CLASS NOTES 1970s
Michael Rotondi (B.Arch ’75) has been awarded the Richard J. Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence from the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly, Pomona, where Rotondi was a student before transferring to SCI-Arc. Michael Folonis (B.Arch ’78) was honored with a 2014 Los Angeles Architectural Award. His design project for the South Bay Family Health Care, one of Los Angeles County’s leading community clinic systems, received a Design Concept Award. Nick Seierup, FAIA (B.Arch ’79) has been honored with national design awards for two of his recent projects. Metro, a new home for the Los Angeles Police Department Special Divisions, is a transformation of the former Rampart Police Station, and received a Citation from the National AIA American Academy of Justice. His Sky Tower, a new inpatient facility at University Hospital in San Antonio, TX was recognized as the 2014 Best Regional Healthcare Project by Engineering News Record.
1980s
Michael Grefe (M.Arch ’82) has been teaching as an Assistant Professor with the Art Institute of Pittsburgh since 2005 and as Senior Faculty in the Department of Interior Design. Grefe received an MFA in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in 2011. He has had illustrations and paintings displayed at the Academy Of Art University Spring Show and featured and exhibited in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s Faculty Show in 2009, 2011 and 2012. Grefe received his NCIDQ certification in April 2013. James M. Lynn, AIA (B.Arch ’82) of Jacobs Engineering Group is currently serving as Project Director for the new Denver VA Replacement Medical Center in Denver, CO. The project is a $1B, 1.2 million-sq.ft. replacement of the existing aging VA Denver Medical Center, with a scheduled completion date in 2016. Miriam Mulder (M.Arch ’83), City Architect with the City of Santa Monica, along with James Corner Field Operations and Frederick Fisher & Partners, received a 2014 AIA|LA Design Merit Award for the Tongva Park + Ken Gensler Square in Santa Monica. Mulder was Frances Anderton’s guest on KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture in October. Annie Chu (B.Arch ’83) and Rick Gooding (B.Arch ’84), principals of Chu+Gooding Architects, provided exhibition design for Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989 at The Studio Museum in Harlem. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Financial Times visited the exhibit, and the show will come to The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2015. Chu has joined the editorial board of Contract Magazine. A selection of Gooding’s “Subterranea” drawings was exhibited at The Art Gallery - Napa Hall at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo this fall. William Huang (B.Arch ’84) is Director of Housing and Career
Services for the City of Pasadena. The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Tewillinger Center for Housing recognized the City of Pasadena with the 2014 Ralph C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Award, given for the nation’s most outstanding housing policy. Pasadena’s recognition was based on its housing policy and programs, which have resulted in the development of over 5,000 housing units in transit-oriented areas, including 1,370 units of affordable and workforce housing.
leave from her tenure position at the Southern Polytechnic State University, Martin-Malikian is at work creating a temporary pop-up in Beirut, where she plans to conduct field research as part of her Ph.D. candidacy at the University of Edinburgh. Pop-up Studio-X Beirut is GSAPP’s newest addition to an existing network of labs exploring the future of cities. Martin-Malikian is also currently writing a dissertation exploring Hedonistic Urbanism: The Beirut Postwar Experience.
Michael Blatt (M.Arch ’85)’s firm, Fung + Blatt Architects, received a 2014 Honor Award from the Pasadena & Foothill branch of the AIA for the design of the Sequoyah School Expansion. In addition, the project received a Savings By Design Award in the Sustainable Buildings Category. Designed around Sequoyah’s place-based pedagogy, the project doubles the school’s classroom area within a cohesive new campus of multi-functional, flexible spaces.
Margi Nothard (M.Arch ’92)’s Kennedy Homes was featured in the October 2014 issue of Architectural Record. The design-focused affordable housing project in Fort Lauderdale was developed by her firm Glavovic Studio.
Chrisof Jantzen (M.Arch ’89) of Studio Jantzen with Behnisch Architeckten was recognized with a 2014 Design Merit Award by AIA|LA for the Santa Monica Public Parking Structure #6.
1990s
Peter Grueneisen (M.Arch ’90)’s firm has been designing studios for The Record Plant, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Sony Music Japan and DreamWorks Animation. Elissa Scrafano (M.Arch ’90) has been appointed to the City of Los Angeles’ Cultural Heritage Commission. Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ’91) designed the new Beats by Dre headquarters in Culver City, CA. The 105,000-squarefoot project includes renovating two existing industrial buildings. Angela Brooks (M.Arch ’91) and Lawrence Scarpa’s firm, Brooks + Scarpa, was listed at number seven in the 2014 Architect 50 top architecture practices. The firm received the Copper Hewitt National Design award earlier this year and a Design Citation Award by AIA|LA for Pico Place in Santa Monica, CA. Christopher Mercier (M.Arch ’91) and his firm, (fer) studio, won a citation award for a private residence in the Renovation Category of the AIA Pasadena & Foothill Design Awards. Pavan Bhatia (B.Arch ’92) recently joined Jones Lang LaSalle as Capital Planning Manager for Amgen Inc. Her work includes developing a customized Capital Planning process and decisionmaking tools to be used for long-range planning on sites in North America and the Netherlands. Previously, she was the Lead Planner/Facilities Development Manager for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest School District in the United States, where she completed initial planning for Measure-Q, a $7B-voter-approved bond to master plan and modernize existing LAUSD schools and develop the overall process for the entire District. Elizabeth Martin-Malikian (M.Arch ’92) has been appointed Curator of Pop-up Studio-X in Beirut, Lebanon for Columbia’s GSAPP. While on research
Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ’03) and Gaston Nogues (B. Arch ’93) of BallNogues Studio are designing a canopy for a resort in Aqaba, Jordan. This year, they completed Not Whole Fence for Southwest University Park in El Paso, TX and two installations for the VA Aquatic Center in Palo Alto, CA. The two were finalists for the first annual Mies Crown Hall America’s Prize in Emerging Architecture. The studio was recently invited to speak for LA Forum, Art Center, Cal Poly Pomona, AECOM, Gensler and Ryerson University. Hien Quan Ngo (B.Arch ’93)’s firm NQO Architects in Vietnam completed the Ba Ria Vung Tau Administration and Political Center, the largest political center in Vietnam, situated in the Ba Ria Province. Additionally, they completed Phase 1 of the Parc Spring Residential project in Ho Chi Minh City, a project embodying the firm’s ongoing studies of smart, efficient, user-friendly and sustainable design concepts. Kim Colin (M.Arch ’94) and Sam Hecht, principals of Industrial Facility in London, received a 2014 Design Guild Mark Award for their Wireframe Sofa Group for Herman Miller. The Herman Miller-published book Locale, by Colin and Hecht, includes personal essays on design and over 50 photographs by Gerhart Kellermann. SCI-Arc Trustee Joe Day (M.Arch ’94)’s design of the C-Glass House was highlighted by The Architectural Review (UK), along with his recent book drawing a comparison between prisons and museums, Corrections and Collections: Architectures for Art & Crime. John Lodge, AIA (M.Arch ’94) was appointed Vice President of Development for Pacific Plaza Alhambra, a mixed use project with 120 residences and commercial retail, and the largest project currently under construction in Alhambra, CA. For the past decade, Lodge has served the City of Alhambra on the Design Review Board and is carrying out his fifth term on the Planning Commission. In April 2014, he was voted by the Commission as President, serving a one-year term. Iris Anna Regn (M.Arch ’94) and Tim Durfee have designed public artwork for the Northeast Los Angeles Community Station scheduled for installation June 2015. Regn is teaching an interdisciplinary group of students in the Otis College of Art and Design’s Creative Action program. This year, she
formed a partnership with Specialty Dry Goods, designing and producing artisanal linens. She is also at work on a line of multipurpose home products under her own name. Regn spoke at the CAA in Chicago in January at Rutgers’ The Feminist Art Project about BROODWORK: Creative Practice and Family Life.
Principal Urban Designer for the City of Glendale, where he leads the City’s Community Design & Outreach Studio, which is responsible for developing and enforcing design policies, guidelines and historic preservation programs, in addition to providing design advice to city boards, departments, and applicants.
Jennifer Siegal (M.Arch ’94)’s firm Office of Mobile Design won the Theatrum Mundi’s “Designing for Free Speech” challenge. The project titled INDUSTRIAL UP-CYCLING: The Pop-Up SoapBox was exhibited in partnership with AIA New York at the Centre for Architecture earlier this fall.
Yianna Bouyioukou (B.Arch ’01) received a 2014 AIA|LA Next LA Merit Award for Innovative Bioclimatic European School Complex in Crete, Greece.
Jeff Allsbrook (M.Arch ’95) and Silvia Kuhle of LA-based Standard received a 2014 American Architecture Award for the Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. Standard’s design for the Salford Meadows bridge competition received a 2014 Architizer A+ award and a 2014 AIA|LA Next LA Citation Award. The firm’s design for the new Hourglass Cosmetics store on Venice’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard was featured by the Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest and Form. Stephan Mundwiler (M.Arch ’95) and Cara Lee (M.Arch ’96) of lee+mundwiler received a WAN Civic Building Award 2014 for their Dapeng Geology Museum and Research Center in Shenzhen, China. Tryggvi Thorsteinsson (B.Arch ’95), principal of Minarc, received a 2014 Los Angeles Architectural Award in the Beyond L.A. Award category for his design of the Ion Luxury Adventure Hotel in Iceland. Joe Bob Merritt (M.Arch ’96) is developing The South Main Gunnison, Industrial Park for Good, a live/work/ grow zone for businesses, artists, teachers, and learners, woven together in a network of mutually beneficial relationships in Colorado. The SMS Zone is occupied by a somatic arts studio, an artifactory, an organic garden, and a salvage yard. Merritt is building functional co-operatives of companionship based on ideas of radical materialism. In 2014, Merritt received an Honorarium Grant from Burning Man Arts, and his Wind Horse House was the 6:00 gateway to the Souk of the Man at Burning Man Caravansary this year. Mimi Zeiger (M.Arch ’98) was selected for the international World Wide Storefront (WWSF) series organized by the Storefront for Art and Architecture this fall. Her project, Host: Natural Histories at the Neutra VDL Research Site in Silver Lake, explored the multivalent meaning of the word “host” via an exhibition and series of events. WWSF’s 10 selected entries located around the world (including Laurel Consuelo Broughton (M.Arch ’06)’s Gallery Attachment) were opened simultaneously, offering a two-month program of exhibitions and events.
2000s
Alan Loomis (M.Arch ’00) was recently appointed Design Commissioner for the City of Pasadena. Loomis is the
Jennifer Marmon, AIA (M.Arch ’01) and her firm, PAR, received the 2014 AIA|LA Presidential Emerging Practice Award. In addition, The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture honored PAR’s Taichung Cultural Center proposal with a 2014 International Architecture Award. Marmon is currently serving as a judge for the 2014 World Architecture News’ Transport in Architecture Awards. Kevin Wronske (B.Arch ’02) of Heydey Partnership received a 2014 AIA|LA Design Merit Award for Buzz Court, six LEED-rated homes in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Fernando Arias (B.Arch ’04) joined the American Society of Interior Designers [ASID] as Director of Strategic Initiatives in Washington D.C. Prior to joining ASID, Arias managed strategic relationships at the Clinton Global Initiative to engage cross-sector leaders in meaningful projects in global health and the built environment. He developed $58M worth of community resiliency and sustainability projects across the United States. Catherine Johnson (M.Arch ’04) and Rebecca Rudolph (M.Arch ’00) of the firm Design, Bitches have received critical acclaim for their work in the Los Angeles restaurant scene. One of their recent projects is The Springs, located near SCI-Arc in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District, featuring an organic juice bar, yoga studio, wellness center, and a raw vegan restaurant & wine bar. Sarah Lorenzen (M.DesR ’04), director of the Neutra VDL House in Los Angeles, and Chair of the Dept. of Architecture at Cal Poly, Pomona, organized an exhibition that examined modern design in Germany during the Cold War and was on display this fall. Simon Storey (M.Arch ’04) and his LA practice Anonymous were included in Architects Directory 2014, Wallpaper’s index of “the world’s best young architectural talent.” The publication highlighted Big & Small House, a recent project that Storey describes as “a wonderful balance between a tiny budget and a grand living space.” Makoto Mizutani (M.Arch ’05) and Benjamin Luddy (M.Arch ’06) of LAbased industrial design practice Scout Regalia recently signed a contract with CB2 to design a lean-to tent that converts into a travel bag. Carmen Salazar (M.Arch ’05) was appointed arts commissioner of the city of Laguna Beach, Orange County.