The Bachelor of Science in Design (BS Design) program at SCI-Arc prepares students for transformative interdisciplinary careers in film, gaming, and data environments, using architecture as a foundation for exploration.

In this film showcasing the program, BS Design faculty Damjan Jovanovich and Jennifer Chen offer insights into BSD’s innovative structure and its emphasis on creative storytelling and problem-solving. The film includes the work of Jovanovic, Chen, and SCI-Arc students, highlighting the program’s potential to cultivate visionary designers.

This liberal-arts-based program is divided into a two-year foundation sequence, followed by advanced coursework where students can focus on Data Environments, Film + Narrative, or Games + Interaction. The curriculum integrates SCI-Arc’s distinct design culture with studies in Liberal Arts, Applied Studies, History + Theory, and Visual Studies. Students develop critical skills in analysis, visualization, and design workflows through projects that bridge digital and physical scales. The program culminates in a final project, showcasing each student’s creative and technical capabilities, preparing them for diverse career opportunities, including game design, production design, creative direction, narrative design, and data visualization.

BS in Design at SCI-Arc equips students to become visually sophisticated, spatially informed, and technologically literate designers. They emerge ready to expand the horizons of tomorrow’s media industries and urban infrastructures.

For more information about SCI-Arc’s BS Design program, visit: www.sciarc.edu/undergraduate-programs/bachelor-of-science-in-design

Explore ‘Concepts in Play: SCI-Arc GT23 Part Two – Themes’ to see how SCI-Arc’s graduates creatively respond to today’s architectural challenges. This second film in the series showcases inventive uses of materials and technology, as well as unique approaches to blending digital and physical spaces. Each theme ventures beyond traditional practices, crafting spaces that engage with current social and environmental contexts. Discover how these emerging architects shape new architectural dialogues and envision innovative solutions for our world.

Explore architectural innovation in ‘New Ground: SCI-Arc GT23 Part One – Projects’. This film unveils the bold inquiries and pioneering designs of SCI-Arc’s graduates as they challenge conventional boundaries and redefine the future of architecture. From addressing climate change on intimate scales to reimagining the impact of design on mental health, these projects are not just visionary—they are transformative. Witness the next wave of architects as they craft solutions that blend technology, craft, and societal impact.

Enter the world of Making+Meaning ‘23, where participants share their profound insights and transformative experiences. Explore how each segment, from Image to Line, sparks innovation, urging participants to venture into uncharted territories. Witness the fusion of cutting-edge software methodologies, intricate form exploration, and collaborative endeavors. From digital ingenuity to tangible creations, witness the evolution of these artisans as they expand their horizons, refine their skills, and reimagine the essence of design.

“SCI-Arc Unscripted: UG Thesis 2023” offers a glimpse into the unique thesis season at SCI-Arc, highlighting its community’s personal narratives and creative endeavors.This film presents candid moments and reflections from students and faculty, revealing the diverse identities and innovative projects that define the SCI-Arc experience. It celebrates the architectural creation process and the personal growth encountered along the way. Experience the essence of SCI-Arc through the eyes of those actively crafting architecture’s future.

The one year, three semester, MS Architectural Technology degree program culminates in a public exhibition and symposium designed by the students. Students in the program develop cutting edge research projects in the territory of design and technology, with an emphasis in artificial intelligence, automation, and platform thinking. The event brings top experts from fields related to the students’ research to engage with their work and create a dialogue around larger issues related to the future of design. The exhibition format allows the public and invited guests to engage with interactive applications and prototypes one on one, to experience the exciting future our students are creating, and serve as a platform for launching their careers. The class of 2023’s projects ranged from an AI short film generator to explore near future realities, automated creative direction and show room design for fashion retail, to integrated carbon scrubbing technology into modern residential towers. Applications are open for the 2024-2025 academic year.

https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/postgraduate/architectural-technologies

SCI-Arc EDGE Design Theory & Pedagogy 2023 graduates speak about the projects, research, and pedagogical models they developed in the context of the one-year MS Design Theory & Pedagogy program at SCI-Arc. The Master of Science in Design Theory and Pedagogy is a one-year, three-semester program that addresses the growing ambiguity between practice and academia and prepares students for a new kind of hybrid career that has emerged in architecture: the architect-theorist-educator. Projects included in the 2023 EDGE Design Theory & Pedagogy year-end exhibition held in the SCI-Arc Gallery address the role of AI, machine learning, and simulation in the design process; contemporary forms of architectural pedagogy; creating urban networks of public community spaces; and implementing a custom platform for bridging academia with broader notions of cultural production.

For more information about SCI-Arc’s EDGE MS Design Theory & Pedagogy program visit: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/postgraduate/design-theory-and-pedagogy

The Bachelor of Science in Design* (BS Design) program at SCI-Arc is a four-year degree preparing students for interdisciplinary creative careers in film, gaming, and data environments, using architecture as a platform for exploration.

This liberal-arts based program is divided into a two-year Foundation Sequence followed by two years where students have the option to focus on Data Environments, Film + Narrative, or Games + Interaction. The foundation includes a distinctive core curriculum built on SCI-Arc’s design culture. Liberal Arts classes are accompanied by tailored coursework in Applied Studies, History + Theory, and Visual Studies. The end of the Foundation Sequence introduces the Case Studio: a concentrated studio format where students learn analysis, visualization, and design workflows that connect and integrate objects and phenomena of multiple scales across digital and physical environments. The program culminates with a Final Project that showcases the full range of the individual’s creative and technical capabilities with a view toward their future career path. Graduates will learn to confidently seize the opportunities arising between different fields of emerging technologies, and be well-positioned for employment across multiple industries, entrepreneurial ventures, and academic pathways.

Career opportunities include: game designer, production designer, creative director, concept artist, interaction technologist, asset developer, worldbuilder, narrative designer, urban strategist, data visualization specialist, 3D generalist, and architectural designer.

BS in Design at SCI-Arc is a program where visually sophisticated, spatially informed, and technologically literate designers are forged and empowered to expand diverse cultural horizons and social affordances of tomorrow’s media industries and urban infrastructures.

*Pending WSCUC Approval (2023–24)

For more information about SCI-Arc’s BS Design program visit: www.sciarc.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/bachelor-of-science-in-design

SCI-Arc’s 2022 Graduate Thesis Weekend included reviews of the thesis projects with over 50 critics including SCI-Arc faculty and invited guests. Critics included John McMorrough, Michael Osman, Jerry Jenkins, Germane Barnes, Neil Denari, Margarita Jover, Abigail Coover Hume, Karen Lohrmann, Barbara Bestor, Galo Canizares and many others.

Redefining Earrings as Sculptural Extensions

The Possibilities of Intelligent Patterning to Unlock New Design Expressions

Augmented Reality Adventures with Gelato

Unveiling the Layers of Architectural Mise-en-Scène

Design Immersion Days (DID) is an immersive four-week summer program that introduces high school students to design and architecture experimentation. It is intended to inspire curiosity about the world of design, introduce basic design knowledge and critical thinking skills, and familiarize students with the expansive architecture and design culture of Los Angeles.

From inspiration to perspiration, SCI-Arc showcases its students’ creativity and hard work. Experience the unique perspectives and innovative ideas that make SCI-Arc one of the world’s most exciting schools of architecture. Strap in for a wild ride through a semester in bloom!

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2022 B.Arch Thesis Weekend. The weekend’s events included two full days of project presentations and reviews marking the culmination of fifth-year B.Arch students’ final semester in the undergraduate program. Students presented their thesis projects to over 50 architects, critics, and theorists as well as other creative professionals who converged to discuss, debate, and dispute emerging questions in architecture.

“Expanding the Archive” presents the work of SCI-Arc’s 2021 Graduate Thesis students. Emerging out of a time of crisis and transformation, the architectural projects featured in this film expand not only what is included within architecture, but also how to do the work of architecture in the present, how to speculate, how to engage in current issues, and how to communicate architecture’s purpose to the wider world. “Expanding the Archive” captures the planetary scope of architectural thinking at SCI-Arc, showcasing projects which have been conceived, developed, and shared across time zones, cities, and social contexts, linked by the collective act of imagining alternative futures while also engaging architecture’s past. The film features a broad spectrum of SCI-Arc projects, revealing the sheer diversity of ideas among the student body about what architecture is, who it can be for, and how it engages with design and the built environment as it is, and as it might be in the future. Together, these projects testify to the power of imagination to generate optimism out of crisis and reset the standards of what architecture can be.

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2021 B.Arch Thesis Weekend. The weekend’s events included two full days of project presentations and reviews marking the culmination of fifth-year B.Arch students’ final semester in the undergraduate program. Conducted as a virtual Undergraduate Thesis Weekend, the event featured guest reviewers including Thom Mayne, Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ’91), Winka Dubbeldam, Neil Denari, Ila Berman, Andy Bow, and Special Thesis Advisor Marion Weiss, among others. Students presented their thesis projects through an immersive, online public platform during which over 70 jurors, critics, and architecture professionals from around the globe converged to discuss, debate, and dispute emerging questions in architecture.

This feature highlights the careers of three SCI-Arc EDGE – Architectural Technologies graduates: Daniela Atencio [Faculty - Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota Columbia / SCI-Arc - MS. Architectural Technologies ’15], Pedro Ferrazini [Associate Professor - Rosario National University, Rosario Argentina / SCI-Arc - MS. Architectural Technologies ’19] Marcos Dana [Faculty - Rosario National University, Rosario Argentina / SCI-Arc - MS. Architectural Technologies ’18]. Daniela Atencio shares her thoughts on developing a new curriculum focused on computational thinking. Atencio’s research “Programmed Materialism” involves translations between images, objects and machines, speculating on the role of digital ontologies and representations in architecture. Atencio also discusses the “Non_Fictional City” international workshop that focused on addressing contemporary urban problems and imagining alternative future scenarios.    

Pedro Ferrazini reflects on how the tools used in design processes lead to new ways of defining architecture; specifically utilizing artificial intelligence to co-produce architecture that works responsibly with landscape. Ferrazini also speaks about accessibility in relation to working with artificial intelligence and how these tools redefine the role of architects and architects as educators. Marcos Dana considers the relevant connections between practice and academic research in pursuing transformed urban realities. Dana and Ferrazini’s work focuses on the ethical, political, and economic entanglements of technology. 

Mira Henry [SCI-Arc Design Immersion Days Coordinator] and Angelica Lorenzi [SCI-Arc Design Immersion Days Lead Teacher] discuss highlights from the Design Immersion Days [DID] program. Design Immersion Days 2021 In the Clouds provides an immersive platform for high school students all over the world to come together for a three-week-long series of courses, projects, lectures, virtual field trips, and more, which plunge into contemporary design topics, tools, and techniques. Continuing its traditions in concept as well as explorations of scale through cutting-edge design platforms, the curriculum will incorporate new methods for content and project delivery to engender a collaborative and fun social environment. 

Open to the creative individual, inspired professionals, current college students and recent graduates, as well as those newly admitted to SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 program, Making+Meaning is a four-week summer studio program that introduces students to architectural experimentation and transformative design techniques in a unique and lively studio setting.

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2020 Graduate Thesis Weekend. Complete with wall-to-wall livestreamed final reviews, SPIN Room commentary sessions throughout, as well as rich and engaging discourse and feedback from a wide range of experts in the field of architecture, this year’s graduating M.Arch 1 and 2 students took the virtual stage via Twitch and YouTube Live to present their final thesis projects. SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis Weekend is the school’s largest annual event, during which visiting critics, architecture professionals, as well as SCI-Arc faculty and leadership collectively review students’ graduate theses as they put forth their final proposals, which each year endeavor to generate new perspectives in architecture and design.

SCI-Arc EDGE Postgraduate Programs Chair David Ruy and SCI-Arc MS Architectural Technologies Program Coordinator M. Casey Rehm discuss the future of architectural innovation and historical periods of the digital turn in architecture culminating in a current “third wave” of architectural technologies including artificial intelligence, interactive game engine-based development and cloud-based computing platforms. The MS Architectural Technologies Program considers how these techniques are used to construct value on the information that we see in the world. The program embraces a unique platform approach to architecture with the aim of translating information as a resource into value and situating cultural projects in relation to technologies. Students in the program attain computational literacy not only with robotic material processes and assemblies, but they gain expertise in data analysis, the automation of design production and platforms for communicating between software and hardware. SCI-Arc’s research initiatives around technology including the Platform and Automation Lab and the Urban Pasts and Futures Lab equip graduates of the MS Architectural Technologies program with expertise for positions of leadership and innovation. The Platform and Automation Lab includes high-powered GPU workstations and a robot facility dedicated largely to urban scanning and urban material studies involving non-human forms of perception.

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2020 B.Arch Thesis Weekend. The weekend’s events included two full days of project presentations and reviews marking the culmination of fifth-year B.Arch students’ final semester in the undergraduate program. Conducted on Zoom and featuring guest reviewers including Thom Mayne, Catherine Ingraham, Brett Steele, Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ’91), and Special Thesis Advisor Neil Denari, among others, UG Thesis sessions were streamed live on Facebook and Twitch, bringing in a total of 55,000 viewers worldwide.

SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis presents “Miniatures 2020”. SCI-Arc alumni and guest critics discuss the work-in-progress thesis projects of the current Graduate Thesis class. The students were asked to encapsulate their thesis project in the form of a miniature.

Design Immersion Days 2020 In the Clouds provides an immersive platform for high school students all over the world to come together for three-week-long series of courses, project, lectures, virtual field trips, and more, which plunge into contemporary design topics, tools, and techniques. Continuing its traditions in concept as well as explorations of scale through cutting-edge design platforms, the curriculum will incorporate new methods for content and project delivery to engender a collaborative and fun social environment. 

The way we construct things and how we use digital information to build buildings today is undergoing a dramatic change. AR and AI will be playing a key role of how we design, develop, and build things in the future.

Thom Mayne, Director of SCI-Arc’s MS Design of Cities presents the program’s approach to expanding the limits of architectural design into broader urban and infrastructural problems.

SCI-Arc’s EDGE MS Design Theory and Pedagogy Coordinator Marcelyn Gow reflects on the program’s approach to designing future pedagogies and discusses significant work produced by recent graduates from the Design Theory and Pedagogy program.

In the Spring semester 2017 SCI-Arc hosted an advanced design studio taught by Frank Gehry and Gehry Partners addressing the future of prisons and issues of incarceration.

SCI-Arc’s EDGE Postgraduate Programs Chair David Ruy introduces the MS Synthetic Landscapes postgraduate program at SCI-Arc. The Master of Science in Synthetic Landscapes is a one-year, three-semester program focused on advancing knowledge and developing expertise in the emerging topics of landscape architecture.

SCI-Arc’s EDGE MS Architectural Technologies Coordinator M. Casey Rehm presents the program’s approach to advanced technologies and discusses their near-future cultural impacts.

SCI-Arc’s EDGE Fiction and Entertainment 2019 graduating class, directed by Liam Young, presents journeys into a series of speculative futures. These future worlds incorporate techniques of film, fiction, video games, virtual reality and documentary to tell stories about the emerging conditions of the 21st century in a world where artificial intelligence and automation are ubiquitous and myriad autonomous objects populate our daily life.

Open to the creative individual, inspired professionals, current college students and recent graduates, as well as those newly admitted to SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 program, Making+Meaning is a four-week summer studio program that introduces students to architectural experimentation and transformative design techniques in a unique and lively studio setting.

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 SCI-Arc’s 2019 B.Arch Thesis Weekend. The weekend’s events included reviews of the 45 thesis projects with over 50 critics including SCI-Arc faculty and invited guests. Critics included Winka Dubbeldam, Mariana Ibanez, Ferda Kolatan, Thom Mayne and Alexandra Cunningham, among others.

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

Highlights from the Fall 2018 Final Reviews at SCI-Arc featuring work from the B.Arch, M.Arch 1, M.Arch 2 and EDGE programs.

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2018 B.Arch Thesis Weekend.

SCI-Arc’s 2018 Design Immersion Days [DID] students present a recent, public exhibition of their work at the school.

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

SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis presents ‘Miniatures’ 2 at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. Students in the M.Arch program present their work-in-progress thesis projects to faculty, thesis advisors and invited critics.

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

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2017 B.Arch Thesis Weekend

Highlights from the Fall 2016 Final Reviews at SCI-Arc featuring work from the B.Arch, M.Arch 1 and M.Arch 2 programs.

Open to the creative individual, inspired professionals, current college students and college graduates, as well as those newly admitted to SCI-Arc’s M.Arch 1 program, Making+Meaning is a four-week summer studio program that introduces students to architectural experimentation and transformative design techniques in a unique and lively studio setting.

Design Immersion Days (DID) is an immersive four-week summer program that introduces high school students to design and architecture.

Fall 2017 SCI-Arc Visual Studies taught by Ryan Tyler Martinez

Instructors Ryan Tyler Martinez Shawn Rassekh

Highlights from SCI-Arc’s 2016 B.Arch Thesis Weekend

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.

Film from SCI-Arc’s Film Space seminar, including recent student models seen through a robotic lens

Film from SCI-Arc’s Film Space seminar, including recent student models seen through a robotic lens.

The design culture of SCI-Arc’s B.Arch program is focused both on the discipline of architecture, in terms of its history, theory, techniques, and on the practice of architecture, in terms of building technology, innovative means of construction, and professional practice.

The core of the M.Arch 1 program at SCI-Arc is architectural experimentation and learning through making. Central to the program’s philosophy is a firm commitment to design excellence, achieved through a comprehensive course of study that provides students with a solid intellectual base and understanding of the history, theory, technology, and professional practice of architecture.

SCI-Arc’s advanced Master of Architecture program introduces students to an advanced critical perspective on contemporary architectural issues as a tool with which to examine the complex and shifting relationship between architecture and cultural, political, economic and social change.

Beginning in fall 2016, SCI-Arc EDGE, Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture will offer four graduate degree programs in fields including architectural technologies, fiction and entertainment, design of cities, and design theory and pedagogy, along with two fellowships in synthetic landscapes.

Highlights from the Fall 2017 Final Reviews at SCI-Arc featuring work from the B.Arch, M.Arch 1 and M.Arch 2 programs.