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WSOA In-Flux

WSOA In-Flux

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WSOA In-Flux is a publishing platform for student work launched by Woodbury School of Architecture in 2020.




Woodbury School of Architecture is distinguished by its multiple locations at the heart of the Southern California creative industries: Los Angeles, Hollywood and San Diego. Together, these sites form a critical infrastructure for architectural investigations.

Our undergraduate and graduate programs prepare students to effect positive change in the built environment, to tackle theoretical debates, and to take on architecture and interior design as critical practices. We educate our students as entrepreneurs, citizen architects, and cultural builders equally committed to professional practice, theoretical discourse, social equity and to formal and technological inquiry.

Our faculty are architects, designers, academics and policy makers practicing in Los Angeles, San Diego and Tijuana. This internationally recognized and award-winning group works closely with students to teach the skills required to push the limits of practice.



Mission

Good design is a human right. Woodbury School of Architecture produces graduates who affirm the power of design to improve the built environment and the lives of others by addressing the pressing issues of our time. We transform our students into ethical, articulate and innovative design professionals prepared to lead in a world of accelerating technological change.


Vision

The future belongs to Woodbury. Woodbury School of Architecture creates an environment that empowers our students to impact the future of the profession through meaningful built work. We imagine a world in which there are no disciplinary rights or wrongs, where diverse and sometimes contradictory values collide to generate new ideas, design innovation, unexpected practices, and the means to expand the influence of our discipline.


Woodbury School of Architecture offers a welcoming environment for students to develop their own unique design voice.  We approach the design disciplines multi-dimensionally, teaching a range of pedagogies and design methodologies. Our students leave Woodbury with the confidence to engage in local and global discourse.

Through engaged faculty-student interaction, we transform our students into innovative professionals with a commitment to the power of good design. Our students and faculty share a commitment to sustainable practices, community outreach and civic engagement.

Our School of Architecture is among the first 14 accredited architectural programs to be accepted for participation in the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) initiative. Successful students will have the opportunity to have an architectural license upon graduation.

We believe that our school is a role model for the direction in which the profession is heading – improving gender parity and ethnic diversity among its members, and reaffirming the importance of ethical conduct and social responsibility. Ours is a welcoming community for every race and orientation, and we resist acts of intolerance in favor of thoughtfulness, generosity and kindness. The economic, ethnic, and academic backgrounds of our students reflect Southern California itself. We are determined to provide a place for open debate, the respectful airing of differences, and for rich forms of expression and imagination.


Site running on Cargo. 




Dirty, Hard, Busy, Good…Architecture is Work. ︎




The M. Arch program locates the work of architecture at the intersection of disciplinary principles and professional competency. Ideas become impactful when translated into material conditions. The messy process of translation often results in imperfect but meaningful design proposals that address challenges of contemporary life. Embracing the compromise between ideal and real underscores our commitment to the here and now.



Work by M.Arch Student Seda Petrosyan 


The three year program is organized in the following way ︎


Ground Work: The first year of the M. Arch program provides an intellectual and technical foundation for the production of architecture.  Students are introduced to conventions of representation and construction. Conventional understandings are then transformed into contemporary design proposals through the acquisition of advanced skill sets. Design problems are inward in orientation as they absorb and explore the tenets of the discipline.



Work by M.Arch Student Emily Rose Vanags


Field Work: The second year of the M. Arch program cracks the foundation to reveal the broad spectrum of architectural possibilities that emerge when foundational knowledge engages contemporary culture. Students are introduced to the technology of building in relationship to environmental, structural, and material systems. Design problems are outward in orientation as they leverage disciplinary intelligence against a wide range of civic conditions.


Frame Work: The third year of the M. Arch program narrows intellectual and technical expertise around individual interests. Students are introduced to research methods that aim to synchronize abstract concepts with modes of practice. Design problems are simultaneously inward and outward in orientation as they define a personal frame work for engaging a professional audience.


Work by M.Arch Student Parsa Rezaee


The four streams of M.Arch coursework ︎


Criticism-Position: The criticism track established disciplinary roots. Students survey a history of architectural production and are introduced to theories shaping contemporary discourse.  
Visualization-Speculate: The visualization track introduces students to methods of architectural analysis, production, and representation using inventive techniques and emerging technology.
Building-Assemble: The building track introduces students to logics of fabrication and construction that address structural, environmental, and material concerns.
Studio-Advocate: The studio track integrates criticism, visualization, and building into design proposals that demonstrate the power of architecture.




Heather Flood

Chair of Architecture, Los Angeles

Heather Flood is a designer and educator.  Her professional work integrates the disciplines and techniques of cultural research, graphic art, and architectural design to create experientially dense environments. In 2008 she formed F-lab, a research based design practice committed to the production of architectural form in relationship to contemporary culture, both pop and sub. Located at the intersection of the graphic and the tectonic, Flood’s current research slips between two and three dimensions into the space of 2.5D where color, pattern, and texture synchronize with structure in an effort to push familiar architectural forms into new spatial realms that delight in affect and organization. Flood’s work has been published and exhibited internationally. In 2012 she received the prestigious C.O.L.A. Fellowship awarded to mid-career professionals residing in Los Angeles. Prior to forming F-Lab, Flood worked in the offices of Murphy, Burnham, and Buttrick Architects in New York, HOLST Architecture in Portland, and Roto Architects in Los Angeles.
In addition to her professional practice, Heather Flood teaches design studios and design communication courses at Woodbury University where she serves as Chair of Architecture on the Los Angeles campus. She has also taught design studios at SCI-Arc and UCLA and design workshops at the University of Kentucky. Flood has a Master of Architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture where she graduated with honors and received the Henry Adams Medal. Flood has a Bachelor of Art degree from Michigan State University.