian Schultz (M.Arch ‘01) of the Santa Monica based firm [Studio Collective] recently completed work on The Spare Room cocktail lounge, one of Hollywood’s latest entertainment destinations located at the Roosevelt Hotel. The lounge opened in early 2011 and has been featured in magazines and city blogs including Vogue, LA Weekly, ThirstyinLA, and blackbookmag. The firm completed hospitality projects for SBE Entertainment, Thompson Hotels, and concept designs for Quicksilver—including the brand’s promenade flagship store in Santa Monica. Currently, Goldstein and Schultz are developing a 3,000 sq. ft. penthouse design for the Roosevelt Hotel, as well as an oceanview restaurant in Malibu, a nightclub in Kansas City, and private residences in San Marino, Hollywood Hills, and Manhattan Beach. In 2010, Schultz was on DNA with KCRW’s Frances Anderton, and Goldstein received a “Wave of the Future Award” from Hospitality Design. [Studio Collective] was founded in 2009 by Goldstein, Schultz, and partner Leslie Kale. Ramsey Daham (M.Arch ’03), founder and owner of the design practice Breakform Design, was featured in Standard Magazine’s 2010 Holiday Issue for their design and fabrication of a Santa Monica bar. Breakform’s recent work includes the installation of a glass pivot door as a security feature in a private residence. Nerin Kadribegovic (M.Arch ’03) and his firm Lehrer Architects won the AIA 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture for their design of the Registrar-Recorder County Clerk Elections Operations Center. Late in 2010, the firm also received an AIA|LA Award of Merit for Jerry’s Place at Shalom Institute, for which Kadribegovic was project architect. As Director of Operations, he was instrumental in establishing a partnership between Lehrer Architects and WRL to form a brand new firm, LAWRL Design, which features vertically integrated design with over 180 architects and engineers. In addition, after winning an international competition for designers under 35, with over 400 entries from 11 countries, Kadribegovic was invited to exhibit his newest furniture line at the 2011 Mixer Design Expo in Belgrade. He is a member of the AIA and serves on the SCI-Arc Alumni Council.

Bryan Flaig (M.Arch ‘05), principal of Undisclosable, partnered with The Creators Project to bring to the Coachella 2011 grounds a monumental interactive installation collaboration between J. Spaceman of the beloved “space rock” band Spiritualized and acclaimed UK filmmaker Jonathan Glazer. Flaig designed a cathedral-like space with isolated pools of light, each containing a different component of Spiritualized’s most famous track, “Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space.” Fumio Hirakawa (M.Arch ’05) and Marina Topunova (M.Arch ’06), both partners of the New York-based practice 24° Studio, were among the international winners selected to build and show their design in the container exhibition hosted at the 2010 Toyko Design Week, following a competition organized by Design Association NPO of Japan and Dezeen UK. 24° Studio has locations in New York and Kobe, Japan. Aaron Leppanen (M.Arch ’06) of Belzberg Architects in Santa Monica was Project Designer and Project Manager of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, completed in late 2010. The project was featured widely, including in articles published by the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, and ArchDaily. Steven Purvis (M.Arch ‘06) exhibited work alongside faculty member Wes Jones in the SOUPERgreen exhibition hosted in February at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles. The show featured five propositions that explore the way in which technology can promote and enhance a far more constructive engagement between architecture and the environment. Purvis is principal of APLSD Design. Ninaki Priddy (B.Arch ‘07) of Los Angeles launched her luxury jewelry collection Ninaki in late 2010. Her jewelry line was featured in the December 2010 issue of the fashion magazine Marie Claire. Michael Arellanes II (B.Arch ‘08) of MA2 appeared in Frame’s April/May 2011 issue for his design of the Taiwan Tower Competition. He is currently pursuing a M.Arch 2 degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP).

2010s Robert Lisauskas (SCIFI ‘10) and Scott Plante (SCIFI ‘10), founders of the Los Angeles-based Red Oxide, received first place for their competition entry rad, for Cincinnati’s Five Design Challenge. The competition was aimed at improving Cincinnati’s urban core through the re-imagination of its mass transit infrastructures.

ALUMNI EVENTS

CLASS NOTES

MAIN EVENT 9

1970s

1990s

BOMBSHELL: SCI-ARC/CALTECH SOLAR DECATHLON Aptly labeled America’s Solar Decathlon, the SCI-Arc/Cal Tech team agreed to participate in an exhibition of new technical acumen based on the Energy Department’s promise to exhibit the “re-inventing our housing future” models on the Mall in Washington DC… Substantiates the President’s State of the Union call for a new American Sputnik response, you say? Nope. —Eric Owen Moss, Huffington Post, February 21, 2011 THE FOLLOWING IS A SELECTED CHRONOLOGY OF SCI-ARC’S THIRD PARTY DISCOURSE WITH SECRETARIES CHU AND SALAZAR REGARDING THE CHANGE OF VENUE FOR THE 2011 SOLAR DECATHLON:

Reed Finlay Reed Finley (M.Arch ‘10) received his Bachelor in Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2000. He is a LEED AP practitioner and believes in architecture’s responsibility to preserve the future and to enliven the present. Elisabeth Neigert Elisabeth Neigert (M.Arch ‘10) received her Bachelor in Literature from the University of Kansas in 2002. Her work centers on the environment, green architecture, and architecture’s potential to impact and solve social issues. Both Finlay and Neigert received a Merit Award in 2009 for their work on the Solar Decathlon, teaming SCI-Arc with Caltech to create a solar-powered home. They currently hold a fellowship position at SCI-Arc while acting as Project Managers for the SCI-Arc/ Caltech Solar Decathlon Team.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2011

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011

1:38 PM Reed Finlay [SCI-Arc/Caltech Team Project Manager] BOMBSHELL_Solar Decathlon

3:24PM George Nolte [U.S. Department of Energy Contracting Officer] Solar Decathlon 2011 Subcontract

Everyone ready for this news?... THE SOLAR DECATHLON WILL NO LONGER BE ON THE NATIONAL MALL IN D.C. The only potential silver lining is that one alternative location is L.A…

Please sign under the acknowledgement for the Subcontract at your earliest convenience. (After a year of waiting for the contract.)

3:44 PM Jamie Bennett [SCI-Arc Chief Operating Officer] Re:BOMBSHELL_Solar Decathlon … this is crazy… Can Harry [Atwater, Caltech SD Team Advisor] call the Secretary of the Dept of Energy? (left word for Harry)… Keep cool… and let’s get busy to seek out ideas to influence the outcome.

4:41 PM Bill Kramer [SCI-Arc Chief Development Officer] Re:BOMBSHELL_Solar Decathlon THIS IS AWFUL! Perhaps we can take over the vacant lot next door for this…

6:23 PM Eric Owen Moss [SCI-Arc Director] Re:BOMBSHELL_Solar Decathlon Let’s keep this coherent and cool. We’ll sort out the information and come to a conclusion. Let’s omit the histrionic nomenclature.

The Subcontractor (Team) shall not make without prior review and approval by NREL, any publicity release of any nature of general, non-technical information in connection with this subcontract. —Article 11- Publicity Release and Public Affairs

8:14 PM Elisabeth Neigert [SCI-Arc Team Project Manager] Joint letter from faculty supporting the Solar Decathlon teams Can you approve this? The quicker we get approval to sign/support the better... Dear SD2011 Faculty Colleagues: I’m writing to you to inquire if you would be willing to sign a joint faculty advisory letter to the Secretaries of Energy and the Interior asking them to reinstate the National Mall as the venue for SD2011… I’VE BEEN ADVISED BY OUR FEDERAL LIAISON OFFICER THAT I MAY SIGN SUCH A LETTER... —University of Maryland, Principal Investigator.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2011

In support of the historic effort underway to protect, improve, and restore the National Mall, the Department of Energy, in conjunction with THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, HAS DECIDED TO SEEK A NEW SITE FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SOLAR DECATHLON 2011…… The Department of Energy is presently researching alternative venues to hold the event this fall. —U.S. Department of Energy blog

7:05 PM Jamie Re: Joint letter from faculty supporting the Solar Decathlon teams OK for Wes Jones and Dwayne Oyler [SCI-Arc SD Faculty Advisors] to sign if they wish.

MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 2011

7:30 PM Elisabeth Update from National Mall Reinstatement Effort The chairman of the subcommittee is Diane Feinstein… this is right in line with the strategy of focusing our efforts on our Congress people. Would you agree that it is our job as the California team to contact Diane- especially since she is chair of the subcommittee and our… senator?

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2011

SOLAR DECATHLON BOOTED FROM THE NATIONAL MALL? The U.S. Department of Energy has announced mid way through this year’s student design competition that they will be abandoning post on the National Mall. 20 teams totaling more than 1,000 students have been developing their site-specific entries for over a year, and the news comes as a huge disappointment, and inconvenience. Some have threatened to drop out. Others are working to reverse the decision before a new site is named… MUCH TO THE CHAGRIN OF STUDENTS, WHO HAVE ALREADY SUBSTANTIALLY DESIGNED THEIR BUILDINGS, THE DOE HASN’T YET NAMED AN ALTERNATIVE SITE. Students will soon be finalizing construction documents and building their houses… One distraught student has created a petition to President Obama… There’s also a Facebook page dedicated to keep the Decathlon on the Mall. —Architect’s Newspaper Blog

2011 Solar Decathlon Teams, We were shocked to learn recently that the National Mall permit for the 2011 Solar Decathlon has been revoked and that event organizers are currently pursuing alternative venues… ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and AirConditioning Engineers) has secured the endorsement of 44 additional member of the High-Performance Building Congressional Caucus, requesting that the Decathlon is held on the National Mall as planned… We hope we will see you on the National Mall in a few months. —Michael J. Brandemuehl ASHRAE, Solar Decathlon Ad Hoc Committee, Chair

MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2011

Representing over 300,000 engineers, architects, manufacturers, code officials, and other building industry professionals, the undersigned organizations strongly urge you to reverse this decision, as the late timing of this announcement would likely have the severe adverse and unintended consequence of harming the Decathlon’s competing college students and event sponsors, many of which have already planned and budgeted for holding the event in Washington, DC. —Excerpt from a letter addressed to Obama and Salazar by the High Performance Building Coalition

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2011

2:10 PM Jamie Re: Joint letter from faculty supporting the Solar Decathlon teams Feinstein sits on the committee overseeing the interior dept. They were seeking to find someone who can appeal to her.

3:48 PM Jamie to Jerry Neuman [Chairman of the Board of Trustees, SCI-Arc] I’m not sure if the Mayor is the route to go. What are you thoughts?

5:04 PM Jerry to Jamie State Senator Alex Padilla, who used to be on her staff and has remained very close to her, is reaching out to her on our behalf.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2011

1:27 PM Elisabeth We worked on this with Tom Martinez from NECA. Take a look below.

11:58 AM Elisabeth to US Senator Barbara Boxer Dear Senator Boxer, as your state team that will be represented at the Solar Decathlon, we invite you to support and sign this letter… —Elisabeth

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2011 3:41 PM Ming Fung [SCI-Arc Director of Academic Affairs and AIA Los Angeles Chapter President] Things are picking up. AIA is very supportive. If Feinstein is not on board, I have a meeting set up with her rep tomorrow at 10am…

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2011 1:54 PM Jamie 8:44 AM Bill … had a great take on what will make this resonate in the press- and we will need to make some noise. The letter is not enough- a press conference should take place.

5:39 PM Elisabeth We’ve done the viral approach. I believe the press conference is the most appropriate next step at this time.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 2011

9:44 AM Carolyn Campbell [PR Specialist]

WHY THE SOLAR DECATHLON SHOULD FORSAKE THE MALL …IN YEARS PAST THE EVENT HAS DONE ENORMOUS DAMAGE TO THE MALL. Huge trucks and heavy equipment have left big gouges and holes, and the heavy food traffic has done its own damage to the turf… There are efforts underway to get President Obama to step in and reverse the decision. It’s important that he stand by Mr. Salazar’s wise decision… Finding a more appropriate site for the Solar Decathlon furthers the Mall improvement efforts and is in keeping with the decathlon’s own enviable goal of being smarter about the environment.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2011

Most powerful statement you can make is to take full ownership of the event as student initiative.

THE GOVERNMENT IS BREAKING THEIR ‘PROMISE’ NOT A CONTRACT. We have not signed any contract yet… they issued the proposed contract, conveniently, months late after the public announcement that the Mall was not going to be the site.

HOUSE DEMS, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT AT ODDS OVER SOLAR ENERGY EVENT Committee Ranking Member Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and several colleagues call preventing use of the mall “short-sighted,” and claim using the area wouldn’t collide with National Park Services (NPS) restoration plans…. RESTORATION OF THE TURF IS NOT SLATED TO BEGIN UNTIL AFTER THE SEPTEMBER DECATHLON.

Letters to the Editor 6:26PM Elisabeth Hi Fellow Decathlon Teams, We are making progress. I’m getting emails from many of you updating me on progress with your Representatives. I wanted to notify you that a Press Release is being prepared for Monday. MY QUESTION TO YOU, IS WHETHER YOU ALL AGREE TO GIVE ME PERMISSION TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF ALL OF US (THE TEAMS)? The distinction that we have to be aware of is that I WOULD NOT BE SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF OUR INSTITUTIONS- I WOULD BE SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF THE DECATHLETES.

The Solar Decathlon may be back on the National Mall if a group of senators has its way. Now SOME SENATORS ARE TRYING TO BRING THE EVENT BACK WHERE IT STARTED. IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF THEY HAVE ANY SAY OVER THIS, or if they are just trying to score some points in the environmental world. —Mother Nature Network Blog

NOT TO WORRY—THE MALL CAN ABSORB THE SOLAR DECATHLON.

The Post demonstrated that it did not hear the message express in President Obama’s State of the Union Address. —Alan Abrams Oh, please. The section of the Mall where the event is held is dirt and grass. Dirt and grass. SHOW ME AN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY ARGUING THE ENVIRONMENTAL ADVANTAGES OF A LUSH GREEN LAWN. —Linda Mooring

10:15AM Bill WE ARE THE ONLY ONES TALKING ABOUT GOV’T BREAKING THEIR CONTRACT WITH STUDENT TEAMS/loss of substantial sponsorship funds/increased costs to students and universities… that is the real story.

Bill Per Elisabeth, a formal announcement of the new location will take place Wed.

6:38 PM Jamie Hyperbole may be fine for an extemporaneous speech… but if we get facts wrong in our release and our fact sheets, the press will not see us a reliable. We cannot exaggerate or WE will be eaten alive by the other side… and marginalized by the press. WE have the facts on our side. Let’s use them.

7:05 PM Reed This solidifies the numbers: 307,502 house visits during the 2009 Solar Decathlon edition and approximately 1,000 decathletes… For dinner, I suggest wheatgrass in reverence of the National Mall.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2011 11:58 AM Ming

To The Honorable Ken Salazar, Secretary U.S. Department of the Interior: In the end, reversing the initial decision to remove this event from the Mall with benefit all involved. We stand ready to assist you and Secretary Chu in achieving both full implementation of the National Mall Plan and successful Solar Decathlon. Sincerely, Edward J. Markey [Ranking Member of the Committee of Natural Resources and nine committee members]

Please call Margie O’Driscoll [AIA San Francisco Executive Director] asap. She knows Pelosi from a while back. Pelosi would be more effective with the cabinet.

1:43PM Elisabeth To SD Team This will be perfect timing for our press release on Monday. We’re stirring things up… which is the goal. Let’s keep pushing. I’ll follow with emails to send to your House Reps this Sunday.

Sincerely,

Venue Change Affects 20 Student-led Teams from Universities around the World that Have Been Designing Solar-Powered Houses for the Mall Site for Almost Two Years

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2011

SOLAR DECATHLON REPLACED BY THE NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2011

2:41 PM Regarding the editorial: SPOTTY GRASS IS A SIGN OF ENGAGEMENT, NOT SHAME. —Ryan Montgomery

UNIVERSITY STUDENT LEADERS WORLDWIDE, LED BY A TEAM OF SCI-ARC/CALTECH STUDENTS, APPEAL THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR’S DECISION TO MOVE THE SOLAR DECATHLON 2011 OFF THE NATIONAL MALL

LOFTY GOAL A REALITY. The ability to highlight the role solar energy can play far outweighs any physical damage the event might cause to the Mall. After all, the Mall is not a nature preserve; it’s a place for people.

10:09AM Elisabeth Press Release Fellow Decathlon Team Members, The press release that is going out through Bizwire today is below. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a huge splash… I still think we can do this…

IF THERE WAS A WAY TO MAKE THE SOLAR DECATHLETES BOOTED OFF THE NATIONAL MALL EVEN MORE ANGRY THAN THEY ALREADY WERE, THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MIGHT HAVE DONE IT, BY ISSUING PERMITS TO THE NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL TO EXPAND ONE DAY TO TWO—ON THE FIRST WEEKEND THAT THE SOLAR DECATHLON WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE. The Library of Congress announced yesterday that its literary shindig would go off on September 24th and 25th, making it even more difficult for the competition to be restored on the Mall on the previously planned dates.

1:49PM Ben Wessel [Middlebury College Team] to fellow SD teams OK this is getting ridiculous…

3:00PM

To: The Honorable Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior, The Honorable Dr. Steven Chu Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy Dear Secretary Salazar and Secretary Chu: We are very concerned by this sudden change in location since it is the key venue to educate Congress and the public about solar energy. We ask that you reconsider… In this State of the Union Address, President Obama called upon our nation to reach lofty clean energy goals. TO MOVE THE SOLAR DECATHLON AWAY FROM THE MALL WOULD BE SENDING A MIXED SIGNAL TO THE VERY STUDENTS WHO ARE DOING THEIR PART TO MAKE THIS

S/S US Senators Robert Menendez, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Kay Hagan, Patrick Leahy, Frank Lautenberg, Dan Inouye, Sherrod Brown, Bill Nelson, Daniel Akaka, Barbara Boxer, Sheldon Whitehouse and Chuck Schumer. —Letter from the United States Senate [14 Signatories]

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Richard King, director of the DOE’s Solar Decathlon… has said he expects a decision to be made before the end of February… Recent murmurings have the solarpowered home competition being shifted to the National Harbor. Senators and House members also have gotten involved by sending letters… So far there has been no public response to any of these efforts from either the DOI or the DOE.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011

at the University of Washington and president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. At Press time, the Department of Energy had not responded to questions about the move. —The Chronicle of Higher Education, Buildings & Grounds

11:25AM Elisabeth Interviews with Washington Post and Arch Record today… Announcement of location pushed back even further… speculation is it’s due to our efforts.

12:55PM Eric Owen Moss

The exhibition of sustainability has yet to settle into a new home.

Word from W House insider: it’s over. 0 CHANCE. WE’LL SEE…

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2011

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2011

8:07AM Carolyn

SOLAR DECATHLON BOOTED FROM NATIONAL MALL

Perfect day for the YouTube shoot… Good luck Elisabeth and Reed!

It remains unclear where the expo might be held instead. “We hope to have a site picked out in weeks, not months,” said Jen Stutsman, a DOE spokeswoman, in mid-February. Neigert, who is working on behalf of many other finalists to get the park service to reverse its call, has so far received promised support from 14 U.S. Senators and 11 Representatives.

STUDENTS’ SOLAR-ENERGY SHOWCASE IS KICKED OFF THE MALL At a coffee shop in Los Angeles, Elisabeth Neigert listened to some of the most memorable words in President Obama’s State of the Union address. ‘Win the future,’ Obama said of the quest to develop alternative energy and wean the nation off fossil fuels. “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” But a week before the speech, his administration evicted Neigert and about 1,500 students who design and showcase energy-efficient homes as part of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon from the event’s grand stage, the Mall. Now, THE STUDENTS ARE WAGING A CAMPAIGN TO FORCE THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE TO HONOR A PERMIT IT GRANTED THE EVENT AND GET BACK ON THE MALL, USING THE PRESIDENT’S OWN WORDS AGAINST HIS ADMINISTRATION.

6:02PM Carolyn Washington Post The Post’s reporting seems even, and it’s good that the article quotes the students’ “powerful allies.”… In my opinion, the statement offered by the federal officials (unnamed in the piece), “that the students don’t care about the havoc they wreak” was downright irresponsible, but so is their entire stance. Excellent coverage to send along with the YouTube video… the final stage in the media effort.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011

1:25 AM Elisabeth YouTube Statement, It’s up to us… Teams, http:youtube.com/SolarDecathlon2011

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011

Eric Owen Moss [Editorial piece]

Regardless of the final outcome, I think this video gives all our work validation and expresses our viewpoint in an honorable manner. WE have (Possibly) secured a meeting with President Obama through a connection around the first week of March. Our contact is willing to personally put this/out in front of the President. This will give us an ultimate decision on our efforts. I would also like to prepare you that a press release statement is likely to come out tomorrow afternoon or Wed morning on a “final” location along with a press release from Secretaries Salazar and Chu. (The announcement of a new location has been pushed back several times- so it’s difficult to be certain.) Between now and then we need to push this video out until it becomes viral… the distance this message travels is up to us.

For architecture and engineering students, THE SOLAR DECATHLON IS LIKE THE SUPER BOWL OF COLLEGEDESIGN PROJECTS. There, policy makers, Beltway journalists, and tourist families from the hinterlands could come and imagine a different future for the American dream home. But not so this year, it seems. ‘It’s a regrettable decision and a heartbreaking decision,’ says Daniel S. Friedman, dean of the College of Built Environments

SOLAR DECATHLON 2011: TELL ME WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO AND I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE For the fifth time in the last 10 years, competing student teams from twenty universities, including four from outside America, are inventing compact, efficient new housing types powered by sophisticated alternative energy applications. Aptly labeled America’s Solar Decathlon, the teams agreed to participate in an exhibition of new technical acumen based on the Energy Department’s promise to exhibit the model houses on the Mall in Washington DC, as has been the custom in the four previous renditions of this “re-invent our housing future” event. All good, you say? Substantiates the President’s State of the Union call for a new American Sputnik response, you say? Confirms the President’s insistence on a re-emphasis of education in the sciences, new technologies, energy conservation, and the capacity to reconstitute America’s decaying infrastructure, you say? Nope. Sadly, none of the above. Instead, RETREATING ON ITS PROMISE TO INSTALL THE MINI-HOUSES ON THE MALL THIS SEPTEMBER, A YEAR AND A HALF INTO A DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESS, THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND ITS SURROGATE, THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, HAS PULLED THE

SOLAR PLUG ON THE PROMISED MALL SITE, IN THE NAME OF THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT’S “SAVE THE GRASS” CAMPAIGN (WHICH BEGINS IN 2012. Meantime an International Book Fair that gathers about three times the attendees as the Solar Decathlon event, goes forward, as planned on that same Mall. Book Fair dates? That’s right. September 2011… In the end, hard working teams of intelligent, dedicated students committed to re-imagining a changed role for housing and energy technology in America are simply asked to acquiesce in the face of a faceless government authority that, for its own reasons, seems to have reversed the essential new priorities propounded days ago by the President himself. AS MANY AROUND THE WORLD HAVE RECENTLY DEMONSTRATED, THE VOICE OF GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH THE VOICE OF CHANGE.

10:54 AM Elisabeth It’s spreading quickly—Facebook, Twitter, everywhere…

6:06 PM Elisabeth to Priscilla Rodriguez [KLOS 95.5 Director of Digital Content] We’ve heard that WE ARE CLOSE TO A TIPPING POINT and breaking into that media would most likely seal the deal and get us back on the National Mall. Thanks for offering to suppose this and joining the good fight.

6:23 PM Elisabeth to NBC reporter Mike Viqueria Hey Mike, Sorry for waking you up today… THIS HAS BEEN REFERRED TO AS A DAVID AND GOLIATH STORY AND WE ARE MAKING HEADWAY… There is good story here—one that should be heard. We are close and could use your help.

7:06 PM Elisabeth Hey Solar Decathletes… I’ve been hearing that the scales are tipping in our favor — being reinstated back on the National Mall seems to be within reach. I’d like to THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO SPOKESPERSON. POWER IN UNITING… seems to have been right — we’ve made a lot of progress.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011

11:15 AM Elizabeth Delgado [Field Rep for Senator Dianne Feinstein] Hi Elisabeth, I just received the message below. I hope this will still be a great location. I am certain if it were not for your strong advocacy on this issue it would have been moved to a remote location.

I just wanted to say congratulations and I wish you and your team the best of luck in the upcoming competition: Later today, THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR (WILL ISSUE A PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCING THAT THE SOLAR DECATHLON 2011 WILL BE HELD AT THE NATIONAL MALL’S WEST POTOMAC PARK, ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMAC RIVER ALONG THE PATH BETWEEN THE LINCOLN AND JEFFERSON MEMORIALS. The decathlon opening ceremony will be held on September 22, 2011. You are receiving this notification because your office either represents one of this year’s competitors or boss has expressed an interest in the issues. Thanks, Liz

12:01PM Jelly Hua [Team China] Thanks for your endeavor, from the perspective of a foreigner. I think it has been good enough for your articles to state our opinions, and all members of Team China have always supported the return to the Mall site. Just do it… hope we could get the success and establish further friendship in this competition.

12:08PM Ben Wessel Hey Folks! Thanks everyone for all your hard work, especially Elizabeth!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011

SOLAR DECATHLON RELOCATED ON NATIONAL MALL This year’s Solar Decathlon will still be held on in Washington on the National Mall.

SOLAR DECATHLON HOUSES NOW HAVE A HOME ON THE MALL FEDERAL OFFICIALS SAID THE 20 ENERGY EFFICIENT HOUSES DESIGNED BY THE STUDENTS WOULD END UP SITTING ON GRASS FOR TWO WEEKS, KILLING IT. BUT IN A CONFERENCE CALL WEDNESDAY, ENERGY OFFICIALS TOLD THE STUDENTS THEY COULD COME BACK TO THE MALL.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011

SOLAR DECATHLON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS APPLAUD THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR’S DECISION TO RETURN THE SOLAR DECATHLON 2011 TO THE NATIONAL MALL Student-Led Grassroots Campaign Inspires the Obama Administration to Keep the Decathlon on the Mall “We are particularly encouraged by this response from the Department of Interior,” noted Elisabeth Neigert, “as the Solar Decathlon is a direct reflection of President Obama’s recent State of the Union call to assemble teams of the best minds to focus on developing clean energy solutions. IT IS IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE VITAL SUPPORT OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE MEMBERS WHO JOINED IN OUR QUEST TO KEEP THE SOLAR DECATHLON FRONT AND CENTER IN THE CLEAN ENERGY DEBATE. We all look forward to sharing the results of the 20 projects with the public, educators, policymakers, and industry leaders in September 2011 on the Mall. It WILL BE A PROUD MOMENT FOR EACH OF US TO PRESENT OUR FINAL WORK ON THE MALL—A PLACE THAT HAS BEEN THE CENTER OF AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE AND WHERE SO MANY IMPORTANT POLICY ISSUES HAVE ENTERED THE PUBLIC’S CONSCIOUSNESS.”

Eric Owen Moss [Editorial piece] THE NEXT AMERICA: BACK ON THE MALL FOR SOLAR DECATHLON 2011 Solar Decathlon 5, America’s vision of a new housing and energy future scheduled for this September, was returned to the Mall in Washington DC Wednesday. In fact, the exhibition and celebration, produced by American and International student teams designing new, compact housing types powered by alternative energy systems, never actually vacated the Mall site. The Mall venue, utilized by four previous Solar Decathlon events will now entertain a fifth.” A SURPRISE EFFORT, AUTHORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY IN CAHOOTS WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, TO RELOCATE THE EVENT TO A SUBSTANTIALLY LESS PROMINENT LOCATION EITHER IN WASHINGTON OR IN ANOTHER CITY, WAS REVERSED WEDNESDAY BY THOSE VERY DEPARTMENTS. THE MALL SITE WAS REINSTATED FOLLOWING A LOUD

AND CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED 6 WEEKS OF POINTED AND VOCIFEROUS OBJECTIONS TO THE PROPOSED RELOCATION OF THE EXHIBIT, LEAD BY ELISABETH NEIGERT, PROJECT MANAGER OF THE SCI-ARC/CALTECH STUDENT TEAM. THE TWENTY STUDENT TEAMS ISSUED AN EMPHATIC “NO” TO THE CHANGED VENUE PROPOSITION: NO TO THE REMOVAL OF THE EXHIBITION FROM THE MALL. NO TO THE PROSPECT OF A DIMINISHED PRIORITY FOR NEW HOUSING AND NEW ENERGY PROPOSALS IN AMERICA.

SOLAR DECATHLON WILL BE ON THE NATIONAL MALL AFTER ALL The student contestants, their supporters, and observers of the design field seem pleased with the outcome. “I feel incredible. I feel happy,” said Elisabeth Neigert, a graduate fellow at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and spokeswoman for its decathlon team.

LOOKING AHEAD The campaign to reinstate the Solar Decathlon 2011 on the National Mall has been a invaluable lesson in politics and diplomacy. All 20 teams from around the globe banned together to lobby for a cause we believe in deeply—clean energy. The Solar Decathlon is a competition that ties in various disciplines, educates the public and often routes some of the brightest upcoming leaders into the clean energy sector. We are pleased the Department of the Interior came to a compromise, allowing the teams to move forward by focusing on their projects. The SCI-Arc/Caltech Solar Decathlon team looks forward to joining the other 19 teams on the National Mall at Potomac Park to share our innovations with our nation’s policy makers, educators and public. Through this experience, it is hopeful that the far reaching impact of the Solar Decathlon competition will be noted and result in an invitation by our nation’s government to once again hold the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall proper—between the Capitol and the National Monument— where it belongs in 2013. —Elisabeth Neigert May Construction Phase 1: Rough Framing Construction Phase 2: Rough-Ins June Construction Phase 3: Finishes July Initial Testing of Final Prototype Rehearsal for 7 Day Asssembly August Final Testing of Prototype Craning, Truck Loading, Transport Preparation September Transport to Washington DC and Assemble CH: IP on National Mall Competition: September 23—October 2 October Disassemble and Return

CH:IP Solar House is under construction and under wraps at SCI-Arc. Tufting and cabling system on the northeast face

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