09/23/19

For his fifth-year final project with Hadrian Predock, recent B.Arch graduate Samuel Cruz created An Architecture of Architectures. This office aims to explore the muting—or flattening—of a large system's intricate components, arguing that the true power of an architecture of systems and networks comes from its ability to subdue all its mechanisms and flatten itself into one cohesive whole while still invoking countless interpretations. The first exhibition, "Flatopia," explores the creation of architecture through the distillation and abstraction of existing networks and systems, both material and immaterial, found in everyday life from four categories: infrastructure, social spaces, landscape, and urbanity. @architecruz⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ #uscarchitecture #usc #architecture #architectureschool #architecturestudent #architecturedrawing #architecturerendering #design #designschool #la #losangeles

In "Distort," B.Arch student Timlok Li considers the problem of architectural addition through the lens of the diptych. Using Michael Graves’ proposed additions to the Whitney Museum (1985-1988) as a reference, the project proposal is for a single family home neighboring the LADG’s Armstrong Avenue Residence in Silver Lake. Next to the original LADG house, the new proposal constantly expresses the diptych through 45- and 90-degree projections throughout the whole project. It is the critic of the purity of absolute sameness or difference in architecture. Instructor: Alfie Koetter.⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ #uscarchitecture #usc #architecture #architectureschool #architecturestudent #designschool #la #losangeles #silverlake #house #housing #architecturedrawing

An interrogation of the house—object during our final days of this year’s @uscarchitecture Exploration of Architecture high school program with @uscsummer. 📷: @berryandlinne

The design for the Arroyo Bridge, a collaboration between students from @uscarchitecture, @autodesk and Mary and David Martin's MADWORKSHOP @themadworkshop, incorporates a “layered branch” strategy inspired by the trees near the site.⁣ ⁣ This technique combines mechanical and sculptural design aspects, with each member of the bridge supporting one another to maintain structural integrity. The lacing pattern of the bridge adds to its natural appearance and features perforated panels to mimic the foliage of the surrounding flora and to provide shade to visitors.⁣ Repost from @plane_site

For her thesis project, recent M.Arch graduate Ashley Peng investigated and contrasted the nuances of Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture exhibited in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo House Studio Museum with Le Corbusier-designed houses. The results provided new thinking on architecture design application and the future of architecture technology.

Thank you to everyone who attended the 13th Annual BIM BOP Conference! Over 30 speakers participated in today's informative sessions on the current state of BIM in the AECO building industry. We'd like to extend a special thank you to our sponsors. #bimbop2019 #BIM #uscarchitecture #revit

Erin Cuevas and Myrna Ayoub here - we’re taking over! For the next couple days we’ll be sharing moments of the Summer Exploration of Architecture program, where high school students have the opportunity to learn fundamentals of architecture and design while spending time at the USC campus. Coordinator Andy Ku; Instructors Myrna Ayoub, Rob Berry, Erin Cuevas, Maria Esnaola, Anna Hermann, Erin Kasimow, Brendan Shea

Students in our Exploration of Architecture high school summer program partnered with the Viterbi School yesterday for an interactive tower building challenge. Check out our Story Highlights for more scenes from yesterday’s competition!

In our inaugural “Field School on the Frame: Itineraries, Interpretation, and Intervention in the American West” course, students from USC Architecture & Roski are practicing diverse modes of reading, sensing, and understanding a range of physical landscapes in Utah, Nevada, and California. Some highlights from our newest summer program are pictured here, including visits to:⁣ ⁣ Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels in Eastern Nevada⁣ Michael Heizer's "Double Negative" in Nevada⁣ Goblin Valley in Southeastern Utah⁣ Alabama Hills near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada⁣ Bonneville Salt Flats⁣ Seven Magic Mountains in Nevada, currently undergoing renovation⁣ Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake

B.Arch student Baraka (Keko) Al-Ramah’s “Babylon Gardens” project is inspired by Baghdad’s architecture and aims to reconsider the notion of social housing in LA. By lifting the dwelling-unit structures 14 feet above ground, the project uses the street level of the site as a public park for the residents and the surrounding community. This spotlights the notion of community interaction through the maximization of outdoor programs, including edible gardens, sports courts, public swimming pools, BBQ facilities, yoga gardens, greenspaces, and playgrounds.

B.Arch student @dqvofficial shares his final project from his first year of school:⁣ ⁣ After several renditions, I stumbled upon my final design. My tent model is a complete narrative.⁣ -⁣ It expresses the story of origami within architectural design, deriving from an understanding of the three types of folding:⁣ -⁣ The fold, the unfold, and the crease.⁣ -⁣ A continuation of the six unfolding cubes cut into a single sheet of flowing white paper, all contrasted with a three-sided folded pyramid. The wave, containing only three creases, stands as a testimony that origami is not all angular, but also fluid. This seamlessly contrasts with the traditional geometry of pyramid, exemplified with the graphic of a colorized crease pattern for an origami angel I designed based around triangular structures.⁣ -⁣ I saw a beautiful narrative in this design, a story of three distinct designs originated from three distinct folds, none of which are derived off each other, yet all share and inhabit the same space.

For her graduate thesis project under instructor Jose Sanchez, M.Arch ’19 graduate Manyan Qian’s “System Collision” project creates modern modular housing that utilizes a traditional Jean Prouve panel system. The housing project with prefabricated panels and modular parts has a flexible interior and explores the possibilities for when two standardized prefabricated systems come together.

M.Arch students @mmg_1217 and @devonsavagedevon share a project from the Advanced Fabrication course with @rob.ley: ⁣ ⁣ “The intricacy that composes the structural body, or skeleton, of architectural forms is generally concealed beneath its skin or within the confines of walls. As the bones grow, perhaps the necessity for skin coverage recedes proportionally. In designing a skateboard, we sought to play upon this tension between internal structure and external form. What happens when the boundary between bones and skin becomes interwoven such that one becomes indiscernible from the other?⁣ ⁣ We studied Herzog & de Meuron’s Beijing National ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium as a precedent to see how the reveal between structure and skin can operate over a large architectural form, the skeletal structure becoming the formal body itself.⁣ Utilizing birch plywood with an internal american walnut ply core, we layered over-woven strips upon one another to establish a structural rigidity and spatial coverage that would allow the strips to operate as the skateboard surface itself. The final design offers a reveal to the ground underneath as one skates upon its undulated form, placing oneself on a vehicle that brings as minimal a surface area as is necessary to perform.” — Devon⁣ ⁣

B.Arch student John Yu shares the futuristic table and chair he made for our furniture design course, which explores the intersection of architecture, art and design. 📷: @definitely.john

#tbt to fifth-year final reviews in Mary Casper’s studio, “The Realists.”⁣ ⁣ The 501 seminar interrogated contemporary realist movements in art, philosophy, popular culture and architecture to ask what makes spaces, buildings and the people they serve “real” in the increasingly fake reality we inhabit. In 502, students researched existing conditions in Hollywood and designed a series of projects that represented a body of speculative design thinking about the real future of the city.

The 13th annual BIM Conference returns to USC on Friday, June 28! For more information on this year’s program and to register, visit our website (link in bio ⬆️).

A repost from first-year B.Arch student @woody_chiang: This semester was such a journey for me. If someone showed me my #final, I would not have believed I could make that before the semester started. Project 1, I experimented with architectural origin forms of the #cave,the #hut, and the #tent as a way to describe the solid, the line, and the surface used in #architecture. In project 2, I used what I learned from project 1 to devise 4 coexisting systems of the point, the line, the surface, and the solid on a regular #grid to form my field. The result was a field of homogeneous forms with intersecting lines and cubes as well as surfaces that divide space to give expansive or narrow spatial qualities and a range of transparency across the landscape. I am incredibly grateful of the the instruction I received from my instructor @myrnaayoub_projects and my peers. Done with first year at @uscarchitecture. Four more to go!

Our 27th annual heritage conservation summer course is in full swing! Yesterday’s schedule included a field trip to The Getty.

Our Chase L. Leavitt Graduate Building Science class of 2019! Congratulations to our new graduates of the master of building science program. ✌🏻

More scenes from EXPO 2019, an exhibition of student work from the class of 2019. Pictured here are graduate architecture thesis projects (part 2/2).