USC School of Architecture

Yesterday at the ACLA 2x8 Awards, hosted at AIA’s new HQ, Adrian Aranda and Justin Zhu, both USC Architecture 5th year students, won a scholarship for their project "The Digester." They developed the project last year in a studio led by faculty Lawrence Scarpa. The Digester is a environmental center located on the strange and inhospitable site located in between the Marina Freeway and the Pacific Coast Highway. The project carves out the site in order to collect runoff water before it enters the Pacific Ocean via the adjacent Marina del Rey. By collecting this runoff water the Digester can cleanse the dirty water while also retaining it in the landscape’s soil in order to restore a portion of the natural wetlands. 2×8 is an annual program that connects university-level architecture programs with the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. The 2×8 event is simultaneously as a design competition, student exhibit and scholarship fund. Every year, the exhibit showcases exemplary student work from architecture & design institutions across California. The competition jury was Barbara Bouza, Trevor Abramson, and Thom Mayne. It was organized by 2x8 Alicia Morales and Marco Marraccini. #USCArchitectureStudents #USCArchitectureAwards

Join us this Friday, November 22nd for Anupama Kundoo's lecture "Rethinking Materiality: Natural resources and human resourcefulness." https://bit.ly/3BPE9ad Our built environment is the physical stage on which all human stories are lived out. This physical stage is the historical and ongoing manifestation of human imagination operating within real (or, imaginary!) constraints. Anupama Kundoo advances the idea that architectural imagination must transcend design and enter the realms of materials science and economics where some of the bigger questions reside. She will discuss the thrust of her inquiries which have been to find practical ways to fulfill the universal human aspiration for refuge, purpose, and social engagement through extensive material research and experimentation. She will discuss 'Human Time as a Resource' in the quest for new materiality and critically examine the way the time value of money has nudged us towards code-based design and the industrialized production of building components and, sometimes, even entire buildings themselves. She will discuss materiality and consumption of finite natural resources alongside their impact on human wellbeing and human resourcefulness. The act of building produces knowledge just as the resulting knowledge produces buildings. #USCArchitecture #USCArchitectureLectures #USCArchitectureEvents

Have you signed up to attend the Graduate Open House this Saturday? Come join us on Saturday, November 23 for our Fall Graduate Open House on campus at USC School of Architecture. RSVP is required https://bit.ly/4frZDsk Learn about our graduate programs in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Building Science & Heritage Conservation and meet program directors, faculty & students. The schedule includes an exhibit projects and tour our studios, buildings & campus. Stay afterwards and catch some of our day-long Materials Acts symposium featuring a roster of international architects & designers. Open House Schedule 10.00am - Registration & Coffee in Watt Courtyard 11.15am - Welcome & School Introduction 11.30am - Program Introductions by Directors 12.10pm - Program Studio Tours 12.30pm - Meet with Current Faculty & Students 1.00pm - Lunch & USC Campus Tour (optional)

Such an insightful presentation by faculty Lawrence Scarpa who talked about the focus of his latest book Salty Urbanism. Addressing very current and pressing issues, Salty Urbanism is an exhibition of research that examines the wicked problem of sea level rise and flooding in coastal cities. It presents research models that accommodate a variety of best management practices (BMP), low impact development (LID), green infrastructure (GI), and other alternative concepts to be implemented over time in the neighborhood adaptation plan. Lawrence Scarpa has garnered international acclaim for the creative use of conventional materials in unique and unexpected ways. He is also considered a pioneer and leader in the field of sustainable design. #Brooks_Scarpa #USCArchitectureFaculty #USCArchitectureLecture

Join us on Saturday, November 23rd for Material Acts! https://bit.ly/4heIp35 Material Acts is a symposium that brings together artists, designers, and architects experimenting with material processes and systems. Against the backdrop of accelerating environmental degradation, architectural practices such as Anupama Kundoo, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Post Rock, and Emerging Objects challenge traditional modes of building (and making), by framing materials as a chain of operations, rather than fixed objects. Understanding materials as process-based events with human actors, rather than artifacts found in stasis, this symposium on new materials explores the rich milieu of ideas that accompany their making, including practices in bioregional design, waste economies, and living systems, alongside perspectives of care, constraint, and regeneration. Organized in partnership with Craft Contemporary, University of Southern California School of Architecture and Harvey Mudd College. #USCArchitecture #CraftContemporary #HarveyMuddCollege #USCSchoolOfArchitecture

Our Graduate Open House is just around the corner! Come join us on Saturday, November 23 for our Fall Graduate Open House on campus at USC School of Architecture. RSVP is required https://bit.ly/4frZDsk Learn about our graduate programs in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Building Science & Heritage Conservation and meet program directors, faculty & students. The schedule includes an exhibit projects and tour our studios, buildings & campus. Stay afterwards and catch some of our day-long Materials Acts symposium featuring a roster of international architects & designers. Open House Schedule 10.00am - Registration & Coffee in Watt Courtyard 11.15am - Welcome & School Introduction 11.30am - Program Introductions by Directors 12.10pm - Program Studio Tours 12.30pm - Meet with Current Faculty & Students 1.00pm - Lunch & USC Campus Tour (optional)

Join us this Friday, November 15th for Jesse Reiser's lecture "Weaponized Craft." Craft has unexpectedly returned to the architect. Migrating from the job site into the exploratory space of the design studio, craft takes on new unprecedented dimensions. No longer strictly limited by material realities, or the routines of normative practice, the architect is free to engage with a project across scales and mediums, craft is, for Reiser+Umemoto, less a set of concrete techniques than an exploratory ethos. This radical mode of thinking and working is an ongoing dance between centuries-old and cutting-edge technologies. A crafty engagement with technology is essential; eluding the twin traps of conservative handicraft and process-based techno-purism. The practice seeks to chart a radically aesthetic passage between the two as the most resonant way to advance culture and society. Like the effectiveness of the itinerant smiths of old and Lockheed’s mid-century Skunk Works, which existed within larger machines: economic, political or otherwise, Reiser+Umemoto continue to leverage the vitality of independent thought beyond the constraints of convention, in service to the world. #USCArchitectureLectures

Congratulations to all the USC Architecture faculty who have been named winners in the 2024 AIA|LA Design Awards and Next LA Awards. See the stunning award-winning work by Lawrence Scarpa @brooks_scarpa Lorcan O'Herlihy @loharchitects Patrick Tighe @patricktighe_architecture Eric Haas and Chava Danielson @dsharc USC Architecture faculty continue to make bold impacts in the built and unbuilt environment in Los Angeles and beyond! ADAPTIVE RE-USE/ RENOVATION/HISTORIC PRESERVATION | MERIT AWARD Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects Sandi Simon Center for Dance at Chapman University AFFORDABLE HOUSING | HONOR AWARD Brooks + Scarpa Rose Apartments PHOTO: Jeff Durkin and Brooks + Scarpa COMMERCIAL/MIXED USE | CITATION AWARD Patrick TIGHE Architecture Broadway Cloverfield PHOTO: Art Gray HEALTHCARE /INSTITUTIONAL/CIVIC | HONOR AWARD Brooks + Scarpa Youth Sports Field House PHOTO: Brooks + Scarpa SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL | CITATION Brooks + Scarpa Steeplechase House PHOTO: Mark Herboth ADAPTIVE RE-USE/ RENOVATION/HISTORIC PRESERVATION | CITATION AWARD Brooks + Scarpa The New College of Florida PHOTO: Brooks + Scarpa CITYSCAPES | HONOR AWARD Patrick TIGHE Architecture Watts 1000 ADAPTIVE RE-USE/ RENOVATION/HISTORIC PRESERVATION | MERIT AWARD Eric Haas and Chava Danielson: DSH // architecture Watts Community Hub #USCArchitectureFaculty #USCArchitectureAwards #AIALADesignAwards

USC School of Architecture will host "Material Acts: A Symposium" on November 23rd. "Material Acts: A Symposium" brings together artists, designers, and architects experimenting with material processes and systems. Understanding materials as process-based events with human actors, rather than artifacts found in stasis, this symposium on new materials explores the rich milieu of ideas that accompany their making, including practices in bioregional design, waste economies, and living systems, alongside perspectives of care, constraint, and regeneration. The symposium will take place at the USC School of Architecture and will feature guests Anupama Kundoo, Ben Loescher, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Matthias Kohler, and Meredith Miller, who will present their research and thinking against the backdrop of accelerating environmental degradation. "Material Acts" is organized in partnership with Craft Contemporary and Harvey Mudd College. It is also a part of Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design, an exhibition that is currently at the Craft Contemporary until January 5, 2025. #craftcontemporary #harvey_mudd #USCArchitecture #USCArchitectureEvents

Congratulations to Leslie Dinkin (’24 MLA/MHC), Hannah Flynn (’23 MLA/MUP), and Nina Weithorn (’24 MLA) for receiving the ASLA Honor Award for Student Collaboration! They received this honor for being involved with the project “Fifty-one Miles: Walking the Los Angeles River” to document the Los Angeles River by walking its length and observing the River’s arts, culture, habitat, access and human experience. Read more about USC Arch students and alumni receiving awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects at bit.ly/40nnaWR ?? #USCArchitecture #USCArch