The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is recognized internationally as a critical laboratory of progressive architectural production. Within the school’s graduate offerings, the M.Arch 1 program’s commitment to independent thinking is manifest in the successes and failures of the work it produces — both meaningful outcomes for an institution that considers experimentation as one of its core principles. The curriculum organizes itself around a series of core studios, reinforced by applied studies, history, and theory courses that encourage a wide range of perspectives on the field.
“The graduate curriculum at SCI-Arc actively seeks fresh definitions and values for architectural design and relentlessly interrogates our disciplinary past,” explains Graduate Programs Chair Elena Manferdini. “SCI-Arc’s graduate program considers architecture to be an evolving creative field rather than formal training to fixed canons.”
As architectural educators and practitioners, SCI-Arc’s graduate faculty endeavor to look more closely at the role architects play not only in the built environment, but in how they prepare students to embark on careers in a changing society. In accordance with the school’s Structural Actions to Promote Access, Inclusion, and Equity in Architecture, SCI-Arc has evolved its focus across programs, curricula, and design studios, including those in its M.Arch 1 program, to include more emphasis on social issues and how to interface with problems of structural racism, underrepresentation, and oppression found within architecture and architecture education in Los Angeles and beyond.
“My experience in the M.Arch 1 program has been one of constant growth,” adds current M.Arch 1 student Paige Davidson. “The program requires working with a variety of scales and mediums, giving me the opportunity to work between fabrication and computational and visualization strategies. The curriculum emphasizes exploring different working methods while also being pushed to define my own voice. With equal focus on theory, architectural practice, and technology, I feel like I have found a very well-rounded, critical path through the field.”
To learn more about SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 program, visit sciarc.edu.
Final project by M.Arch 1 student Paige Davidson in Kristy Balliet’s 1GA Design Studio 
Final project by M.Arch 1 student Paige Davidson in Devyn Weiser’s 2GA Design Studio (2GA is the fall semester of the second year of the M.Arch 1 program) 
Midterm work of M.Arch 1 student Paige Davidson in Elena Mandferdini’s Vertical Studio
The Latest
A Tender Mural Graces San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
Erlin Geffrard’s bright mural celebrates his parents and the struggle of working-class people.
The First Koreatown in the US and the Activist Who Founded It
Pachappa Camp was founded by immigrant and activist Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, who was unjustly deported from the US in 1926, and later tortured in a Korean prison.
Visual artists can apply for this unique opportunity to teach at Washington University in St. Louis and mount a solo exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Hyperallergic speaks to Maya Cade, creator of the Black Film Archive, about showcasing an “abundance of Blackness across time.”
Each of these fellows will receive a $25,000 no-strings grant, in recognition of their previous and ongoing work in literature within the Puerto Rican diaspora.
Applications are now open for RISD Pre-Collegiate Programs, which offer a residential summer immersive and a year-round online intensive.
Where should we “draw the line” between sacrificing great art and supporting artists who are predators and bigots?
Garner appeared on the talk show circuit in the early 1980s as an eccentric pop culture figure who was never fully understood.
At the New York-based, globally-linked program, curators and experts teach from their own professional experience, focusing primarily on contemporary art.
Founded by Dora Napolitano in 2016, Zurciendo el Planeta planted its “Forest of Hope” international embroidery project in art spaces across Glasgow during COP26.
Better late than never?
A book presents more than 110 pictures from Derby’s archive, offering a rich panorama of the key people and places behind the movement.