The Future of the PCI Program at Southern California

Doug Noble from USC shares his thoughts on the future of the precast program at USC.

The PCI Foundation has been supporting research and education in the School of Architecture at USC for several years.  A goal of the PCI Foundation sponsorship program is to provide a seed that launches a lasting and long-term impacts. As the formal part of the program comes to an end, the question becomes "what happens next?"  What were the past impacts of the PCI Foundation program, and what are the current and future impacts.

In the past, we have run annual precast concrete architectural design studios for 4th-year students in the bachelor of architecture program.  The studio emphasized the strengths of precast as part of a high thermal mass architecture for the extreme climate of Joshua Tree National Park.  Students learned how to use the large daily temperature swings with high-mass precast to create comfortable interior conditions without the use of mechanical systems.  Students also learned about the advantages of off-sire fabrication to reduce construction site impacts inside the National Park.  As part of the studio, we visited precast producers (thank you Clark Pacific) and received educational seminars from Doug Mooradian at PCI West (until his retirement this year). We are looking forward to the same kind of engagement with Ruth Lehmann as she embarks on her new role.  Also as