The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) has established a remarkable presence at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, demonstrating the institution's commitment to exploring the intersection of technology and future design. The exhibition, which runs under this year's theme "Intelligens," features extensive contributions from SCI-Arc's community of students, alumni, and faculty across multiple venues, from national pavilions to independent installations and research projects.
The SCI-Arc participation offers a compelling examination of questions that are central to the institution's educational philosophy: how technology will shape the future of architectural design, what role innovation plays in addressing contemporary challenges, and how architectural experimentation can push the boundaries of traditional practice.
SCI-Arc alumna Majeda Alhinai, who earned her Master of Architecture degree in 2016 and Master of Science in Design Theory and Pedagogy in 2017, has achieved a historic milestone by being selected as the curator of Oman's first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Her groundbreaking exhibition, titled "Traces," presents an innovative reinterpretation of the traditional Omani sablah as both a spatial and cultural framework for envisioning future communal living.
Alhinai's curatorial work, developed in collaboration with her studio partner William Virgil, exemplifies the kind of global leadership that SCI-Arc alumni bring to international discussions about space, memory, cultural identity, and the sense of belonging in contemporary architecture. The exhibition explores how traditional architectural forms can be reimagined to address modern social needs while preserving cultural heritage and identity.
The French Pavilion features significant contributions from SCI-Arc through the "Atlas of Risks" vertical studio project, taught by renowned faculty member Elena Manferdini. This innovative studio used wildfire as both an architectural and environmental condition for investigation, with Los Angeles serving as a real-world testing ground for theoretical concepts. The project responds directly to the "Atlas of Risks" concept proposed by the French Pavilion's curators, with students developing site-specific design strategies to address the increasingly severe threats posed by climate-driven disasters in urban landscapes.
The student work successfully merges rigorous research methodologies with speculative design thinking and performance-based architectural solutions. The French Pavilion itself is curated by prominent architects Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane, with MacFarlane being a 1983 Bachelor of Architecture graduate from SCI-Arc, working in collaboration with Martin Duplantier and Éric Daniel-Lacombe. Their comprehensive project, titled "Vivre avec / Living with," directly addresses the complex challenges of ecological, climatic, and social transformations through innovative architectural responses.
Also featured within the "Vivre Avec" exhibition is the undergraduate studio project "Sway Me," a 2B level studio led by coordinator Jennifer Chen alongside faculty members David Eskenazi, David Freeland, and Kordae Henry. This studio focused its research and design efforts on Downtown Los Angeles, conducting detailed examinations of air quality conditions, the patterns and effects of Santa Ana winds, and various forms of urban pollution as both environmental risks and potential design resources.
Through their proposals for an Athletic Center that incorporates wind turbines and natural ventilation strategies, the students fundamentally questioned conventional environmental control systems and proposed entirely new relationships between architectural design and atmospheric conditions. Their work demonstrates how architectural education can address pressing environmental concerns while developing innovative technological solutions.
Another significant contribution comes from SCI-Arc's 2GAX graduate architecture studio, co-taught by William Virgil and Florencia Pita during the Fall 2024 semester. Their projects, which are prominently featured in the "Vivre Avec / Living With" exhibition at the French Pavilion, address the critical and urgent issue of drought conditions in a region that has long been characterized by water scarcity challenges.
With extended periods of low precipitation and increasingly high aridity levels, Los Angeles faces mounting challenges regarding water availability and sustainable water management. The innovative proposals developed by the graduate students transform conventional building typologies into functional water reservoirs, specifically designed to collect, filter, and redistribute the slow-moving water of the LA River system.
By successfully integrating infrastructure systems with architectural design, these projects offer a compelling and practical vision for sustainable urban resilience in the face of accelerating climate change impacts. The work demonstrates how architectural education can directly contribute to solving real-world environmental challenges through innovative design thinking.
In the central Arsenale exhibition "Intelligens," SCI-Arc faculty member Eric Owen Moss presents deeply personal and professional reflections on The 708 House, a significant architectural project that was tragically lost to wildfire in January 2025. Through a combination of architectural drawings and critical written analysis, Moss revisits this important house as an experimental and deliberately open-ended architectural gesture from the 1980s.
The presentation reframes the original project through contemporary lenses of loss, transformation, and the inherent temporality that characterizes all architectural works. Moss's contribution explores how buildings exist not just as physical structures but as carriers of memory, ideas, and cultural significance that persist even after their physical destruction.
SCI-Arc faculty member Liam Young, who also serves as coordinator of the Fiction & Entertainment program, debuts the European premiere of his ambitious new film "After the End" at this year's Venice Biennale as part of the "Intelligens" exhibition in the Arsenale. This groundbreaking speculative work represents a significant achievement in architectural filmmaking and futuristic storytelling.
Spanning an epic timeline of 50,000 years, "After the End" presents itself as a speculative time-lapse film that imagines a comprehensive creation story for a post-fossil fuel future. Set against the landscape of Australia, one of the world's largest producers of both coal and natural gas, the film traces a sweeping narrative arc that moves from First Nations histories through the periods of colonization and resource extraction, ultimately arriving at an envisioned future characterized by renewable energy systems and Indigenous land reclamation.
In Young's speculative future vision, abandoned oil rigs are transformed into thriving artificial reef ecosystems, former gas processing plants are repurposed to launch a speculative space industry, and First Peoples successfully reclaim both their ancestral lands and their sovereignty. The film was developed through collaboration with Australian First Nations actor and writer Meyne Wyatt, with visual effects supervision provided by SCI-Arc faculty member Alexey Marfin.
The comprehensive presence of SCI-Arc at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale demonstrates the institution's continued leadership in exploring how technology, environmental consciousness, and innovative design thinking can address the complex challenges facing contemporary architecture and urban planning. From examining traditional cultural forms through a modern lens to developing practical solutions for climate adaptation, the SCI-Arc community's contributions to "Intelligens" showcase the vital role that architectural education and experimentation play in shaping our built environment's future.
The diverse range of projects and installations highlights SCI-Arc's unique pedagogical approach, which encourages students and faculty to think beyond conventional architectural boundaries while maintaining rigorous attention to real-world applications and cultural significance. Through their participation in this prestigious international exhibition, SCI-Arc continues to establish itself as a leading voice in contemporary architectural discourse and innovation.
