Career
Manferdini was raised in Bologna, Italy, where she graduated from the University of Bologna with a Civil Engineer degree in 1999 and later received her Master of Architecture and Urban Design from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2000. Manferdini has been a design faculty member at SCI-Arc since 2003 [3] , serving in several leadership roles, including Chair of Graduate Programs from 2015 to 2025 and Coordinator of the Graduate Thesis Program from 2010 to 2015. During her leadership as Chair, she has played a pivotal role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum and advancing the cutting edge of architectural design within the NAAB-accredited M.Arch I and M.Arch II programs.
A distinguished educator, Elena Manferdini has been recognized over the years with several prestigious academic appointments. She currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Design [4] and has held notable visiting positions, including the Howard Friedman Visiting Professorship of Practice at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), as well as Visiting Professorships at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Seika University. In 2013, Manferdini received the Educator of the Year Presidential Award from the AIA Los Angeles, honoring her outstanding contributions to architectural education.Since 2023, she has served as an external senior advisor for the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts in China. In 2024, the presidentially appointed 12-member Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board has selected Elena Manferdini for a Fulbright Specialist Award to the United Arab Emirates. Elena Manferdini joins the ranks of Fulbright alumni who have gone on to become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, CEOs, Nobel Laureates, and more.
Manferdini founded her Los Angeles-based firm, Atelier Manferdini, in 2004. The firm is dedicated to creating public art, stemming from the desire to help make places of meaning within a community. The office has gone on to complete projects in the US, Europe, and Asia. [5] Atelier Manferdini has garnered multiple awards, including two AIA Miami design awards for the Alexander Montessori School facade in 2017 and the PAN Award for the best public art project in North America in 2016. [6] Manferdini's artwork is also included in the permanent collections of SFMoMA and LACMA.
In 2019, Manferdini was honored with the ICON Award as part of the LA Design Festival, which is a prize that recognizes iconic women who have made an indelible mark on Los Angeles, culture, and society in general through their work, character, and creative leadership, and more. [7]
Awards
In 2011, Elena Manferdini was one of the recipients of the prestigious annual grants from the United States Artists (USA) in the category of architecture and design. [10] Manferdini was awarded the 2013 COLA Fellowship [11] given by City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs to support the production of original artwork. She also received Graham Awards for architecture in 2013 [12] and 2015 [13] , the 2013 ACADIA Innovative Research Award of Excellence, [14] and was selected as recipient for the Educator of the Year presidential award given by the AIA Los Angeles.In 2019, Manferdini was honored with the ICON Award as part of the LA Design Festival, which is a prize that recognizes iconic women who have made an indelible mark on Los Angeles, culture, and society in general through their work, character, and creative leadership. [7]
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