MISSION + VISION

USC School of Architecture is emerging as a premier global design school, a 21st century global platform for instruction, research, and creative production on cultural heritage, cities, and landscapes; architecture and urbanism; buildings and technologies; and histories and theories about the built and designed environment at all scales.

USC Architecture graduates are active citizens whose practices are often defined in relation to the world’s challenges, from planetary warming to social inequity, rapid urbanization to political polarization. Deeply rooted in the city of Los Angeles and also intensely connected to global concerns, USC architects and scholars work shoulder to shoulder with our surrounding communities to develop, empower, and leverage local insight to enable them to become intelligent and intrepid practitioners, and forge creative solutions.

USC Architecture is a school defined by courageous and bold approaches. Supported by inclusive thinking, USC Architecture educates its students to be risk-takers by taking an open and inclusive approach to the profession. We are a school that is commited to exposing students to the most pressing

global challenges and communities who are impacted by them. USC Architecture is future-focused but never dismissive of the past. We are a school that is connected, merging rigorous design education with new proficiencies in the humanities, policy, real estate and business. USC Architecture authentically unites a sense of confidence borne of a purposeful education and the boldness that has characterized Southern California’s architectural legacy.

At the USC School of Architecture, we see architects as citizens with a unique set of skills to enable the cocreation of new knowledge and action, amongst and between students, faculty, and communities. Collectively, we, too, are the guardians of the democratic space and civic imaginations that breathe life into the consciousness of persons of all identities.

To the greatest extent possible, we are collectively called upon to develop, curate, enact, and learn from the desperately needed structural changes in our society. The principles and values that motivate us as practitioners, designers, and scholars must be in alignment with how we organize our School, invest in our collective future, and

innovate with purpose and intentionality. We must lead by example, utilizing the powerful tools of design and architecture to produce cities, buildings, and environments that benefit the public good, and contribute to an imaginative and creative civic and public infrastructure.

We are profession-focused and socially engaged. We continue to advance our School as a locus of innovative thought on theory and practice by meeting this moment in our history with new approaches to design in a world beset by problems ranging from global pandemics to structural racism. Utilizing the power of architecture and interdisciplinary theory, our faculty and students will explore the role of the architect in community development, reorganizing cities to be more equitable, harnessing the power of public space for increased innovation in ecology and placemaking, and understanding historical meaning in the context of contested histories.

Using Los Angeles, Southern California, and strategic global locations, USC Architecture allows students to engage with on-the-ground conditions while simultaneously experimenting with theoretical ideas.

CAROLINE SKOGLUND

ARCH 202B ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN || SPRING 2022