It is based in the quarter-mile long (0.40 km) former Santa Fe Freight Depot in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles.

[1] The founders were frustrated with how the administrators at Cal Poly[3] treated the students and faculty members, and they wanted to address the issue from a more experimental perspective than traditional schools offered.

[citation needed] In 2001, it moved to its current building, the 60,000-square-foot 1907 Santa Fe Freight Depot designed by Harrison Albright on the eastern edge of Downtown Los Angeles.

[citation needed] SCI-Arc's undergraduate and graduate programs culminate in two public events in which students present their thesis projects to renowned critics from around the world, including Peter Cook, Greg Lynn, and Pritzker Prize recipient Thom Mayne.

[10] "SCI-Arc has long been one of this country's best experimental labs in which designers speculate about the future of the human-made environment, and its thesis projects are its calling cards.

The full scope of SCI-Arc public programs includes lectures, exhibitions, faculty talks and other opportunities for interaction between the school and the community.