XPO 2025

Graduating Students’ Final Reviews & Exhibition

Tuesday, May 13 12

B.ARCH

Wendy W Fok

WAH 207

14

B.ARCH

Eric Haas

WAH 208

10

B.ARCH

Kate Yeh Chiu

WAH 209

22

M.ARCH Wes Jones

WAH 200

30

M.ARCH Gillian Shaffer Lutsko

WAH 201

20

M.ARCH Sascha Delz

Upper Rosendin

36

MHC

Cindy Olnick & Trudi Sandmeier

Verle Annis

8

B.ARCH

Rob Berry

WAH 207

16

B.ARCH

Jimenez Lai

WAH 208

18

B.ARCH

Hadrian Predock

WAH South Hallway

26

M.ARCH Lisa Little

WAH 200

24

M.ARCH Andy Ku

WAH 201

28

M.ARCH Ryan Tyler Martinez

WAH 209

32

MLA

Verle Annis

Wednesday, May 14

2

Esther Margulies

USC Architecture

2025

This program provides an overview of USC’s final-year Undergraduate Architecture, Graduate Architecture, Graduate Landscape Architecture + Urbanism, Graduate Heritage Conservation, and Graduate Building Science students.

XPO 25 spans two days of presentations addressing urgent disciplinary and contemporary issues. Critics join in dynamic discussions and receptions celebrating graduating students, their final projects, and additional Spring ’25 work from across USC Architecture.

Thank you for joining us. We’re grateful to all the students, faculty, and interlocutors from near and far who, throughout the year, make this work possible and the USC School of Architecture a vibrant and groundbreaking institution.

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

3

4

USC Architecture

2025

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

5

1

2

6

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

Public Exchange Architecture is inherently public. Our work as architects necessarily engages with the concerns of the world around us.

We do not (and cannot) work in isolation; rather, through our actions, we enter into an exchange with the interests and welfare of the common good.

Any act of architecture—building, drawing, idea—is a public proclamation about the world as we would like it to be. Each act, as a reasoned declaration, engages with an ongoing, collective set of political, social, and cultural conversations. The forms of architecture’s public exchanges are broad and robust, difficult and complex; the world is a messy place, after all. How does architecture effectively enter into this public dialogue? What role does architecture play in setting an agenda for such discussions?

How do the disciplinary concerns of architecture converse with the diverse motives of culture at large?

3

Students

Madison Ashby Erik Babakhani Dan Chen Jenna Cover Janna De Vera Ghazal Farhangi

Faculty

Rob Berry

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Arturo Mendoza 3 Ethan Santana 1 Daniel Silva 2 Miguel Torreblanca Lilly Tung

WAH 207 7

Taking Stock Architecture, and the making of architecture, can be accounted for in endless ways. Buckminster Fuller once asked Norman Foster, “How much does your building weigh?”—a simple question at once easy or impossible to answer, containing values, critique, and a challenge. Taking stock involves rigor and attention to detail—a rehearsal of simultaneously broad and narrow perspectives that can reveal complex systems of many scales and kinds. To take stock is to question how things work in theory by attending to how they unfold in practice. Such accounting may be data-driven, narrative, and/or visual and, as technique, can guide one to a project’s conceptual site: loopholes, overlooked opportunities, and alternative ways of working. Accounting is also often a trick, as all accounts contain erasures and the biases of authorship. This studio takes stock and explores accounting as a mode of research and a starting point and method for design.

1

8

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

2

3

Students

Emmanuel Aranda Akshay Atapattu 1 Isabella Atkinson 3 Mario Avendano Indie Bloom Sunnie Chou

Faculty

Kate Yeh Chiu

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Karim Fouad Yassine Idhali Mariya Idris Justin Kaczender Noa Kanani 2

WAH 209 9

Hidden Infrastructures

Cultural Edition

‘Hidden Infrastructures – Cultural Edition’ is an exploration into the novel, playful, and critical discourse of architectural disguise, related to topics of data and fossil fuel (oil) in cities and suburban neighborhoods. With a focus on LA28, the cultural programming and institutional architectural typography, this edition of “hidden infrastructures” studio focuses on the urban and adaptive reuse of brown sites to challenge the cultural and architectural discourse.

Premised on data as the new form of oil, this thematic research studio challenges the contemporary American (or, perhaps international) “vernacular architecture,” through the S, M, L, XL lens of hidden infrastructures embedded into our phygital world.

“The true vernacular architecture, at least in my opinion, in the United States, is the trailer, or the module, or the mobile house.”

– Paul Rudolph Institute of Modern Architecture As architects, we often build physical spaces and megastructures that host various infrastructural and architectural typographies.

Through the study of various architectural buildings and paradigms, we will look at how to convert, conceal, reveal, and challenge buildings that veil their original intentions.

1

10

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

2

3

Students

Hunter Barnett 2 Brian Chen Anne Cheng Paige Crittenden Panchenchen Feng Akram Karimi 3

Faculty

Wendy W Fok

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Qian Long Jaydine Mendoza Cayetana Moncayo Barreiros Yolanthe Van Der Most Van Spijk 1

WAH 207 11

1

2

12

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

Control Points Le Corbusier reportedly said things were easier for Ledoux, 150 years his senior, because he didn’t have to deal with plumbing.

He didn’t know the half of it. For today’s students, 115 years younger than Corb, the complexities of meaningfully contributing to the built environment have grown even more formidable.

How does one ensure potency by finding points in the process to operate upon, or from, to maintain relevance? Are they handles, pivots, origins, pinpricks?

Geometrically, points have no dimension, so their essence is about energy, not matter. We are looking to harness those potent sources of transformation.

3

Students

Adrian Aranda Justin Best EllyKira Chai 2 Rohit Dsouza 1 Han Isozen Tristan Lindner

Faculty

Eric Haas

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Yujun Miao 3 Sakiko Tanaka Abriella Terrazas Asaf Zairi Justin Zhu

WAH 208 13

2

1

3

14

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

A SLICE OF 1/4 LIFE, AT ‘25 (or, 100x100x100) Large Models and Drawings

In this thesis group, each student will construct a large model at roughly 100x100x100cm (or max out at 48”x48”x48”). This studio calls for each thesis project to be articulated in the medium of architecture, completing the B.Arch degree with an oversized model. Additionally, each student will produce a large axonometric composite drawing that tells the story of the building.

While every student will be tackling a specific topic of their own choice, a thesis within an architecture school as a professional degree begs a key pedagogical question: do thesis projects have to use architecture to think about a societal issue? In this thesis group, we will answer this question with a hypothetical “yes.”

While thesis is an excellent platform for a student to project concerns about the world beyond our discipline only, the medium of the output remains a subject of inquiry.

In the many chapters of architectural education past, the spectrum of output can exit architecture and transformatively articulate a thesis by way of an adjacent discourse. Bauhaus, for instance, ambitiously considered graphic design, furniture, fashion, and many other related disciplines to be welcomed allies. However, 1/4 of the way into the 21st Century, the possible outcome of what an architect can do is so rapidly expanding that one can be trained in architecture but be qualified as a professional in many other fields. In this thesis group, we simply want to give it a try: what if we actually did architecture, for a change?

Students

Ashley Altmann 1 Melissa Larot 3 Andree Anzurez Ryan Liang Genesis Clara-Martinez Christine Natal 2 Izabella Flores Nadia Nogueda José García Juwon Seo Shreya Gottumukkala Annie Tran

Faculty

Jimenez Lai

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

WAH 208 15

1

2

16

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architecture

Adventures in the Artful Ordinary Architecture of the built environment (and reality in general) is overwhelmingly ordinary. This ordinariness is represented through a range of architectural expressions: the generic, the copy, the perfunctory, the banal, the useful, the bare logics of capitalism, etc. Arguably some of the stranger and more compelling recent forms of visual expression exist much more closely to the ordinary and the everyday then the extraordinary.

This is the territory of deep fakes, mis-readings/understandings of physics/composition, and even AI “hallucinations.”

3

Students

Manny Bernardino Jr Clarisse Cao Jose Flores Joshua Kim Sean Le 2 Alice Lin

Faculty

Hadrian Predock

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Jake Scheckelhoff Jihee Seo Caroline Skoglund 3 Manuel Velazquez Megan Wang 1 Allison Yen

WAH South Hallway 17

1

The 470AB capstone course sequence is designed for degree candidates in the Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies Program. The course positions itself as both a capstone and threshold. As a capstone, it is a culmination of a four-year BSAS course of study, as a threshold, it encourages the production of speculative research and final work that can be further developed in graduate school and/or help guide a professional career trajectory. Students identify a topic of inquiry, organize supportive literature and other research-based resources, create an annotated bibliography, and develop a succinct proposal for a final research paper, design project, or faculty-approved hybrid.

18

USC Architecture

2025

Undergraduate

Architectural Studies

Students

Josiah Herfurth Venezia Wilkes-Garcia EMj Lee Jihee Seo Maria Florencia Xinghan Zhuang 1 Rodriguez Winkelmann

Faculty

Lee Schuyler Olvera

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

19

1

2

20

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

ADAPTIVE P/RE-USE

Under New Ownership –Nonspeculative Models for Equitable & Ecological City Housing This studio aims at developing new forms of collective, affordable housing by exploring the two conceptual frameworks of Adaptive P/Re-use and Under New Ownership. The notion of Adaptive P/Re-use frames design activities along a subtle yet radical challenge: How can we design and build housing based on the concept of re-use, where recirculation and repurposing of materials, existing buildings, social structures, and environmental settings are a given necessity? And how can we conceive, design, and build based on the premise of pre-use, where future adaptation, transformation, reassembly, disassembly, as well as social and environmental change are an integral part of design considerations? Under New Ownership additionally challenges the pervasive system of real property and individual ownership.

Most forms of real property are not primarily based on housing as a home anymore but have transformed housing into a speculative asset and a key pillar within the current economic system (1618% of the US GDP). The function of housing as real estate has become a major factor contributing to affordable housing crises.

Under New Ownership thus seeks to explore forgotten, transform existing, envision new, as well as develop collective, shared, democratic, communal, public, and hybrid forms of ownership.

These new models of ownership will not only advocate for nonspeculative, affordable long-term homes for everyday people, but are deemed to set the stage for innovative housing designs.

Students

Daniel Cureno Anne Debertin 1 Yesenia Hernandez Nour Kaddoura Charles Lafon Cynthia Leon

Faculty

Sascha Delz

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Hearty Mills Dhriti Pangasa Macintyre Schnell 2 Anna Simpson Hanying Zhu

Upper Rosendin 21

AI /n/ U In its brief history in architecture, AI has been used exclusively as an agent of novelty. Architects have seen it as a form finder and fantasy generator, and this has prevented it from being considered a tool for serious architecture. This thesis section investigated the possibilities for AI within the field as such a tool. Students attempted to use AI to flesh out their own history of projects to provide a catalog of precedents that could then be analyzed to discover a thesis within them and then use AI to figure out what’s next, as their thesis project.

22

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

Students

Divya Balachandran Chloe Bentitou David Hill Tammy Kuo Bryan Lee

Faculty

Wes Jones

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Delaney Ryan 3 Jack Somers 4 Qinyi Wang 2 David Wright 1 Linghui Yu

WAH 200 23

Cultural Assembly Cultural engagement enhances social, spiritual, and leisure activities. It involves assembling events, happenings, and spaces to bring people together. Cultural participation is a shared experience that promotes a sense of belonging and connection with others. This Directed Design Research course studies architecture and design approaches that support cultural vitality and practice - concentrating on developing design goals to strengthen the community and individual well-being. Building such an assembly requires diligence for cultural care and social awareness. Examining and collecting model observations of cultural experiences and phenomena initiates a direction and concerns for advancing design research.

1

2

24

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

3

Students

Brandon Bui Jianghui Qu 3 Kenechukwu Ekwueme Brian Tew Gregor Tillman Miles Fredrick Eric Yu 1 Hieu Huynh Tianya Zhou Wang Nian Long 2 Christopher Paliungas

Faculty

Andy Ku

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

WAH 201 25

1

2

26

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

Hallucinations and the Fabrication Gap Prominent theorists and critics within the discipline contend that architecture is once again approaching a paradigmatic shift, catalyzed by the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence tools. Yet, a critical disjunction remains between the generative potential of computational design and the material realities of fabrication. This section of the thesis investigates and develops novel design methodologies oriented toward the realization of three-dimensional physical models, as opposed to the predominantly two-dimensional visual outputs characteristic of current AI-assisted architectural design. In this context, fabrication is not merely an afterthought but is re-integrated as a vital design parameter—one that actively engages with AI-generated hallucinations and other emergent computational strategies within the creative process.

3

Students

Mackenzie Bower Xin (Marco) Chen Gabriel Harmon Yuntong Jiang 1 Etulan Joseph

Faculty

Lisa Little

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Tannya Lokwani 2 Ernest Tse Kaidi Yang Evan Wilson 3

WAH 200 27

A Model for Later In this section, we discussed “A Model for Later” as a framework for the thesis. We evaluated this through four topics: Problem (What), Context (Where), Technique (How), and Theory (Why).

These topics were used to create an architectural thesis proposal. The aim was to create a body of work that operated in parallel with traditional architectural contingencies—such as site, program, precedents, codes, politics, and social engagement— while also focusing on individual authorship, form, representation, and theory. Students worked independently to develop their thesis and research throughout the semester. Central to this section was the idea that we create things for later, explored through physical models as tools for discovering emerging questions about organization, material thickness, and contemporary representation.

1

28

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

2

3

Students

Janette De Los Santos 2 Kensuke Shimmon Jackson Hamilton 3 Elizabeth Sit Jose Munoz Maria Luisa Sta. Maria Aliza Rosenkranz 1 Alec Sweeting Negin Sabouhi Lucy Wu

Faculty

Ryan Tyler Martinez

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

WAH 209 29

1

2

30

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Architecture

TRANSLATIONS Architectural models, traditionally understood through their representational or aesthetic roles, can also be conceptualized as generative instruments within broader cultural and epistemological frameworks. As Kersten Geers observes, a model is capable—like a plan—of producing other models, objects, and ideas. Reframing model making as a cultural technique reveals its capacity to participate in the circulation of images and the construction of knowledge. Through practices such as digital manipulation, photographic abstraction, and parallax documentation, models operate at the intersection of reality and representation. Within this mediated condition, architectural models serve as critical tools for engaging the complexities of contemporary urbanism—where questions of climate, geopolitics, cultural identity, and technological transformation intersect with the spatial and discursive production of the city.

3

Students

Nayla Alejandre 1 Lauren Brown David Crawford Khun Yeyint Hein 3 Jennifer Dominguez Hernandez 2

Faculty

Gillian Shaffer Lutsko

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Rita Jirjees Bingqing Li Christopher Panzella Aditi Amol Pawar Chien-Hua Yu

WAH 201 31

1

Urban Park Futures

Testing Grounds — Exposition Park As the future feels infinite and change inevitable, the value of parks has surged, but their design has seen little change in a century. This studio asks students to imagine how Exposition Park can be the most valuable open space in the Southern California region for the surrounding community, and for people from around the globe. Students are investigating relationships between public space and human physical and mental health, how we can decolonize public space via cultural meaning, adapt to ecological and climate futures, create queer time and space, and how Expo Park can extend the impact of learning.

32

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Landscape Architecture

2

Students

Jordan Fucci Kavya Gudihal 2 Rongkun Lu Mark Reid

Faculty

Esther Margulies

Date & Location

Wednesday, May 14

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

Saria Vega Yun Xing Shuyi Zhang 1

Verle Annis 33

MBS Thesis In the Master of Building Science program at USC, the written thesis is one of several important elements of the overall academic program. ARCH 692A and ARCH 692B are the major components of a two semester long thesis series of courses for preparing and guiding students through their thesis development and completion. The thesis is based on their purposeful and detailed research activity. In addition to mastery in other courses, to graduate with an MBS degree, the thesis student completes serious and scholarly scientific research and then documents the process and its results.

1

34

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Building Science

2

Students

Ali Ali Tsz Him Ian Chiu 2 Ghazal Chizarian Jennifer Knop

Akshayaa Shree Krishnan Muni Zhilong Liu Luana Quinn 1 Zicheng (Ray) Xie

Faculty

Douglas Noble

Karen Kensek

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

35

2

1

3

36

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate

Heritage Conservation

MHC Thesis Master of Heritage Conservation students learn how to strengthen communities using existing places and the stories they tell. Each student selects a thesis topic that fuels their passion, pushes the boundaries of the field, and has very real consequences for the built environment. How do we use places to advance racial equity and social justice, address climate change, and foster healthy communities? How do we choose which places and stories matter? This course introduces and explores topics to help students develop a thesis prospectus and directed research toward the completion of their master’s thesis in heritage conservation.

Students

Alex Clark 2 Mel James 3 Leslie Madrigal Mark Malan Melissa Miller Jade Mothé Sai Ravikumar Isabella Ryan

Ryan Holcomb 1 Evan McAvenia

Faculty

Trudi Sandmeier

Cindy Olnick

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 13

Verle Annis

XPO

Final Reviews & Exhibition

37

Academic Leadership Brett Steele

Dean

Amy Murphy

Associate Dean, Faculty Affairs

Trudi Sandmeier

Associate Dean, Academic Affairs Director, Master of Heritage Conservation

Alvin Huang

Director, Graduate and Post-Professional Architecture Programs

Kyle Konis

Director, Master of Building Science

Esther Margulies

Director, Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism

Lauren Matchison

Interim Director, Undergraduate Programs in Architecture Director, USC A-Lab / Pre-College Programs

Coordinators Kate Yeh Chiu

XPO Coordinator

Eric Haas

Undergraduate Thesis Coordinator

Ryan Tyler Martinez

Graduate Thesis Coordinator

Undergraduate Architecture Degree Project Advisors Rob Berry

Wendy W Fok

Jimenez Lai

Kate Yeh Chiu

Eric Haas

Hadrian Predock

Graduate Architecture Thesis Advisors Sascha Delz

Andy Ku

Ryan Tyler Martinez

Wes Jones

Lisa Little

Gillian Shaffer Lutsko

Graduate Landscape Architecture & Urbanism Thesis Advisor Esther Margulies 38

USC Architecture

2025

Graduate Building Science Thesis Advisors Karen Kensek

Doug Noble

Master of Heritage Conservation Thesis Advisors Trudi Sandmeier

Cindy Olnick

Staff Nadia Afghani

Digital Fabrication Manager

Jon Barker

Facilities Manager

Natalie Costello-Hartley

Senior Coordinator, Events

Natalie Farrar Adams Assistant Dean for Advancement Liz Iracki

Senior Officer, Major Gifts

Jacob Laux

Executive Assistant to the Dean

Alicia Martinez

Assistant, IT Services

Keiko McNally

Assistant Dean, Communications and Marketing

Michael Navarrete

Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration

Jennifer Park

Assistant Dean for Student Services

Marija Radisavljević

Art Director

Dipak Shirke

Supervisor, IT Services

Will Shanahan

Budget/Business Analyst

Antonio Vigil

Facilities Coordinator

Student Assistants Asia Gaines XPO

AJ Tang Final Reviews & Exhibition

Joseph Wan 39

Tuesday

May 13

Wednesday

May 14

Published by: Bloom Press 850 Bloom Walk, Suite 204 Los Angeles 90089

See all student projects:

This event is open to all eligible individuals. The USC School of Architecture operates all of its events consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.