Design | Penn Today

Fourth-years Ejun Mary Hong and Jack Nicholas Roney were awarded a 2025 President's Engagement Prize to pursue their PIXEL project. The pair will collaborate to bring art mentorship, creative skill-building, and industry networking opportunities to under-resourced high school students in the greater Philadelphia area.

Empowering high school youth through immersive art mentorship

Penn fourth-years Ejun Mary Hong and Jack Nicholas Roney will use a President’s Engagement Prize to expand their existing initiative dedicated to connecting under-resourced high school students in Philadelphia with art mentorship, creative skill-building, and industry networking opportunities.

6 min. read

Richard Garber standing outside in front of concrete panel

Concrete panels as teaching tools, materials testing, and outdoor sculptures

On view outside the Weitzman School of Design are three freestanding concrete panels designed and made by students in a unique graduate seminar that partners with a local concrete-fabrication plant

5 min. read

headshots of Sean Burkholder and Eva Del Soldato

Sean Burkholder and Eva Del Soldato awarded the 2025-26 Rome Prize

Sean Burkholder of the Weitzman School of Design and Eva Del Soldato of the School of Arts & Sciences are among 35 recipients of the 2025-26 Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome to support innovative fellows in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

3 min. read

Weitzman faculty to exhibit at 19th international exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia & Time Space Existence

Five members of the faculty at the Weitzman School of Design are participating in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia: Winka Dubbeldam, Randall Mason, Robert Gerard Pietrusko, Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, and Marion Weiss.

Aki Di Sandro standing on a sidewalk in downtown Philadelphia.

Listening to the city

In a Spring 2025 City & Regional Planning course at Penn’s Weitzman School, students are exploring the connections between urban sounds and neighborhood identity.

2 min. read

Preservation Awards recognize Weitzman faculty and alum work across Philadelphia region

Several Weitzman faculty and alums are recipients of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia’s annual Achievement Awards, including a team from the Department of Historic Preservation’s Center for Architectural Conservation that was recognized with a Grand Jury Award for its comprehensive documentation work of the George Nakashima Family House, and Molly Lester, a lecturer in historic preservation and associate director of the Urban Heritage Project, earned the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance Award for her monograph “Building Ghosts: Past Lives and Lost Plac

Jessica Mach standing outside with her arm resting on a low brick wall

Fine art and design using artificial intelligence

Through the design course Artificial Intelligence in Art, second-year Jessica Mach has discovered AI's potential through creating several projects, including a video story and an interactive game.

5 min. read

Meet Julian Abele, the Black architect who was a cornerstone of America’s Gilded Age

William Whitaker of the Weitzman School of Design discusses the career of Julian Abele, the first Black graduate of Penn’s architecture department and the designer of Eisenlohr Hall, the on-campus home of Penn’s president.

Weitzman student and alum designate Penn’s oldest property to Philadelphia Historic Register

The building that houses Penn’s Greenfield Intercultural Center has been listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, thanks to a nomination authored by Ke-An Chiang, a graduate student at Penn’s Weitzman School. Built circa 1845, the Reed-Hubley Residence, a 3-story villa at 3708-12 Chestnut Street, is believed to be the oldest building owned by Penn, outside of Hospital properties, which served several families as a suburban villa before being acquired by the University in 1982.

Weitzman and Netter Center to tackle urban heat in West Philadelphia

A collaboration between the Thermal Architecture Lab at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, and the Annenberg School has been awarded an Environmental Protection Agency Thriving Communities Grant for $137,000 to work with William L. Sayre High School, a University-Assisted Community School, on measurement of urban heat and solution design.

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