Archinect - Features

Fostering Civic Engagement in Architecture School With Jeanine Centuori, Director of Woodbury’s ACE Center

2022-02-23T10:46:00-05:00

How can architecture schools better engage with the communities surrounding them? For faculty and students at Woodbury School of Architecture, the words civic engagement are more than just umbrella terms used as curriculum aides for student learning. Instead, they are pillars to facilitate ongoing discourse and action towards helping underserved communities in Southern California. Through architecture, design, non-profit work, and business initiatives, the school's Agency for Civic Engagement (ACE) program uses a multidisciplinary approach to designing for the public.

ACE stemmed from an idea led by a group of dedicated Woodbury faculty members. What began as a visionary project has become an essential public interest program. To learn more about ACE's history and the community-driven projects born out of the program, I spoke with its Director, Jeanine Centuori, FAIA. During our conversation, we also discussed public art and its relationship to architecture, the importance of exposi...

Buildings Need to be Curated; Collaboration With Other Fields Is Vital to an Era of Experience

2017-02-24T01:00:00-05:00

Look around. What is it that makes you most happy? Is it the mountain bike, or is it where that mountain bike takes you? Out amongst nature, wind in your face, exploring newfound tracks. Without this, the experience, it would simply just be a steel frame with wheels, sitting in a rack.

It’s the same with buildings or places. Without activation and life, they are just mere bricks and mortar or concrete structures, static in nature.

The students behind 'Liquid Shard' – a dynamic sculpture for downtown Los Angeles

2016-08-22T10:05:00-04:00

Liquid Shard was raised on July 28, 2016 as the product of the students of the Los Angeles Visiting School of the Architectural Association in London (AAVSLA) and Poetic Kinetics, an L.A. based company specialising in large-scale art installations and experimental design.

Art + Architecture: The Los Angeles Nomadic Division Sets Up Camp

2015-03-13T10:13:00-04:00

"The easiest way to grasp what we do and to understand our mission is that we're a contemporary art museum without walls," explained Laura Hyatt, development director of the Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), an LA-based organization dedicated to facilitating public art projects. After celebrating their fifth anniversary last year, LAND is settling into its role as a major force in redefining the relationship between contemporary art and its context.