The M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence at California College of the Arts advances design excellence in architectural education, research, and practice. Established in 2023 through the generosity of the Gensler family and Gensler, the Center celebrates the life and legacy of visionary architect, entrepreneur, and philanthropist M. Arthur Gensler Jr.

The Gensler Center brings together students, faculty, researchers, and practicing professionals to address consequential challenges facing architecture and design. Through scholarships and mentorships, research and community partnerships, professional development, and public programs, the Center creates connections between education, research, practice, and the communities that architecture serves. Together, these initiatives support the development and exchange of innovative design ideas and practices, expand access to design education, and advance social equity and environmental sustainability.

Director: Keith Krumwiede, Dean of Architecture and Professor

The Gensler Center expands access to architecture and design education through scholarships supporting CCA students and participants in CCA's Pre-College Architecture program.

Gensler Center Scholarship and Mentorship Program

The Gensler Center provides annual scholarships to students in CCA's Bachelor of Architecture, Master of Architecture, and BFA Interior Design programs. Scholarship recipients also participate in a mentorship program with architects and designers at Gensler's San Francisco office, connecting their education at CCA with professional practice.

• Bachelor of Architecture: Jasmine Wada (2022–23, 2024–25); Alden Gendreau (2022–23); Natalie Schtakleff (2023–24, 2024–25); Sam Avila-Vallejo (2024–25, 2025–26); Anhelina Rozum (2025–26, 2026–27); Makoto Komine (2026–27)
• Master of Architecture: Leyla Dualeh (2022–23); Shreya Shankar (2022–23); Phong Tran (2023–24, 2024–25); Zion Lewis (2023–24); Dawn Lorence (2024–25, 2025–26); Kaleb Bourne (2025–26, 2026–27)
• BFA Interior Design: Soojee Choi (2022–23, 2023–24); Mez Deboo (2022–23); Shirley (Xueqi) Yu (2023–24, 2024–25); Ray Chang (2024–25, 2025–26); Jenna Monservas (2025–26, 2026–27)

Pre-College Scholarships

The Gensler Center provided scholarships for students from diverse backgrounds to attend CCA's Pre-College Architecture program, helping create pathways into architectural education for future designers.

The Gensler Center supports faculty and student research across CCA Architecture, creating opportunities for students and recent alumni to participate directly in original research and creative work while sustaining the division's four architectural research labs.

Gensler Center Research Fellows

Gensler Center Research Fellows are CCA students and recent alumni who work closely with CCA faculty on projects addressing consequential questions for contemporary architecture and design, gaining experience in research, representation, publication, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

• 2025
  • Anhelina Rozum (B.Arch 2027), with Jason Kelly Johnson and Negar Kalantar: Digital Craft Futures — A publication documenting ten years of research by CCA's Digital Craft Lab and exploring its future directions in robotics, material innovation, and artificial intelligence.
• 2024
  • Natalie Schtakleff (B.Arch 2025), with Janette Kim: Property Playbook — A book and research project examining how activists and architects can use property law and design to foster more just and ecologically vibrant built environments.
  • Alia Brookshire (M.Arch 2024), with Mark Donohue: Greenville: Case Studies in Rethinking Repair — Documentation and manuscript preparation for Repairing Greenville: An Architectural Case Study, examining CCA Architecture's multi-year collaboration with Greenville, California, following the 2021 Dixie Fire. Forthcoming from CCA Architecture Books and AR+D Publishing, spring 2027.
  • Shane Chavez (M.Arch 2025), with Amy Campos: Upkeep, Repair, and Maintenance in Adaptive Interiors — Supported manuscript development and preparation for the edited volume, published by Routledge.
• 2023
  • Hannah Leathers (M.Arch 2024), with Janette Kim: Property Playbook: Reclaiming Land for Racial and Social Equity — Research toward a book exploring legal and spatial strategies for reimagining property ownership to advance social equity, cultural continuity, and climate justice.
  • Elizabeth Wilson (M.Arch 2023), with James Graham: California: An (Incomplete) Political Ecology — An atlas mapping the resource infrastructures that have shaped California and examining relationships among land, labor, extraction, and settler capitalism.

Architectural Research Labs

The Gensler Center provides essential support for CCA Architecture's four research labs. Together, the labs create platforms for interdisciplinary investigation connecting architecture to emerging technologies, ecological systems, urban and social questions, and experimental forms of historical inquiry.

• The Digital Craft Lab advances research in architectural design, digital fabrication, material science, data visualization, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Its work brings architecture into dialogue with engineering, science, art, and industry through experimental making and full-scale prototyping.
• The Architectural Ecologies Lab brings designers, artists, scientists, and manufacturers together to develop architectural responses to ecological challenges including climate adaptation, sea-level rise, and habitat restoration. Its work combines material experimentation, fabrication, ecological research, and public engagement.
• The Urban Works Agency uses architectural and urban design research to address questions of social justice, ecological vitality, housing, collective life, and economic resilience. Working with interdisciplinary partners, UWA develops research through design projects, exhibitions, publications, symposia, and experimental curricula.
• History Theory Experiments is a platform for advanced interdisciplinary research and critical engagement with architecture and its histories. HTX explores alternative modes of historical practice including spatial activism, counter-histories, reconstruction, exhibitions, and new material forms of architectural discourse.

Faculty Research and Professional Engagement

The Gensler Center supports CCA Architecture faculty in presenting research and participating in national scholarly and professional conferences, extending the reach of work developed at CCA, fostering exchange with peers, and connecting faculty research to larger disciplinary conversations.

The Gensler Center extends architectural education and research beyond the classroom by supporting sustained engagement with communities and the development of work that connects design inquiry to consequential social and environmental questions. Center-supported initiatives have included collaborations in Greenville, San Francisco's Mission District, and West Oakland.

Greenville Community Partnership

The Center has provided essential support for CCA Architecture's multi-year collaboration with the community of Greenville, California, following the 2021 Dixie Fire. Center funding supported student travel, project materials, and course planning, enabling students and faculty to work directly with community members on questions of rebuilding, repair, and long-term resilience. The Center is also supporting the publication of Repairing Greenville: An Architectural Case Study, forthcoming from CCA Architecture Books and AR+D Publishing in spring 2027.

Mission District Community Engagement Fellowship

In spring 2023, the Gensler Center supported Arturo Gomez (B.Arch 2024) as a Community Engagement Fellow working with Antje Steinmuller and students in Architecture Studio 4 in San Francisco’s Mission District. Gomez helped coordinate with community organizers, supported neighborhood engagement, and provided additional mentorship for students as they developed their studio work.

West Oakland Stories

The Center also supported West Oakland Stories, Issue 5 of Urban Works Agency's The Agent, documenting collaborative work with community partners in West Oakland. Produced in collaboration with the San Pablo Avenue Community Newspaper and with guidance from the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, the publication extends CCA Architecture's community-engaged research into a public record of neighborhood stories and initiatives.

The Gensler Center creates opportunities for students to extend their education beyond the classroom through engagement with professional practice, disciplinary communities, and student-led initiatives. Through internships, conferences, competitions, workshops, and other programs, the Center helps students build professional networks, develop new skills, and participate in the larger design community.

Partnership with Gensler San Francisco

The Gensler Center has enabled a robust partnership between CCA Architecture and Gensler's San Francisco office, creating ongoing connections between students, faculty, and professional practice. Beyond the mentorship program for Gensler Center scholarship recipients, Gensler architects and designers have participated in studio reviews, office visits, and curricular collaborations, while selected Architecture and Interior Design students have participated in dedicated summer internships at the San Francisco office.

Student Professional and Disciplinary Engagement

Center support has enabled:

• CCA Architecture students to participate in the National Organization of Minority Architects Annual Conference
• Students to attend the American Institute of Architects Student West Quad Conference and the AIA Conference on Architecture
• CCA NOMAS to organize the (UN)seeing Architectural Drawing symposium
• CCA's BioDesign Challenge team to participate in the 2025 BioDesign Challenge, where the team received the Outstanding Field Research Prize
• CCA students to organize and participate in the AIAS Professional Development Summit at the Center for Architecture + Design
• Interior Design students to participate in the International Interior Design Association through supported student memberships
• Students to participate in a free Revit workshop focused on developing technical skills used in professional practice
• The Architecture Emerging Talent Career Fair, connecting students with architecture and design practices and professional opportunities

The Gensler Center supports lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and conversations that bring CCA students and faculty into dialogue with leading architects, designers, researchers, and the wider public. Programs have included Climate as Praxis, the Center's inaugural symposium and exhibition exploring design responses to the social and environmental consequences of climate change; Rossana Hu's Thresholds: Space, Time, and Practice, presented by CCA Architecture in partnership with SFMOMA; and Architecture for a Changing Climate, an exhibition at the Center for Architecture + Design examining wildfire resilience and post-disaster recovery.

The Center has also supported Pioneering Biomaterials: Academia and Industry Convergence, an exhibition, symposium, and workshop series organized by CCA's Architectural Ecologies Lab and Digital Craft Lab with Autodesk Research; After Intelligence, a CCA-wide public inquiry into the impacts of artificial intelligence and automation on cultural production, civic life, and the human imagination; and the first Youth Festival Day at the Center for Architecture + Design, a free public program introducing young people and families to architecture and design through hands-on activities.

M. Arthur Gensler Jr. (1935–2021) founded Gensler in San Francisco in 1965 and developed the practice into one of the world's leading architecture, design, and planning firms.

Art Gensler was also deeply connected to California College of the Arts. During eleven years as a member of CCA's Board of Trustees, including four years as board chair, he championed design education, student opportunity, and the development of CCA's expanded San Francisco campus.

The M. Arthur Gensler Jr. Center for Design Excellence carries that commitment forward by investing in the next generation of designers and in research capable of expanding what architecture can contribute to society. Read CCA's announcement establishing the Center.