Archinect - Features

A New Form of Architectural Education: A Conversation with SCI-Arc's Marrikka Trotter and Tom Wiscombe

2020-12-30T09:00:00-05:00

Finding the right college for any high school student, let alone a program to pursue, is not an easy task. While students may be enthusiastic about specific professions, different institutions approach these professions with radically distinct teaching methods and emphases.

Among the accredited programs in the Western USA, SCI-Arc stands out for the quality of student work and the cutting-edge skills its graduates bring to the workplace. I wanted to investigate what makes this "school for architectural thinking" different. What would a student applying to SCI-Arc leave with? With such an active student body and faculty, what else does the school offer that we don't already know about? Archinect wanted to learn more about what makes this school's undergraduate program so successful and hopefully shed light and add some clarity to what makes this highly sought after.

2020 Architecture Graduates Share Their Thoughts on the Current Job Market

2020-07-21T08:53:00-04:00

There's no denying the events that have taken place in 2020 have shaken the globe socially and economically. From a pandemic to social unrest, not to mention unruly government leadership, it's easy to turn on the fate of the architecture industry. With several architecture students who have recently experienced their first "virtual commencements," they now enter somewhat uncharted territory as they embark on their careers.

In a continued effort to provide a voice for students and emerging professionals, Archinect connected with recently graduated students from six schools to learn about their concerns and perspectives as they begin to navigate professional practice and explore the job market.

Fellow Fellows: Ranitri Weerasuriya, the 2018 Goodman Fellow at GSAPP

2019-10-25T13:00:00-04:00

Fellow Fellows is a series that focuses on the increasingly important role fellowships play in architecture academia today. These prestigious academic positions can bring forth a fantastic blend of practice, research, and pedagogical cross-pollination, often within a tight time frame. They also, by definition, represent temporary, open-ended, and ultimately precarious employment for aspiring young designers and academics. Fellow Fellows aims to understand what these positions offer for both the fellows themselves and the discipline at large by presenting their work and experiences through an in-depth interview. Fellow Fellows is about bringing attention and inquiry to the otherwise maddening pace of academia, while also presenting a broad view of the exceptional and breakthrough work being done by people navigating the early parts of their careers.

This week, we talk to Ranitri Weerasuriya, the 2018-2019 Percival and Naomi Goodman Fellow from Columbia University Graduate School of ...

Discussing the role of jargon and difficulty with Harvard GSD's K. Michael Hays + Lisa Haber-Thomson

2017-06-09T10:30:00-04:00

Why are introductory architecture courses often packed with dense, off-putting jargon? It’s a question I didn't anticipate asking an esteemed architectural historian and current Harvard GSD professor, yet after I unintentionally offended K. Michael Hays by publicly airing my annoyances with jargon and difficulty as part of a recap of a review of his new online course, I realized that I needed to ask it. In fact, I owed it to the Professor; it’s unfair to criticize someone’s teaching style if one hasn’t thoroughly experienced it, although I've taken courses taught by others that used a similar approach.

How can architecture become more diverse? On May 5th, L.A. AIA's "Encompass" conference addresses this question

2017-05-04T11:44:00-04:00

Although there's always a few ignorant and ignoble members of any profession, architecture is primarily made up of progressively-minded, ethically-bound professionals. So why is architecture so white, male, and socioeconically monolithic? More importantly, how can these statistics be changed?

Coy Howard, interviewed by SCI-Arc students: part 1 of 3

2016-03-14T08:31:00-04:00

Last fall, students in John Southern's “Architectural Media and Publishing” Cultural Studies seminar at SCI-Arc, democratically voted to interview Coy Howard, together, as part of the course. Their reasoning, according to Southern, is that while Howard has long been a fixture at SCI-Arc, he still runs a low-profile, foregoing final reviews in his studio and producing a fair amount of handmade work. The following is a transcript of that interview, slightly edited for length and clarity, presented in three parts.

The Deans List: Sarah Whiting of Rice University

2014-01-03T15:20:00-05:00

The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the head honcho – giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.

For this issue, we spoke with Sarah Whiting, Dean of the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, Texas.