Archinect - News

What will the future of architectural education look like?

2020-10-15T14:47:00-04:00

It's safe to say that nobody knows what the future of architectural education will be. These days it's hard to know what next month will bring us. Few people would argue, however, that academia is ripe for change, as are many facets of modern life that have not evolved at the pace the world has changed in recent decades.

To address this necessary change, we invite you to join us for a special discussion this upcoming Monday, from 1-2 pm EST / 10-11 am PST, featuring a distinguished panel of leaders of architectural education. Deans from across the country will be addressing, head-on, the change they hope to see, and the challenges they currently face to make that change.

To RSVP for this virtual panel, please click the "reserve" button at this link. Space is limited and registration is required to attend.

The Panelists

Hernán Díaz Alonso has been the director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture since 2015, where is held the position of distinguished faculty membe...

Architecture school leaders speak out in support of protests

2020-06-03T16:57:00-04:00

In the days since protests seeking justice for Black and African Americans who have died at the hands of police broke out around the country, a growing number of architecture schools have issued statements in support of this ascendant political and social movement.

These statements come as professional and cultural architecture and design organizations, including the American Institute of Architects, National Organization for Minority Architects, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, also announce their support for these protests.

Read Archinect's Statement on Racial Injustice. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Anthony Cride.

Archinect recently published a stand-alone letter from Milton S.F. Curry, Dean of the University of Southern California School of Architecture, as well.

Additionally, Archinect has issued its own statement in support of these protest movements.

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning (GSAPP)

GSAPP Dean Amale And...

"whether you can institutionalize a kind of anti-institutional message, we will see": Eric Owen Moss reflects on 14 years as SCI-Arc's director

2015-09-14T18:54:00-04:00

One of the things that we learned about SCI-Arc was that at the level of ideas, of thinking, of adventure, of imagination, of discovery ... they need accoutrements. They need support, they need tools to be realized in the world. [...] So we looked at the situation in terms of ideas — design ideas, imaginative students, creative faculty — and we had to give them the tools to implement, meaning to draw, to model what they wanted, and to make that information then available on the outside.

Eric Owen Moss is being succeeded by Hernan Diaz Alonso, who began serving as Director of SCI-Arc earlier this summer. You can find out more about Diaz Alonso's role in our Deans List feature.

Eric Owen Moss Bids "Not Farewell But Fare Forward" at SciArc

2015-03-25T12:11:00-04:00

“I’m the ENEMY!” Moss hollered as he stepped onto the dais in front of a packed hall at SCI-Arc, awaiting his final address as dean last Thursday. Moss might as well have said, “This is Cinerama,” as the single projection that had backgrounded the introductory remarks dramatically opened into three-synced projections producing a single, massive image that stretched along the entirety of the wall. A cartoon monkey is startled by his reflection and the text above reads, “We have met the enemy and he is u̶s̶ me."

Before Moss began his lecture, aptly titled “Not Farewell but Fare Forward,” Tom Gilmore and Hernan Diaz Alonso delivered laudatory introductions. Gilmore described Moss as alternating between Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza, the first in a series of references to Cervantes’ work, apparently something that Moss has himself cultivated in prior talks. Alonso, who will succeed Moss as dean of the school, attempted to provide “20 seconds [of] touch-touchy feely-feely,” ...

Editor's Picks #390

2014-10-23T11:56:00-04:00

Amelia profiles the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture aka ANFA and ponders the lessons from her time spent down in San Diego for ANFA’s annual three-day conference at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Does neuro-architecture truly hold the promise of translational design?

midlander dreams "I have a hard time seeing how this provides more meaningful feedback than occupant surveys...That said...I can't wait until I can wear some headset that makes revit models of whatever I'm thinking!" while Chris Teeter a regular advocate for the use of the "the old EEG headset" was pleased "great piece and like how you link all your news posts into a feature story..Although, much of what is going on now is data gathering, it is considerably more useful than just survey stats".

For a more speculative version of Deans List, Archinect spoke with Hernan Diaz Alonso, upcoming Director at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles.

News

"Archinect Sessions" a new weekly podcast hosted by Paul and Amelia, releas...

Editor's Picks #386

2014-09-25T11:58:00-04:00

Sean Smith continues his series, in which three architects discuss their transition from student to professional. Therein, Eric Höweler of Höweler + Yoon makes the point that much of running a firm is about finding work;

"In school everyone wants to be designers and have their own practice, but what most students don't connect is that having a practice is also being a businessman or woman – that you have to run a business which includes finding work, negotiating contracts and building consensus among people from different fields".

In Material Witness #4, Julia Ingalls explores how "In cinema, signage plays a duplicitous role".

News
NYC's historic 190 Bowery was part of a massive buy-up by developer RFR Holdings. Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, re-published a piece from 2008, for historical context. Fred Scharmen remembers "reading this when it originally posted. Thanks for putting it up again. Very sad that this unique space will be chewed up so that something not unique at all can take its p...

Geniuses, money and monuments: Weekly News Round-Up for September 15, 2014

2014-09-22T20:47:00-04:00

Saturday, September 20

NYC's historic 190 Bowery part of massive buy-up by developer RFR Holdings: RFR plans to spend upwards of $900M on property and land purchases by the end of 2014. One of its recent buys included the former "72-room bohemian dream house" at 190 Bowery.

Friday, September 19

MacArthur Fellow Rick Lowe Reclaims Urban Neighborhoods Through Art: Lowe is currently a resident at Philadelphia's Pearl Street Project, which aims at making dimly-lit alleyways more safe. He is also the founder of Houston's Project Row Houses.
Zaha Hadid launches luxury homeware range with Harrods: Pieces include a £9,999 serving platter, £43 cups and saucers, and £4,860 Field of Towers chess set.
Archinect is at the Salk Institute, covering the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture Conference: The three-day conference focused on topics in neuroscientific research that serve the architecture profession, including advances in mobile brain-computing interfaces and the neurological data behind...

Hernan Diaz Alonso to follow Eric Owen Moss as Director of SCI-Arc, + Deans List sneak peek

2014-09-17T21:05:00-04:00

I am pleased that the SCI-Arc Board of Trustees at its quarterly meeting [on Wednesday, September 10] approved the contract with Hernan Diaz Alonso as the next Director of SCI-Arc. Hernan will assume this role beginning September 2015.

Hernan Diaz Alonso's appointment had been percolating since the beginning of the summer, when SCI-Arc's search committee first recommended him for the position after also considering professor Wes Jones. Diaz Alonso will take up the directorship at a pivotal point in SCI-Arc's history in relation to the city of Los Angeles, succeeding Eric Owen Moss' thirteen-year service which solidified the school's position in the now rapidly-developing Arts District of downtown LA.

Aside from serving academic and administrative roles at SCI-Arc since 2001, Diaz Alonso is also principal of LA-based Xefirotarch, a multidisciplinary practice that won MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program in 2005. He will also serve as Yale University's Eero Saarinen Professor of Architectural Design in Spring 2015.

Before Diaz Alonso's role was made public, we spoke with him for our Deans List series, focusing on his plans for managing SCI-Arc's evolution in the midst of a rapidly changing Los Angeles. Here are a few t...