As the SCI-Arc students finalize their thesis projects each September, they join the faculty in an annual ritual of constructing a temporary pavilion that will host that year’s graduation ceremony. Produced by Them Too Productions, this video documents the development and fabrication of Netscape, the 2011 SCI-Arc Graduation Pavilion by Oyler Wu Collaborative and the students of SCI-Arc. View ArchDaily’s detailed coverage of the 2011 pavilion HERE.

SCI-Arc‘s introduction of the Robot House (spring 2011) – a multifunctional robotics lab that enables the exploration of advanced fabrication techniques, manipulation of high tech materials, and numerous  methods for simulation – has brought about a new and intriguing component to the school. Designed by faculty members Peter Testa and Devyn Weiser, its primary goal is the advancement of next generation platforms for the experimentation and future speculation of architecture.

The state-of-the-art Staübli robotic systems are housed within a 1,000 sqf double height research room between studio spaces and the shop.  Given the nature of work that is being produced at SCI-Arc, it will be interesting to see the new projects that take full advantage of the Robot House and the adjacent Robotics & Simulation Lab.

© Oyler Wu Collaborative

Architect: Oyler Wu Collaborative with SCI-Arc
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Principal Architects: Dwayne Oyler, Jenny Wu
Project Team: Oyler Wu Collaborative: Nick Aho, Chris Eskew, Matt Evans, Andy Hammer, Michael Ho, Richard Lucero, Sanjay Sukie, Yaohua Wang; SCI-Arc: Jacob Aboudou, Casey Benito, Paul Cambon, Julian Daly, Hung Diep, Jesus Guerrero, Clifford Ho, Duygun Inal, Mina Jun, David Kim, Noorey Kim, Jacques Lesec, Zachery Main, Tyler McMartin, Richard Nam, Kevin Nguyen, Manuel Oh, Carlos Rodriquez, Bryant Suh, Kyle von Hasseln, Liz von Hasseln, Jie Yang
Engineering: Nous Engineering
Principal Engineer: Matt Melnyk
Text: Provided by Oyler Wu Collaborative
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Oyler Wu Collaborative, Scott Mayoral

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(L to R): Thom Mayne/Morphosis, Jesse Reiser/RUR Architecture, Odile Decq/Odile Decq Benoît Cornette

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to announce its Fall 2011 schedule of public lectures, discussions and exhibitions. The school welcomes award-winning architects, urban historians, writers, designers, and artists for programs that span from innovative theory to contemporary art to technical practice. Events and exhibitions at SCI-Arc are always free to the public.
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Cooper Union by Morphosis © Iwan Baan

SCI-Arc, Los Angeles’ cutting edge architectural institute, has just announced Thom Mayne as the newest Trustee of the board.  Mayne’s addition to the board emphasizes SCI-Arc’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional architectural form and theory.   Back in 1972, Mayne co-founded the institute along with seven faculty members and approximately forty students who left Cal Poly Pomona to form a “a college without walls.”  For the past nearly four decades, Mayne has been an integral part of the university, serving as a juror, lecturer and generous supporter of the school.   ”Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect. His addition to the board is indicative of the fact that SCI-Arc continues to re-imagine the content of architecture,” said Director Eric Owen Moss.  According to SCI-Arc, this appointment complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth both physically and programmatically.

Today at 1pm SCI-Arc will feature Mohamed Sharif: Recent Work. Sharif, principal of Sharif Studio is also a faculty member of SCI-Arc. Prior to joining SCI-Arc, he was Assistant Chair of the Architecture/Landscape/Interiors department at Otis for two years and has taught at schools including his alma mater and RISD since 1994.

Lectures and discussions are held at W.M. Keck Lecture Hall and are broadcast live online. Parking and admission are free, no reservations are required.

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“Material beyond Materials: A Composite Tectonics Conference on Advanced Materials and Digital Manufacturing” combines progressive presentations in the fields of architecture, the arts, engineering and materials research. The conference participants will present and discuss their most innovative ideas, projects and positions concerning materials, technology and the impact on the architecture and construction disciplines and professions.

Friday, March 25, 6-8pm
Saturday, March 26, 10am-5pm
SCI-Arc Campus 960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Taking place on the SCI-Arc campus in downtown Los Angeles, the two-day forum open to the public and the community at large will explore technological advances in composite materials, innovations in construction, and current design discourse—with some of the most important names in today’s building, fabrication and design industries.

Len-tic-u-lar-is, a new exhibition by Los Angeles and Sendai-based architecture firm Atelier Hitoshi Abe (AHA), will be on view from July 30 to September 12, 2010, in the SCI-Arc Gallery at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

The first architectural subject that AHA will tackle in Los Angeles is the design of a new large-scale roof over the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) Plaza, designed by Isamu Noguchi. For this plaza, Noguchi created a singular landscape inspired by a Zen garden that isolates itself from the surrounding townscape. Although a very important place for the community, the JACCC Plaza is too exposed to the climate of Los Angeles to host various activities, and the walls that enclose the plaza conceal it from the neighborhood and make it invisible to the city.

Exhibition discussion with Hitoshi Abe and Eric Owen Moss, followed by the opening reception will take place July 30 at 7pm. Admission is free. More information can be found here.

Immuring, a new exhibition by Hong Kong-based architecture firm davidclovers, will be on view from June 4 through July 18, 2010, in the SCI-Arc Gallery at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Immuring invigorates the relationship between architectural graphic and architectural mass through the re-examination of fresco in a contemporary context.

The touch-off point for this installation is the design of a 2,500-square-foot speculative home for Hometta, Inc. (Lunar House), which started in early 2008. This exhibition showcases the culmination of davidclovers’ two-year collaboration with Los Angeles-based artist C.E.B. Reas, DuPont China Ltd., Speed Top (Hong Kong) Limited, and E-Grow (Shanghai) on this project.

An exhibition discussion will take place on June 4 with architects David Erdman and Clover Lee and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss. More information can be found here.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture is pleased to present London Eight, curated by renowned English architect Sir Peter Cook. London Eight presents three main exhibitors, teachers from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London chosen by Peter Cook, each of whom have nominated a ‘new face’ exhibitor.

The exhibition examines recent works from the teachers/students and will include three-dimensional objects, bas-relief items, digital and handmade drawings and collages, projections, and models.

The exhibition opens tomorrow February 19 at the SCI-Arc Library. To find out more on the exhibitors, click here.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture announces the first exhibition of 2010: Still Robot by Alexis Rochas, I/O, on view at the SCI-Arc Gallery from January 22 through March 7. Still Robot is a 1,000 square-foot case study introducing the OCTA.BOT system, the proprietary technology of I/O, which is comprised of eight swivel joints, and introduces the unique universal building system of freely rotating elements that expands on space-frame technology.

A member of SCI-Arc’s faculty, Rochas is well-known for his recent SYNTHe project, an adaptable synthetic environment managing air pollution and storm water runoff that was recognized as one of the first large-scale rooftop vegetable gardens in Los Angeles. I/O’s practice focuses on the development of dynamic architectural methodologies integrating design, technology and advanced fabrication techniques.

On February 5, an exhibition discussion will be held with Alexis Rochas and Eric Owen Moss. We’ve interviewed both on ArchDaily, so be sure to check them out! (Alexis Rochas here, Eric Owen Moss here).

For more information on the exhibition, click here.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to announce the Spring 2010 schedule of public programs and exhibitions, which welcomes award-winning architects, experimental musicians, and urban historians for programs that span from innovative theory to furniture design to technical practice. Programs and exhibitions at SCI-Arc are always free to the public.

The spring schedule features lectures by such renowned practicing architects as Michel Rojkind Halpert, Rojkind Arquitectos; Monica Ponce de Leon, Office dA; David Erdman, davidclovers; and Russell Thomsen and Eric Kahn, IDEA office; as well as theorists and urban historians such as Eric Avila, Michael Kubo, and Michael Sorkin. Matmos, the experimental music group based in San Francisco, begins the lecture series on January 27.

In addition SCI-Arc presents exhibitions by faculty members Alexis Rochas (opening January 22) and Juan Azulay (opening March 26) in the SCI-Arc Gallery and London Eight (opening March 19), curated by Sir Peter Cook, in the SCI-Arc Library.

Lectures are free and begin at 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall and are also broadcast live on the internet at www.sciarc.edu/live. Follow the complete schedule here.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture is pleased to present Eric Owen Moss, director of SCI-Arc, in conversation with Frances Anderton, host of DnA: Design and Architecture on 89.9 KCRW and Los Angeles editor of Dwell Magazine. We interviewed Eric last April, a very interesting conversation. You can check his interview here. A book signing and reception will follow the discussion.

The book features 40 projects from Eric Owen Moss Architects, the Culver City-based firm Moss founded in 1973. The nearly 1,600-page manual includes first sketches, models, preliminary drawings, fabrications, and construction photos. Twenty-one of the featured projects have been built and several more are in the pipeline. Moss has taught, lectured and exhibited internationally; he has been the director of SCI-Arc since 2002.

The event will take place next Wednesday, December 9, 7pm at W. M. Keck Lecture Hall, SCI-Arc.

Deegan Day Design, an architectural installation at the SCI-Arc Gallery in Los Angeles started on October 23 and will be available to everyone till December 13 with changing visual media throughout and public discussions with artists, architects and critics, including: An Te Liu, Bettina Korek, Andrea Fraser, Rhea Anastas, Bennett Simpson, Josh Melnick, Lauri Firstenberg, Sarah Morris Richard Massey, Eric Owen Moss, and Joe Day.

You can learn more at the exhibition’s official website. Watch a video after the break. read more »

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) presents “Marcelo Spina: Wholes, Holes, and All the Other Stuff in Between”, part of their lecture series, this Wednesday, October 7 at 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall.

Marcelo Spina is the founder and co-principal, along with Georgina Huljich, of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, a design research architectural practice based in Los Angeles. His work has gained international recognition for its innovative approach to design and architecture that fuses advanced computation techniques with an extensive understanding of form, tectonics and materials. Since 2001, Spina has been on the Design Faculty at SCI-Arc, where he is also the coordinator of the Applied Studies program.

SCI-Arc is open to the public daily from 10am–6pm. Parking and admission are free. No reservations are required. Lectures, talks, and discussions are broadcast live online at www.sciarc.edu/live.

At the beginning of the summer we visited SYNTHe, a urban rooftop garden designed and built by professor Alexis Rocha (I/O Platform founder) with SCI-Arc students.

The SYNTHe project is a 3,000sqf structure located on the top of The Flat, a mid rise residential building in downtown Los Angeles, and its the first green garden approved by city official. The idea of this “green blanket” over at the top of the building is to reduce the building heat gain, reduce storm water waste (80% is captured and used for irrigation) and to establish a sustainable plant ecosystem that collaborated with air pollutants filtering. It also reclaims the rooftop area from HVAC, ventilation and fire control systems, giving a new terrace for the users of the building.

Inside this blanket, 1,500sqf are dedicated to the production of edible plant species, and we had the chance to taste them at the restaurant during lunch, very good. The species planted include:

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The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), the downtown Los Angeles-based architecture school known for its progressive thinking and innovative design, is pleased to announce the fall 2009 schedule for lectures, talks and exhibitions. SCI-Arc hosts renowned architects and other practitioners in the fields of Architecture and Design from around the globe to discuss current theory and practice.

Guests include architects Toshiko Mori, Preston Scott Cohen, and Alejandro Zaera-Polo, landscape architect Laurie Olin, graphic designer April Greiman, and writer and theorist Eugene Thacker, among other notable figures. Exhibitions include deegan day design: Blow x Blow, investigating cinematic projection and architecture as installation, and Jean-Pierre Hébert: Drawings as Thoughts, conceptual digital drawings based on computer-driven language.

See the complete list of lectures and exhibitions, after the break. read more »

Several summer lectures and one exhibition will take place at SCI-Arc, starting July 15 till August 5. The lectures start tomorrow with Peter Cook, a noted English architect, writer, and educator who was a founding member of Archigram in the 1960′s. Peter Cook: Hard and Soft will take place at 7pm at W. M. Keck Lecture Hall.

Two weeks later, on July 29 a special lecture will take place at the SCI-Arc Gallery. In conjunction with the Eric Owen Moss Architects, If Not Now, When? exhibition, there will be a special discussion between Eric Owen Moss and Jeffrey Kipnis.

Finally on August 5 at the Keck Lecture Hall, Anthony Vidler presents a special lecture on Schindler/Neutra. This will take place at 5pm, and will be followed by a symposium moderated by Vidler, with Hitoshi Abe, Peter Cook, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Peter Noever, and Wolf Prix.

We’ve also like to remind you that July 24 marks the start for the L.A. in Wien / Wien in L.A. exhibition, which we’ve already featured on ArchDaily.

For more information, go to www.sciarc.edu. All the events are broadcast live online at www.sciarc.edu/live.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present L.A. in Wien / Wien in L.A, an exhibition featuring works by Hitoshi Abe, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne, and Eric Owen Moss juxtaposed with those by R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra that investigate the architecture of both Los Angeles and Vienna and their respective influences on one another over the last century. L.A. in Wien / Wien in L.A. is on view July 24 through September 13 at the SCI-Arc Library Gallery, 960 E. 3rd Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

The L.A. in Wien/Wien in L.A exhibition begins with a digital presentation of photographs and drawings, entitled Schindler/Neutra: Vienna/Los Angeles 2.0, offering a brief overview tracing the architectural link between the cities when Vienna-born architects R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra first settled in Los Angeles. The overview highlights their respective architectural innovations, while exploring the questions: What do architects from Vienna bring to Los Angeles (and vice-versa), and conversely, how does Los Angeles influence their work?

L.A. in Wien/Wien in L.A continues with an in-depth study of five invited entries from the competition held in fall 2008 by the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Seminal L.A.-based and international architects- Zaha Hadid Architects (Hamburg, Germany/London), Atelier Hitoshi Abe (Sendai, Japan/Los Angeles), Eric Owen Moss Architects (Los Angeles), Thom Mayne/Morphosis Architects (New York/Los Angeles) and Peter Cook, Archigram/CRABstudio Architects (London)- offered their solutions to integrate campus and urban life in Vienna, while also complementing the given Master Plan designed by BUSarchitektur. Through drawings and renderings, the exhibition presents each architect’s detailed approach to infrastructure and urban planning.

Admission is free. Seating is first come, first served. Events are broadcast live online at http://www.sciarc.edu/live/

Some time ago, some very lucky students at SCI-Arc, the legendary school of architecture and design in downtown LA, were tasked with a project that would cause great envy in any architecture student. To design a party pavillion that would debut in famous music festival Coachella.

The students will see their design unveiled this week, on the festival’s opening day, April 17. The course “Rock and Roll Fantasy”, was taught by three principals at Ball-Nogues: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues and Andrew Lyon. Ball-Nogues won the P.S.1′s Young Architect’s Program competition for their installation Liquid Sky in 2007.

More information here.