events such as outreach programs, free exhibitions, as well as public lectures.
== History ==
SCI-Arc was founded in 1972 in Santa Monica by Ray Kappe, Shelly Kappe, Ahde Lahti, Thom Mayne, Bill Simonian, Glen Small, and James Stafford, a group of faculty from the Department of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. The founders were frustrated with how the administrators at Cal Poly treated the students and faculty members, who wanted to address the issue from a more experimental perspective than traditional schools offered.
Originally called the New School, SCI-Arc was based on the concept of a "college without walls," and it remains one of the few independent architecture schools in the world. Initially, instead of academic hierarchies, the School favored a horizontal relationship between professors and students, who took responsibility for their own course of study. Kappe, who had founded the Cal Poly department, became the new school's first director and served in that position …
