SCI-Arc Announces Spring 2026 Public Programs

SCI-Arc’s Spring 2026 Public Programs bring together architects, designers, artists, and thinkers from Los Angeles and around the world for a season of lectures, exhibitions, artist talks, symposia, and book launches. Taking place across campus, the series invites the public into conversations around imagination, resilience, representation, and the evolving role of architecture in contemporary culture.

The season opens on January 21 with Nathan Hume, Principal of Hume Architecture and SCI-Arc’s new Graduate and Postgraduate Programs Chair. In How Soon Is Now?, Hume reflects on practice and pedagogy, setting the tone for a semester focused on urgency, inquiry, and experimentation.

February brings a sequence of lectures and book launches that move between practice, theory, and discipline. Coy Howard, SCI-Arc Design Faculty, launches Ikebana & Other Infidelities in an intimate event at the Kappe Library. Later in the month, Michel Rojkind, Design Principal and Founder of Rojkind Arquitectos in Mexico City, presents The Power to Imagine: In a Culture Losing Depth and Meaning, followed by a STUN Lecture from Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston of Johnston Marklee, centered on their publication A Book of Monsters.

The lecture series continues into March with Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Professor and Head of CITA at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, who explores computation, landscape, and material systems in Resilient Landscapes: Building for Bioregionality. On April 1, Jimenez Lai, Founder of Bureau Spectacular, delivers a STUN Lecture examining architecture through drawing, narrative, and speculation. The season’s lecture program concludes with Winka Dubbeldam, Founder of Archi-Tectonics and SCI-Arc Director and CEO, who presents a lecture and book launch for Monsters and Mutants.

Spring 2026 also features a strong exhibition program at the SCI-Arc Gallery. Liam Young, Artist and Director and Coordinator of SCI-Arc’s MS Fiction and Entertainment program, presents Planetary Imaginary, an exhibition and artist talk exploring speculative worlds and planetary-scale storytelling. Later in the spring, legendary photographer Iwan Baan presents Dutch Photographer, bringing together images that capture architecture through lived experience and global context.

The season includes a two-day symposium titled Chimera: The Architecture of Contemporary Utopias, led by Elena Manferdini, Principal of Atelier Manferdini, and Damjan Jovanovic, Co-founder of Studio Lifeforms. Held March 26 and 27, the symposium convenes speakers to examine hybridity, speculation, and utopian thinking in contemporary architecture.

Spring programming culminates with Spring Show 2026, curated by design faculty Jennifer Chen, presenting student work from across SCI-Arc’s programs throughout the school. The exhibition offers a snapshot of current studio culture and closes the semester with an open invitation to engage with the work shaping the future of the discipline.

SCI-Arc Public Programs are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Dates and details are subject to change. For the most up-to-date information, visit sciarc.edu/events.