News

March 15, 2026
March 15, 2026Mar 2026

Spinagu is the winner of Small Lots, Big Impacts Design Competition

Spinagu was named a Professional Winner in the Small Lots, Big Impacts competition, organized by cityLAB‑UCLA, LA4LA, and CIty of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office. Their proposal, titled Households, is housing design for five units but feasibly ten households. It’s a subdivision experiment to disrupt the architectural habits of the single family, to find bridges between households, generations, and living arrangements. […]
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March 14, 2026
March 14, 2026Mar 2026

Spinagu Juries United States Artist Fellowship

Jia Yi Gu served as a juror for the Architecture & Design panel of the USA Fellowship review process for the 2025 awardee cycle. In this role, she joined fellow panelists Germane Barnes and Travieso to evaluate nominations from across the United States. The USA Fellowship is a national award that recognizes artists and cultural practitioners across disciplines—including Architecture & […]
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March 10, 2026
March 10, 2026Mar 2026

Spinagu juries League Prize 2025: Plot

Established in 1981 to recognize visionary work by young practitioners, the Architectural League Prize is a biennial competition, lecture series, and exhibition. The 2025 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers competition asks entrants to interrogate Plot and map out the throughlines that shape their work. Every building has its lore, and plots are known to thicken. Which dramas […]
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July 16, 2025
July 16, 2025Jul 2025

KoozArch Interview: Exploring Feminist, Material, and Process-Based Curatorial Strategies in Material Acts

In July 2025, Jia Yi Gu, Kate Yeh Chiu and Olga Subiros were featured in an in-depth interview on KoozArch, where they delved into the feminist, material, and process-driven curatorial approaches that underpin the Material Acts project. Gu discussed the ways feminist perspectives inform the exhibition’s emphasis on process, highlighting how these strategies foreground often overlooked labor and material histories […]
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July 15, 2025
July 15, 2025Jul 2025

Design Museum Essay Contribution: “Living Materials”

Jia Yi Gu contributed the essay titled “Living Systems: From the Geologic to the Metabolic” to the catalogue accompanying More-Than-Human, a landmark exhibition at the Design Museum, London. Published in Summer 2025, the essay explores the entanglements between architecture, ecology, and biological life, examining how living systems operate across scales—from the geologic to the metabolic—in shaping material and spatial practices. […]
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June 10, 2025
June 10, 2025Jun 2025

Spinagu supporting the Los Angeles arts and architecture eco-system

Spinagu is proud to contribute to the arts and architecture communities by serving on the host committee for JOAN, Artadia, Feminist Center for Creative Work (FCCW) and SCI-Arc. GATHER Benefit for the Feminist Center for Creative Work (FCCW). This event, held on June 7, 2025, celebrated FCCW’s 10-year anniversary and supported a vibrant future for feminist art in Los Angeles. […]
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May 15, 2025
May 15, 2025May 2025

Contribution to 100 Words for Water: A Projective Ecosocial Vocabulary

100 Words for Water: A Projective Ecosocial Vocabulary delves into the urgent and intertwined relationship between water systems and human life amidst the escalating climate crisis. Drawing on the United Nations’ assertion that “the climate crisis is mainly a water crisis,” this thought-provoking book compiles over one hundred key terms defined by contemporary thinkers in science, philosophy, politics, activism and […]
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April 10, 2025
April 10, 2025Apr 2025

Major Repairs: A Conference on Reparative Practices

In April 2025, Jia Yi Gu organized Major Repairs: A Conference on Reparative Practices, a multidisciplinary event focused on reparative systems. Hosted at Metabolic Studio and presented by LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, the conference brought together architects, artists, theorists, and activists to interrogate how reparative practices in architecture and spatial design, particularly in response to ecological challenges. […]
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November 1, 2024
November 1, 2024Nov 2024

Major Grant from Harvey Mudd College Innovation Accelerator

Architectural scholar and curator Jia Yi Gu was awarded a $20,000 seed grant from the Harvey Mudd College Innovation Accelerator for the proposal titled “Third Landscape.” This initiative, co-led with Karen Romero Sandoval, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life, aims to reimagine campus living environments by integrating ecological design principles with human-centered comfort and community engagement. The […]
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March 10, 2024
March 10, 2024Mar 2024

Architecture Newspaper Interview: “Spinagu Builds Practice Through Layering”

In an interview for Architectural Newspaper (AN), Jia and Maxi explore Spinagu’s ethos: combining traditional architectural practice with curatorial, academic, and exhibition work. They describe their commitment to alternative economic models, systems repair in architecture, and rethinking architecture as a platform for knowledge production beyond the conventional service model. “I like to think of practicing, teaching, and research not as […]
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March 1, 2024
March 1, 2024Mar 2024

Maxi Spina Appointed Faculty Representative on SCI-Arc Board of Trustees

Maxi Spina has been appointed as the Faculty Representative on the Board of Trustees at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). In this role, Spina will serve as a liaison between the faculty and the Board, contributing to the governance and strategic direction of the institution. This appointment underscores SCI-Arc’s commitment to integrating diverse perspectives in its leadership and […]
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February 1, 2023
February 1, 2023Feb 2023

Architect Magazine Feature: Spinagu as part of its “Next Progressives” series

In February 2020, Architect Magazine featured Spinagu as part of its prestigious “Next Progressives” series, which highlights emerging architectural firms pushing the boundaries of design and innovation. The profile showcased Spinagu’s distinctive approach to contemporary architecture. Spinagu’s conceptual works were highlighted, demonstrating their forward-thinking design philosophy and commitment to redefining architectural norms. This feature positioned Spinagu as a rising studio […]
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March 14, 2022
March 14, 2022Mar 2022

University of Texas Austin Lecture: “Surfacing Work”

The lecture by Spinagu at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture was presented by founders Maxi Spina as part of the school’s Spring Lecture Series. The talk introduced their practice as a culturally engaged architecture studio that works across buildings, objects, exhibitions, and writing.  
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September 29, 2021
September 29, 2021Sep 2021

Zocalo Square Panel “Will A New Generation Of Leaders Shake Up L.A.’S Culture?”

Over the past year, directors of cultural institutions across Los Angeles have announced their retirements, which means a new generation of cultural leadership is upon us. But despite a desire for change that seems nearly universal, new directors must still answer to many of the same funders and face the same pressures as their predecessors—to raise money or sell tickets, […]
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September 29, 2021
September 29, 2021Sep 2021

Essay “The Budget” to e-flux Architecture and ArkDes

What happens in an architecture exhibition? What, and who is it for? What does it do, and how does it do it? Solicited: Proposals is a shared effort to parse the architecture exhibition, to untangle and rethink its meaning and its potential for today. Through the lens of a single element, each contribution seeks to reimagine the architecture exhibition: what […]
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March 10, 2021
March 10, 2021Mar 2021

Archinect Feature: “Spinagu Exemplifies a Contemporary Practice with Academia, Profession & Experimentation”

The feature by Archinect “Spinagu Exemplifies a Contemporary Practice with Academia, Profession & Experimentation all Running at Full Steam” describes how Spinagu stands out as a model of contemporary creative practice, blending academic inquiry, professional engagement, and experimentation. The collective operates at the intersection of these three realms, demonstrating how design can thrive when theory, industry, and exploration inform one […]
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October 8, 2019
October 8, 2019Oct 2019

Syracuse Architecture Lecture: “Scenes and Screens”

The lecture is a survey of Spinagu‘s recent work and thinking around old and new media in architectural production. The dual pressures of digital tooling (which allow for the endless finessing of forms) and digital imaging (which allows for the endless circulation of images) have pushed other forms of technological and visual explorations to the periphery. The studio is interested […]
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