Practicing architect and educator David Ruy has been picked to lead SCI-Arc’s new Edge Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture. The post-graduate program will launch this fall offering one-year, graduate-level degrees in four emerging areas within architecture and design: architectural technologies, entertainment and fiction, the design of cities, and design theory and pedagogy.
“The scope of what an architect can do is expanding like never before,” Ruy said in a press release. “Today, architecture is simultaneously becoming more specialized in its expertise and more diverse in its applications. It requires programs of advanced study that can be more targeted, more focused, and more innovative. Given the complexities of the contemporary world and the intense demands being made on the abilities of architects to meet problems, these programs are carefully designed to develop advanced expertise that a general professional degree cannot address.”
Of the four postgraduate programs making up Edge, two are already in place at SCI-Arc: the master's of science in architectural technologies, headed by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S principal Marcelo Spina, Assoc. AIA, which considers the relationship of technology to architecture, and the master's of science in the design of cities, led by visiting professor Peter Trummer, which explores the complexities of urban design today. The new programs are a master's of arts in fiction and entertainment, led by Liam Young, whose work includes co-running the Unknown Fields Division research studio, and designed for students looking to take their architectural expertise into fields such as entertainment and media, as well as a master's of science in design theory and pedagogy, which Ruy will lead.
Ruy was the co-chair of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s 103rd Annual Meeting, held in March 2015 in Toronto, and where key topics of discussion included the future of the architectural curriculum and the role of research and experimentation therein. He has served on the faculty at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pratt Institute. Additionally, he co-directs his New York–based practice Ruy Klein with Karel Klein. The pair received the 2011 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York. Ruy holds an M.Arch. from Columbia University.
