Faculty Profile

In 2004 Elena Manferdini founded Atelier Manferdini, a design office based in Los Angeles. The firm has been highly visible as an advocate of design excellence and has been recognized internationally for its ability to create imaginative architecture and art installations. The office is based on a multi-scale work methodology and embraces the philosophy that art can participate in a wide range of multidisciplinary developments that define our culture.

In 2006 Manferdini was invited to design the West Coast Pavilion representing the U.S. at the Beijing Biennale in the Chinese Millennium Museum. In 2008 and 2010, she curated the West Coast USA session of the Beijing Biennale exhibition. She has lectured widely, including at MIT, Princeton, GSD, and Bauhaus.

In addition to leading her design practice, in the past eight years Manferdini has taught architectural design studios and technology seminars for the graduate and undergraduate programs at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Currently she is the coordinator of the Graduate Thesis Program at SCI-Arc.

Manferdini graduated from the University of Civil Engineering (Bologna, Italy) and later received her master's of architecture and urban design from the University of California-Los Angeles.

• ARCH 4101 / 4102 / 5101 Option Studio: Artificial Matters

• Selected as artist resident for Texas A&M University, Texas (2011)
• Selected as one of the six curators for the Beijing Architecture Biennale, Beijing (2010)

• Inverted Cathedral Installation, in collaboration with Swarovski at the Museum of Art in Birmingham, UK (2011)
• Various architectural designs exhibited at the Austrian Pavilion during the Architecture Venice Biennale 2010 Austrian Pavilion (2010)
• From the Spoon to the City exhibition at LACMA , Los Angeles (2009)

• Lecture: Gulliver's Travels