SCI-Arc

Undergraduate Thesis 2026 project by Travis Du + Sissi Zhang with advisor Russell Thomsen.

Learn more about Undergraduate Programs at SCI-Arc: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/why-sci-arc

Conutryside-ism

Can we create a delirious condition by placing agricultural production inside the metropolis and making it visible—turning the act of growing food into a public, metropolitan spectacle?�Our thesis, “Countryside-ism”, explore the spectacle of the contrast between the countryside as an automated landscape of production and the city as a sit of whimsical, public experience. �Situated in downtown Seattle, this project operates as a hybrid of vertical farm and public infrastructure. Influenced by Rem Koolhaas’ writing on the automated countryside, it examines the contradiction produced by folding the agricultural machine back into the city. If the contemporary countryside has become a site of invisible optimization—defined by logistics, extraction, automation, and precision—then this project asks whether those hidden systems can be made spatially and culturally present within the urban environment.�

The building combines agricultural production with complementary public programs, including a farmers market, restaurant, and public spaces. The farm itself follows a logic largely detached from human occupation: vertical systems are densely packed, automated, and organized to minimize human presence. Against this rational stack, spaces of human occupation are suspended, inserted, and carved through the agricultural racks, allowing the machinery of cultivation to register as architectural experience.

Undergraduate Thesis 2026 project by Vipasha Thorat with advisor Maxi Spina.

Learn more about Undergraduate Programs at SCI-Arc: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/why-sci-arc

(de)Centralized Fragments

This thesis investigates how institutions can transform in response to distributed models of knowledge. As information increasingly operates through decentralized, networked systems rather than singular repositories, the project challenges the traditional conception of institutions as isolated, vertical monuments. Instead, it proposes the city itself as a horizontal archive, an atomized networked condition where knowledge is embedded across space. Located in South Korea, the project reconfigures institutional programs, including library, archive, and gallery spaces, into a fragmented system of interwoven modules. These elements are organized as a patchwork of overlapping clusters, connected through bridges, gardens, pathways, and circulation networks.

As the project grows vertically, connections intensify, transforming fragmented program blocks into a cohesive spatial network. Memory and knowledge are no longer contained but embedded within movement and circulation. The archive emerges not as a singular object, but as an infrastructural system, a binding layer that organizes relationships and holds the decentralized fragments together.

Three firms helmed by SCI-Arc faculty and alumni have been named in The Architect’s Newspaper 2026 Best of Practice Awards.

First Office, with Principal and SCI-Arc faculty Anna Neimark, was given Honorable Mention in the Architect (Small Firm) – West category.

Bestor Architecture , led by SCI-Arc alum and current board member Barbara Bestor, FAIA (M.Arch 1, ’92), was given Honorable Mention in the Architect (Medium Firm) – West category.

UNITEDLAB Associates , led by SANG DAE LEE (M.Arch ‘04), was named Best of Practice Award Winner in the Architect (Small Firm) – Southwest Category.

The AN jury reviewed submissions across portfolio, office culture, and social impact, selecting firms whose work stood out for its strong sense of place. Through meaningful community engagement and thoughtful design, these practices created projects that respond to the unique character of their sites, cities, and communities.

Learn more about SCI-Arc faculty and academic programs: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics

Photos in order :
First Office, Beige House, Photography Eric Staudenmaier.
First Office, Green House, Photography Eric Staudenmaier.
Bestor Architecture, Baldwin Hills Vista, Photography Chris Mottalini.
Bestor Architecture, Claremont Residence, Photography Yoshihiro Makino.

See the full list winners: https://www.archpaper.com/2026/06/2026-best-of-practice-winners/

Project by M.Arch student Alison Byron for David Eskenazi and Matthew Au's Fall 2025 1GA Studio.

There's still time to apply for Fall 2026! Learn more about SCI-Arc Graduate Programs: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/graduate/why-sci-arc

This project began as a study of stacking and posture through a system of twelve volumes. Starting from a simple configuration of four blocks, one horizontal grounding element, and three vertical protrusions, the system was mirrored and stacked into an ABA pattern. Through rotation and scaling, the composition shifts between controlled alignment and moments of apparent randomness. Despite these transformations, each volume remains legible, maintaining a balance between collective form and individual parts.

This logic carries into the architectural phase. A midterm model revealed a contrapposto-like stance, which informed the building’s on-site orientation. Located in a South Los Angeles wetlands parking lot adjacent to an old bus depot, the project operates as an extension of a proposed South LA satellite LACMA.
A dominant vertical volume houses a scissor stair and elevator, acting as a central spine. Movement begins in the gallery space and unfolds as a continuous sequence, guiding visitors through exhibitions before reaching secondary programs such as a conservation lab and film viewing room.

The section asserts hierarchy through shifts between expansive and compressed spaces. Ceiling conditions expose fragments of the original volumes, sustaining a 'ghost' of the initial geometry. At the upper level, an aperture frames views of the wetland. Sloping interior surfaces invite occupation, making the architecture itself inhabitable.

Undergraduate Thesis 2026 project by Amani Alakeli with advisor Maxi Spina.

Learn more about Undergraduate Programs at SCI-Arc: https://www.sciarc.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/why-sci-arc

"Echoes of Fragments: A Village Reborn" explores the idea that ruins are not the end of architecture, but the beginning of a new design language. Rooted in the Palestinian village of Lifta, located at the western entrance of Jerusalem, this thesis investigates how architecture can learn from displacement, memory, and the spatial intelligence embedded within ruins.

Rather than treating Lifta as a frozen artifact of the past, the project reads it as a living archive, studying how the village evolved over centuries through shared walls, layered thresholds, stepped growth, and collective circulation.

The thesis traces Lifta’s architectural evolution across centuries, showing how the village continuously adapted socially, culturally, and structurally over time, before its violent interruption during the 1948 Nakba, when Palestinian families were displaced and prevented from returning to their homes. Unlike many destroyed villages, Lifta still physically remains, making its ruins powerful evidence of both memory and ongoing erasure.

Instead of replacing the ruins, the project extracts architectural systems from them, and reinterprets them into a new framework for collective living, integrating cultural, residential, educational, and communal spaces into the landscape itself.

The work is not only about preserving what once existed, but imagining what could have been if Lifta had continued to evolve naturally over time. Through speculative architectural interventions, the thesis proposes a future where ruins become generators of new life, memory, and community rather than symbols of disappearance.

Ultimately, this thesis is not about preservation in the traditional sense. It is not about freezing Lifta in the past, nor is it about rebuilding what was lost exactly as it was. It is about learning from what remains. By reading Lifta as a living archive, to uncover the intelligence embedded within it, and to use that intelligence to project a new future. A future where Architecture, landscape, and community are reconnected. This Thesis is not about ruins as endings. It is about ruins as beginnings. A system waiting to be read and built again.