SCI-Arc’s 2019 Graduate Thesis Weekend included reviews of the thesis projects with over 50 critics including SCI-Arc faculty and invited guests. Critics included Ellie Abrons, Frances Anderton, Johan Bettum, Edward Eigen, K. Michael Hays, Thom Mayne and Amanda Reeser-Lawrence among others.

Highlights from the 2019 SCI-Arc Selected Graduate Thesis Exhibition. The show featured award winning Graduate Thesis projects in the SCI-Arc Gallery. Graduate Thesis represents the culmination of the Graduate curriculum at SCI-Arc.

SCI-Arc’s Gehry Prize is awarded annually to Graduating students in the school’s M.Arch programs for the Best Graduate Thesis. The prize, established in 2012, is generously endowed by Frank Gehry, FAIA. Five recent recipients of the Gehry Prize speak about how the prize was instrumental in launching their careers as young professionals in the field of architecture.

Brett Steele discusses the architectural thesis project with Hernan Diaz Alonso. Steele begins with a survey of significant projects from the past, arguing that these projects are more interesting for their new ways of making an argument than for their designs.

Elena Manferdini moderates a discussion between Eric Owen Moss, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Jeffrey Kipnis, and Peter Eisenman regarding the relevance of thesis in architecture school.

Todd Gannon proposes five general guidelines to graduate students embarking on their thesis:

Privilege Difference Over Similarity Avoid Cliché Making Privilege How Over What Develop New Vocabularies Enfranchise New Constituencies

SCI-Arc students Connor Covey, James Kubiniec, Sasha Tillmann, and Nithya Subramaniam present drafts of their in-process graduate thesis proposals. Stan Allen, Florencia Pita, Marcelyn Gow, and Todd Gannon critique the proposals.

SCI-Arc’s 2018 Graduate Thesis Weekend included reviews of the thesis projects with over 60 critics including SCI-Arc faculty and invited guests.

Highlights from the 2018 SCI-Arc Selected Graduate Thesis Exhibition.

Watch highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2017 Graduate Thesis Weekend

Join Graduate Programs Chair Elena Manferdini and Graduate Thesis Coordinator Florencia Pita for an in-depth look at SCI-Arc’s Selected Graduate Thesis Exhibition 2017, a juried exhibition of exceptional thesis projects by 2017 graduates.

Watch highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2016 Graduate Thesis Weekend. The weekend’s events included reviews of the 81 thesis projects with over 50 critics including SCI-Arc faculty and invited guests.

Graduate Programs Chair Elena Manferdini and Graduate Thesis Coordinator Florencia Pita give an in-depth look at SCI-Arc’s Selected Graduate Thesis Exhibition 2016, a juried exhibition of exceptional thesis projects by 2016 graduates.

Grad Thesis Weekend, the school’s biggest annual event, is a culmination of up to three years of study and coursework leading toward Master of Architecture degrees.

Eric Owen Moss opens the 2014 exhibition of selected thesis projects, encouraging current students to view the work not as models but as starting points for new explorations. Faculty advisors comment on the three Gehry Prize-winning projects: Moss on”Puzzling” by Hannah Pavlovich (M.Arch 1), Hernan Diaz Alonso on”Glass House” by Jeffrey Halstead (M.Arch 1), and Elena Manferdini on”I Am Out of Focus” by Mustafa Kustur (M.Arch 2).

After Elena Manferdini explains the history and format of the symposium, six students present their thesis proposals: Taryn Bone, Scotty Zane Carroll, Mustafa Kustur, Hannah Pavlovich, Julian Ma, and Yu Li. To begin the panel discussion, Manferdini reviews some of the key ideas that have shaped thesis at SCI-Arc over the last eight years. Marcelyn Gow, Hernan Diaz Alonso, and Andrew Zago debate what is needed now to keep thesis at SCI-Arc relevant, the crucial transition from thesis research to design, and plausibility.