RISD ARCHITECTURE

Undergraduate Student Spotlight Cole Jung @jung_chanho_ B.Arch 27’ I’m drawn to minimalistic forms and simple geometries. I like exploring how repeated shapes can become modular systems that shift between symmetry and asymmetry, creating clear yet variable outcomes. I’m interested in lightweight structures—elements that feel almost invisible but still define space with precision. I also value open buildings that allow users to inhabit and interpret spaces in their own ways, rather than being locked into a single fixed purpose. Slide 2-6: Isolation to Interaction: Reimagining Residencial San Felipe (course: Rebel Homes, instructor: Juan Balsa @juan.m.balsa ) Slide 7-9: The Nexus (course: Urban Ecologies, instructor: by Armando Hashimoto @hashi_sometimes ) #architecture #urbandesign #risdarchitecture #design #model #RISD

RiSD Architecture final review week is here! Mon 5/18: Architectural Design Tue 5/19: Graduate Core II Mon 5/18 - Wed 5/20: Advanced Studios

Graduate Student Spotlight Abby Jarvis (M.Arch 26’) @ahhhhbigail During my short time at RISD I’ve really embraced my love of getting dressed… so much so I’ve carried it into my design practice. My thesis has been growing with me during my time at RISD. “Who wears the pants” introduced me to designing my own clothing patterns and only intensified my love for intentional craft. “DeFacto Providence” grew my confidence in graphic style and love for historical publics and buildings even more. “Sunroom”, a semester-long studio project researching textiles as not only as a decorative application, but a method to control temporary climatic and comfort issues through a system that is maintained by a steward. I enjoy bringing charm and whimsy into my work and narratives, and love getting to tell stories through the making of drawings and physical models. My thesis, Growing Pains, is driven by an attention to stewardship and care for our buildings and is embodied in a collection of patterns that dresses and addresses growing pains we, and our buildings, experience. Imagining old whaling towns and sailmakers as a public dressing their sail lofts in column pads, ceiling drapes, and capes and jackets quilted and formed to protect a building typology that put small immigrant towns on the map. “Growing Pains” continues to change and evolve just like myself. If I may, special shoutout to my cohort, you are all shining stars and I’m so lucky to be doing this with you all. Slide 2-6: “Sunroom”, Advanced Studio: Air and Atmosphere, Fall 2025, instructed by Emily Ezquerro @emilyezquerro Slide 7-9: from Advanced Studio: DeFacto Providence, Spring 2025, instructed by Stephanie Rae Lloyd @s.rae.lloyd Slide 10: from Who wears the pants, Spring 2025, instructed by Meg DeCubellis (APPAR) Slide 11: “Growing Pains” Thesis Probe, advised by Emily Ezquerro @emilyezquerro Slide 12: from Making Space, Lincoln School x RISD, co-taught with Brooke McLaughlin @brooke.e.mclaughlin , supervised by Stephanie Rae Lloyd @s.rae.lloyd #risd #risdarchitecture #architechture

Please join RISD LDAR, INTAR (@risdintar )and ARCH (@risdarch )departments for this year’s interdisciplinary Sustainability Lab thesis show! The show, entitled ‘Fiber Matters: Making with the Remainder,’ explores the studio’s year-long investigation into waste fiber and ‘the remainder.’ Drawing from agricultural and industrial remnants - such as discarded sheep wool, recycled paper pulp, and offcuts from hemp and flax production - the exhibition interrogates dominant systems of value, purity, and progress. It imagines alternative futures of making, where what is left behind forms the basis of what comes next. This premise doesn’t just question what gets made, but how to teach a pedagogy of how to (re)make. The exhibition will include material installations, process artifacts, and student-led research, alongside philosophical provocations and global case studies that embody ‘remainder-thinking.’ Together, these works reframe the unfinished, the imperfect, and the marginal as sites of ecological insight and design ethics. Show opening 5/22/2026 from 6-9 PM in Sol Koffler Gallery (169 Weybosset St). #RISD #sustainabledesign #sustainability #materialculture #exhibitionopening

Dear Reader, As the semester begins to wind down and spring settles in, we are excited to invite you to the launch of Scale Journal Issue No. 2: Heresy. To celebrate, we invite you to join us on: Wednesday, May 6 at 6:30 PM BEB Gallery We welcome you to spend time with the work, meet contributors, and take part in the conversations it opens. We hope you can join us for this moment of collective reflection and celebration. Image credit @samchoi_

barc shorts for “BEB Archive,” a group of undergraduate and graduate students in architecture at RISD who run a publication and podcast under RISD AIAS. We share stories and career paths from RISD Architecture students and alumni, offering insight and inspiration for anyone exploring futures in architecture and related fields. This year, we’re excited to share barc Publication Vol. 2, featuring 48 student works and 20 alumni stories. Our ongoing barc podcast series also explores different perspectives on alumni paths— both during and after their time at RISD. As architecture students, it means a lot to learn from our peers and to hear alumni speak about their early careers, sharing advice that feels close to our own journey and their invaluable experiences. We believe there are many RISD alumni who are both experienced and inspiring, as well as student works that deserve much more spotlight. Therefore, creating space for this kind of sharing within our RISD architecture community is at the heart of what we hope barc can be and continue to be. We hope you enjoy and find value in our prints, podcast, and merch. Thank you so much to everyone who’s been part of it and for all your support! 🐶🩶 barc team: @wang_nancy_ruonan @huiimiiangp @doctorhu_ @kaimei_zhu @emily_0334 @rachel_xy_d @_eddyfromrok_ @bstuppler123 @jeas8._.lee @alex_huang.__ @carys.lam Angela Chao @doodlesbythesunset

MArch studio Core III: Cities After Extraction Fall 2025 Instructors: Stephanie Choi (coordinator) @lesssemioticsmorepsychedelics + Armando Hashimoto @hashi_sometimes “After Extraction” is a three-year project of the graduate Core III: Cities studio. Using the lens of extraction to investigate three materials, fossil fuels, rare minerals, and water, the course traces the attendant infrastructures of resource removal in the American West. Broadly defined as west of the Mississippi River, the choice of the West situates extraction within a troubled history of manifest destiny and settler colonialism. In fall of 2025 the studio traveled to the Midland/Odessa region in West Texas, which pumps roughly 25% of United States’ oil production from the Permian Basin. Focused on the petrochemical industry, the studio studied gas extraction’s effects at both the urban and territorial scales, and the economies of labor created in its wake. The second iteration of the studio will examine rare earth minerals critical to the green transition, with a pivot to New Mexico and its previous history with uranium mining and missile testing. The third year will take on water, concentrated on the Colorado River, a critical lifeline to seven states in the west, including California. Slide credits: 1: Permian Basin Petroleum Museum collection 2: Odessa Meteor Crater 3: Steve Burleson of Burleson Petroleum 4: Monahans Sandhills Statepark 5: J. Conrad Dunagan Library archives, UT Permian Basin 6: Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Midlandia feature [all above photos by Stephanie Choi] 7-8: Enid Barragán-Ortiz + Molly Sullivan, Deployable Testing Ground 9-11: Thomas Laskey+ Alex Zheng, Phronesis: sustainable nuclear power station 12: Will Lathrop + Gordon Ng, Water Infrastructure 13-14: Jerod Bayly + Jacob Hangen, Water Remediation Cycle 15-17: Hao Liu + Van Liu + Jin Wang, Phytoremediation 18: Menma Okereke + Lizzie Tjahja + Fanxy Wang , Waste Treatment Facility 19: Helen Chwe + Matt Mulberry + Zorka Zsembery , College of Ecological Regeneration 20: Alex Fort + Hugo Liu , Building Inside Berm

RISD Architecture Graduate Biennial Apr 3-19, 2026 Sol Koffler Gallery Opening reception: Apr 9, 7-9PM To RE:PRESENT is to shift perspectives, to present the familiar within the unfamiliar. At a time when architecture is pressured to produce new forms and narratives, RISD Graduate Architecture doubles down on its own conventional tools — drawing, modeling, imaging — utilizing what we are familiar with outside our typical boundaries. The show’s decontextualization moves away from the arduous task of constant reinvention, but rather presents the viewer with new questions. We hope that you come in asking, “How is this architecture?” and leave with a different notion of what architecture can be. #risd #risdarchitecture #architecture

Faculty Search: Architectural Design Assistant Professor-in-Residence Deadline to apply: April 30, 2026 Link in bio The Department of Architecture, in the Division of Architecture and Design, at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), invites applications for one full-time faculty member (term appointment) at the rank of Assistant Professor-in-Residence, to commence fall 2026. The position is for a 2-year term appointment (AY 26/27 and AY 27/28). RISD recognizes principles of social equity, inclusion, and diversity as fundamental to its mission as an art and design school. These principles require sustained attention to a multiplicity of differences and call for an expansion of the forms of knowledge that shape our curricula and pedagogy. RISD is committed to the collective work of institutional transformation and values applicants whose teaching, pedagogical, and professional experiences have prepared them to foster and sustain equitable learning environments. We especially welcome faculty whose pedagogy engages diverse perspectives, expands the forms of knowledge, and fosters a culture of belonging where all students, staff, and faculty can thrive. The department seeks qualified individuals to offer graduate and undergraduate-level instruction in architectural design. This is a design position, and successful candidates will teach design studios at core and advanced levels. The department is particularly interested in applicants with knowledge and applied experience in drawing and representation, and building assembly and construction systems, as well as applicants with an active professional practice. #risd #architecture #risdarchitecture

Advanced Studio: Domestic Futures
Spring 2025 Instructor: Ritchie Yao @ourempirestyle In Domestic Futures: Community in Transition, students explored new housing models in Detroit. Sited along Vernor Highway in Mexicantown—near Michigan Central Station and Ford’s ongoing redevelopment—the studio examined how architecture can respond to growth, displacement, and affordability in neighborhoods under pressure. Through typological studies and design proposals, students reimagined housing as a flexible, collective framework—using the plan as a social tool to rethink relationships between units, shared space, and the city. The studio trip to Detroit grounded this work through direct engagement with local stakeholders. Visits included Prince Concepts in Core City, Little Village (TIME’s Greatest Places of 2025), the Pope Francis Center, Mies van der Rohe’s Lafayette Park housing, and Dash Marshall’s Courtyard House. With Detroit named Wallpaper’s 2026 City of the Year, these experiences connected the studio to the city’s broader social and cultural transformations. Special thanks to Phil Kafka, Anthony Curis, Neil McEachern, Bryan Boyer, Prince Concepts, Dash Marshall, and the Pope Francis Center for making the trip possible. Slide Credits 1-5: Kaimei Zhu @kaimei_ang 6: Site Visit — Canopy with Phil Kafka @philipkafka / princeconcepts 7-10: Frank Hu @_yifenghu_ 11: Site Visit — Lafayette Park with Neil McEachern 12-14: Rachel Du @rachel_xy_d 15: Site Visit — Little Village with Anthony Curis @anthonycuris / @littlevillagedetroit 16-17: Site Visit — Detroit Courtyard House with Bryan Boyer @bryanboyer / @dashmarshall 18: Site Visit — Transitional Housing Facility @popefranciscenter #risd #architecture #risdarchitecture

RISD Architecture Spring Lecture Series Thursdays 6:30PM at the BEB

Undergraduate Student Spotlight Noah Zielinski (B.Arch 27’) @noahzielinskii I’m interested in the idea of design as special effects, it can shift your reality depending on how you position it. As a filmmaker I build narratives and stories into all my projects. Whether it‘s spaces, objects, or images, I immerse myself in the technicals, the mechanics, and the context to construct things from the inside out. Slide 2-5: from Advanced Studio: Learning Systems, Fall 2025, instructed by Manuel Cordero Alvarado @cordma Slide 6-8: from Advanced Studio: Domestic Futures, Spring 2025, instructed by Ritchie Yao @ourempirestyle Slide 9-10: from Icon Mashup, Fall 2025, with Emily Cai @emily_0334 , instructed by Ritchie Yao @ourempirestyle #risd #architecture #risdarchitecture