Southern California Institute of Architecture

until 1987. He was awarded the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medal for excellence in architecture education in 1990.
Kappe was succeeded as director by Michael Rotondi, one of SCI-Arc's original students. Neil Denari became director in 1997; Eric Owen Moss served as director from 2002–2015; Hernán Díaz Alonso served as director and chief executive officer effective from 2015-2025. Díaz Alonso has been a faculty member at SCI-Arc since 2001. Prior to his appointment as director, he served as the school's graduate programs chair since 2010. On September 1, 2025 he was succeeded as director and chief executive officer by Winka Dubbeldam.
Although SCI-Arc was once unaccredited and its finances unstable—Moss joked, "We used to be considered one step ahead of the IRS, one step ahead of creditors"—the school is now fully accredited, and its finances improved to the point that SCI-Arc was able to pay $23.1 million to buy its campus building in 2011. "The main thing is to figure out a way for SCI-Arc to keep growing without losing its …