Archinect - Features

‘We Have To Get Much Better at Speaking To Wider and Wider Audiences:’ A Conversation With USC Architecture Dean Brett Steele

2024-10-09T12:03:00-04:00

In February 2024, Brett Steele took up the position of Dean of the University of Southern California School of Architecture. Since then, Steele has been busy capitalizing on the opportunities and responsibilities that come with leading a Los Angeles design school in a city known globally for its creativity; a landscape Steele also experienced in his past roles at fellow Los Angeles school UCLA and at the AA in London.

Steele's mission at USC centers not only on preparing students for unpredictable futures but also on "speaking to wider and wider audiences." In that spirit, USC architecture students forge links with their peers in landscape, building science, and beyond, led by a faculty of diverse practitioners. "This isn't a place to just show up for courses; you've got to want to absorb everything around you," Steele notes.

In September 2024, Archinect's Niall Patrick Walsh caught up with Steele as part of our Deans List series to gain an insight into USC Architecture's approach t...

Breaking Down Architectural Techniques With USC School of Architecture’s Foundational Graduate Studio

2023-01-13T08:30:00-05:00

Kicking off 2023, we've connected with USC School of Architecture to learn more about one of its graduate studios taught by instructors Ryan Tyler Martinez of Studio Ryan Tyler Martinez and Jimenez Lai of BUREAU SPECTACULAR.

For our latest installment of Archinect Studio Pin-Ups, we explore Graduate Studio 1: Form, Order, and Representation. This foundational studio focused on giving students with no previous architecture backgrounds an opportunity to gain "experience to foundational design concepts, disciplinary knowledge, and techniques for thinking about and developing fundamental architectural principles." Comprised of three studio projects and a field trip to Chicago, first-year graduate students could learn, explore, and apply these foundational design principles as they continue their studies.

USC M.Arch Graduate Fabian Dietrich Creates an "Urban Architectural Metaphor" for Southern California

2020-07-27T14:00:00-04:00

Imagine dissecting a region and collaging areas together in order to study the relationships between two different urban landscapes. Fabian Dietrich uses his thesis, Long Air, or L.A, to do just this by creating "a composite of disparate communities, united by the shared idea of a city." Influenced by British architecture duo Smout Allen and their two drawing series LA To Be Done and LA Recalculated, Dietrich creates a conceptual cut-out using two Southern California cities, Bel Air and Long Beach, to test his hypothesis.

Since completing his M.Arch from the University of Southern California (USC), Dietrich's job search has been a bit different from other COVID-19 era graduates, as he has been able to successfully enter the workforce. Dietrich shares his own perspectives as an international student to observe how the industry has been affected by the pandemic and what students should take away from these challenging times.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been...

USC Architecture Faculty Share Insights on Virtual Learning

2020-03-27T12:24:00-04:00

As institutions of higher learning round out the shift to online instruction, architecture schools also have had to address the pivot. However, the tactile nature of architectural education lends itself to the curious case of duplicating the tactile benefits of studio digitally. There's no doubt schools of architecture across the country have risen to the task at hand. Archinect has even reached out to educators and students across our international community to learn more about the diverse experiences and approaches to this unorthodox learning model.

In this piece, I had the pleasure to connect with the faculty over at the USC School of Architecture to discuss everything from how they mobilized so quickly, solving this debacle of online learning in design to the challenges they faced along the way. While only a perspective of one institution, this exploration should prove valuable to students, professionals, and educators alike.

Milton S. F. Curry, USC Architecture Dean: Observations on Draft White House Executive Order, “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again”

2020-03-05T11:30:00-05:00

Milton S. F. Curry, Dean of the University of Southern California School of Architecture, shares his perspective on the recently proposed "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" draft executive order.

A Conversation with Nicholas McMillan on Peculiar Architecture

2018-12-03T13:31:00-05:00

Thesis Review is a collection of conversations, statements and inquiries into the current state of thesis in academia. Thesis projects give a glimpse into the current state of the academic arena while painting a picture for the future of practice.

Each feature will present a contemporary thesis project through the voice of those that constructed it. This week, we talk to Nicholas McMillan about his thesis titled, Architecture of Peculiarity.

Deans List: Milton Curry shares his vision for the future of the USC School of Architecture

2017-10-05T11:45:00-04:00

For this edition of the Deans List we spoke with incoming dean Milton Curry at the University of Southern California. Dean Curry told us about his vision for the school, what it means to be a citizen architect and the commitment of architecture thinking to public good.

Deans List: Qingyun Ma of the University of Southern California

2017-03-21T12:08:00-04:00

Qingyun Ma, Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California, cares more about preserving what’s right with the school, now celebrating its 100th year, than his own signature.

At USC's 'Homeless Studio', Students Work Towards Real Solutions to the City's Homeless Crisis

2016-11-30T12:21:00-05:00

Just a few miles from the University of Southern California campus, Skid Row contains a significant portion of the homeless population of Los Angeles, a city in the midst of a declared state of emergency with nearly 47,000 people in total living in shelters and on the street. For R. Scott Mitchell and Sofia Borges, two instructors at the USC School of Architecture, this city-wide crisis demands an architectural response. “The homeless are always thinking about architecture. It's time we started thinking about them,” they wrote in the syllabus for their course, Homeless Studio.

Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Liz Diller, Rem Koolhaas and Others Share Crucial Moments in Their Education

2016-09-30T12:19:00-04:00

What is the role of education in shaping a visionary architect? Several contemporary architects reflect on how the environment, curriculum, and tangential opportunities of their formal learning influenced and shaped their design sensibility.

Telling semiotic tales with Laurel Broughton of WELCOMEPROJECTS

2016-04-07T09:07:00-04:00

Designer Laurel Broughton is serious about playfulness in WELCOMEPROJECTS, a multi-disciplinary studio she established in Los Angeles in 2012. Since then, her studio has worked on a variety of art installations, interiors, and a growing collection of thematic sartorial accessories called WELCOMECOMPANIONS. Regardless of the project type, they’re all imbued with Broughton’s own surrealistic sense of whimsical flair that has captured the attention of designers, artists, and fashionistas alike.

To each their own home: A peek into the “HOME(less)” exhibition at USC

2016-01-19T09:30:00-05:00

For many of those who regularly navigate the streets of Los Angeles, seeing at least one homeless person is not only common, it’s expected. So normal is the sight of homelessness in the city that residents can easily become desensitized to it, making them less likely to question it, and at its worst, making the homeless population effectively invisible. Local designers and Colorblock partners Sofia Borges and Susan Nwankpa wanted to address this in their co-curated photo exhibition, “HOME(less)”, currently on display at the University of Southern California. The photos raise awareness of L.A.’s glaring homelessness crisis, while simultaneously highlighting the impactful relationship between people and their personal spaces in the urban environment.

View from above: ACADIA Conference 2014 in a nutshell

2014-11-05T12:14:00-05:00

At thirty-three years old and counting, the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture has seen a lot of changes in the field of digital design. Its annual conference is a time to step back and reflect, and particular to this year's conference, consider the power computers have over architects' work.

Did You See It? Wait, Now It's Gone: Casey Reas' Generative Art at ACADIA 2014

2014-11-03T12:16:00-05:00

ACADIA 2014 was labeled as a conference focused on Architectural Design Agency and Authorship, yet of course it seemed only fitting that it would close out with a keynote by Casey Reas. Art, the word that an architect cringes at. A word that can resonate more as a critique than a compliment. One that signifies the ripping from architectural ideals, even if such ideals are still up for debate.

On the ground: USC Blue Tape showcases student work as barometer of California architecture

2014-05-23T14:28:00-04:00

Tucked in at the edge of USC’s campus, along downtown Los Angeles' Exposition Boulevard, stands Southern California's first accredited architecture program, which has spent the past year celebrating its centennial class of students with a variety of school events. At the resolution of the academic year is USC School of Architecture's Blue Tape, a two-day climactic event showcasing work from throughout the year, across all disciplines and student levels.

Qingyun Ma: Part I The Idea Behind s.p.a.m.

2007-12-10T11:11:00-05:00

At the end of this past July, as we were wrapping up the Summer Exploration program at the USC School of Architecture , myself and the other faculty had our students bring all of their final models down into the Watt courtyard to photograph them in the sunlight. It was a wonderful conclusion to the four week program as the students could see the work of the other sections and the sum of the final production of the program was out for all to see by the light of day. As we were instructing our students on model photography techniques, Dean Ma arrived and was inquisitively surveying the student’s output.