The Class of 2025
A study, research, and meditation center designed by Master of Architecture graduate Rhia Zhang for Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, in a studio with Vo Trong Nghia
As co-founder of the Shanghai-based Neri & Hu Design and Research Office, architect Rossana Hu has earned numerous accolades for designs that embrace history and the future in equal measure. So when she assumed the role of chair of the Department of Architecture at Weitzman in 2024, she was energized by department’s 157-year history and its proximity to other programs. “There is such a rich, interdisciplinary culture of design at the school,” Hu said. “I am hoping to build on it and bring in some diverse, complementary ideas,” Hu said.
One area in which Hu’s influence can be felt is in the 7000-level third-year studios. These advanced studios are independent from the core curriculum and developed by individual faculty members, one semester at a time. The work made by students in these studios is featured in the virtual gallery for the Year End Show 2025, which went live on May 23.
As Hu looks to add new viewpoints and ideas to the curriculum, she is most interested in opening students up to a wide range of possibilities for discovery. “I don’t want to offer answers. It is more about asking them to ask the right questions and examine the right issues, Hu said. “With these skills, they can find their own way.”
“The goal is to develop the poetic and conceptual into a legible architecture that is always physical and rooted in space and construction.”
Among the new voices that Hu invited to the Department is Swiss architect Pascal Flammer, who joined the faculty in the Fall of 2024. Flammer’s approach is to impart a way of thinking and seeing the world that empowers students to find their own way, much like Hu’s vision for the department as a diverse collection of ideas and people.
His Spring 2025 studio Architectural Cannibalization allows students to find their own project within a loose framework, using and reworking existing buildings, materials, theories, or whatever else to pursue their own ideas and “wishes.”
“In the studio, we want to have students develop wishes for society or themselves and make proposals about the program, materials, and approach to the site based on this wish,” Flammer says.
Flammer says that for him, the goal is to develop the poetic and conceptual into a legible architecture that is always physical and rooted in space and construction. “We are trying to find the “Why?” for each design decision.
“The studio is more conceptual and focused on thinking,” third-year Master of Architecture student Aotong Yan says. “This semester, I used a special mirror material to reflect the courtyard so you can’t see the building.”
Master of Architecture graduates Fiona Rath and Sydney Cleveland visited Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, India for Flammer's studio.
For the Department’s Travel Week, which was scheduled this semester from February 16 through 22, Flammer and his students traveled to India. There, they visited some of Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s buildings in India and studied the local vernacular. Flammer sees a particular physicality in India, both in everyday life, and in the architecture. “It is a very wild place between the physical and imaginary cosmos. It is very rational but full of colorful gods,” Flammer explained. “Our studio is about connecting a physical reality to a mental idea.”
“Every project becomes a personal journey, and the diversity of outcomes reflects that,” says third-year Master of Architecture student Yuju Kang. “You learn how to think logically, but you’re also constantly pushed to think more creatively, stepping beyond comfort zones and practical constraints.”
While Flammer’s pedagogy is open for students to invent their own individual projects, the advanced studio led by Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia offers diversity as a different body of knowledge outside the Western methodology. Trained in Japan, Nghia built a successful practice in Vietnam and recently moved to the US. His approach is rooted in natural materials, indigenous culture, and structural innovation.
The studio prompt is to design a learning and research institute that features a meditation center. “We need to reduce stress from social media,” Nghia said. “Schools are already stressful, so they need meditation spaces. It is the future.” It is his goal for students to design real-world architectural projects in such a way that they deal with scale, proportion, detail, and space quality. Located on a university campus just outside Hanoi, the project gives students a chance to work in a tropical climate with very high humidity with intense sun and frequent rain.
In response, Nghia’s studio introduced principles of net-zero, environmentally sensitive design. Students learned to design and detail in a new architectural language including shading devices, wind towers, and local and natural materials like timber and rammed earth. “It is a totally different climate from here,” Ngiah says. “It will teach them how to design in harmony with the weather.”
“Vo’s studio is rooted in place,” says third-year student Tia Yu. “It pushes us to design with cultural and environmental sensitivity, using architecture as a way to connect more closely with nature and local conditions.”
“What makes this studio different from others I’ve taken is the degree to which Vo asks us to zoom into our work,” third-year student Ebbi Boehm says. “Each drawing is held to a high level of detail and rigor, with an emphasis on scale and material proportion.”
7000 studios like Vo’s and Flammer’s offer students not just a chance to travel and experience architecture in the real world, but also the opportunity to pursue their own areas of research and interest, launching them into the profession with a sense of purpose and direction.
View Slideshow
