Celebrating Our Graduates with Lawrence Scarpa

On June 24, we will honor the accomplishments of more than 100 graduates from our School of Architecture and Construction Management and our Domus Academy School of Design. What we celebrate is important, and so is how we celebrate. NewSchool is a downtown San Diego institution, located in the city’s innovative design district, and focused on teaching students to be citizen architects and designers. That makes it especially fitting that our ceremony will be held at Symphony Hall and that our speaker will be Lawrence Scarpa.

Larry is a renowned architect who has won numerous awards, and whose firm, Brooks + Scarpa, is ranked the 7^th overall top architecture firm in the United States by Architect Magazine. But the reason we asked him to speak at our commencement is his dedication to socially responsible architecture, including sustainability and affordable housing. His work has a level of human and environmental empathy that is unusual of many of the stars emerging in architecture. He also has a joy for the profession that our graduates will find inspiring.

I experienced his love of life and the profession while I was at NC State University. At the college, we were incubating a contemporary art museum for Raleigh, and Larry was the architect we selected to refurbish an old and much-loved warehouse as a permanent home for the collection. Some architects can be difficult, especially when they have the reputation that he does, but he was a pleasure to work with. A true citizen architect, he paid close attention to the context of the building and the needs of its users. His attention to human-centered design made it a success.

I’m looking forward to welcoming Larry to the NewSchool community as we send our citizen architects and designers out into San Diego and beyond.