Date change: This event has been moved from November 7 to November 28, 2018.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Michael Piper.

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Peter Sampson and Liz Wreford are the co founders and principal designers of PUBLIC CITY, a hybrid urban, building, and site architecture practice working  in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Calgary. They will share their perspectives on the design of their practice and their approach to the design of the public urban realm upon which their work is currently focussed.  

As architect and landscape architect, Peter and Liz work collaboratively in design without division or professional territory. They continue to focus their professional efforts towards a design practice that is open, comprehensive, raw, and playful. In doing so, they have produced award-winning landscape architecture and architecture commissions at a variety of scales and have been recognized by Azure and the Globe and Mail as one of Canada’s most exciting emerging practices.

Liz and Peter will present work that demonstrates the kinds of opportunities that have emerged in recent years from their trans-disciplinary approach to design, the public realm, and the workplace. Fundamentally, their design methodology prioritizes the belief that form follows the pleasures of life over the functions of program.

Peter holds a degree in Literature from McGill University and a professional Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto where he graduated with the Lieutenant Governors’ Medal, the AIA Gold Medal, and the Canadian Architect Student Award of Excellence in 1999. He has taught and been a visiting critic at the Universities of Waterloo, Manitoba, and Toronto. Currently, Peter co-teaches a graduate architecture and landscape architecture option studio at the Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Design.

Liz grew up in Winnipeg and holds a degree in Environmental Design and a Master’s degree of Landscape Architecture from the University of Manitoba where she graduated with the MALA Gold Medal.  She has practiced in Perth Australia, Seattle, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. She taught at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture between 2011-16. Liz co-teaches a graduate architecture and landscape architecture option studio at the Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Design.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Mason White.

To be an advocate is to defend the cause of another, or to support the interests of another. This is a term that one might find readily in the realm of law, politics, and activism. But what does it mean for Architecture to be a form of advocacy? In this presentation, Joyce Hwang will first discuss several projects developed through her research and practice that draw awareness to urban wildlife habitats, in efforts to advocate not only for architecture’s critical role in urban ecology, but also to promote the inclusion of new (non human) subjectivities in the built environment. She will reflect on how fundamentally rethinking architectural structures and building typologies can suggest a more palpable, resonant environment that not only impacts species and habitats, but also human perception and experience. Further, she will expand upon the idea of “Architect as Advocate” as a strategy to reconsider models of design practice, moving beyond power structures inherent in conventional architect-client relationships, and toward a cultivation of new forms of empowerment through collaborations around mutual agendas. Along these lines, the presentation will include a short discussion about Joyce's co-edited book, Beyond Patronage: Reconsidering Models of Practice (Actar, 2015).

Joyce Hwang, AIA, NCARB, is the Director of Ants of the Prairie, an office of architectural practice and research that focuses on confronting contemporary ecological conditions through creative means, and Associate Chair and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University at Buffalo SUNY. She is a recipient of the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award (2014), the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship (2013), and the MacDowell Colony Fellowship (2016, 2011), among other awards. She is co-editor of Beyond Patronage: Reconsidering Models of Practice, published by Actar. Hwang received a M.Arch degree from Princeton University and a B.Arch degree from Cornell University.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Shane Williamson.

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Manon Asselin is a principal at the Montreal based design firm Atelier TAG and a professor at University of Montreal School of Architecture.

Asselin, along with her partner Katsuhiro Yamazaki, formed the architectural design practice Atelier TAG in 1997. Since its inception, the studio has sought to create meaningful spaces by reinterpreting the civic function of architecture through the careful study of the sociocultural contexts within which a given program operates. TAG’s growing body of work has allowed it to develop a design methodology focused on advanced building technology and materiality. The work of the studio is a quest for simplicity, where the built space, through the calculated play of light and materiality, embodies the physical, the cultural and the poetics of architecture.

The young office’s output is consistently rewarded for its design excellence, including four Governor General’s medals, the prestigious Prix de Rome in architecture by the Canada Council for the Arts and the 2012 Emerging Voices from the Architectural League of New York.  

A professor at University of Montreal since 2008, Asselin oversees core design studios and lectures on materiality, culture and constructive imaginaries. She was the 2012 Gerald Sheff visiting professor at McGill University. Asselin has lectured on Atelier TAG’s built work and participated in numerous national symposia. She has also served on numerous international, national, and local design juries as an advocate for design excellence, including at the Canada Council for the Arts.

Manon Asselin is a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (MRAIC), and a registered architect and a member of the Quebec Association of Architects (MOAQ).

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Liat Margolis.

NIPpaysage will take you on a guided tour of various projects located along Montreal’s rail system. Symbols of both large and small scale urban revitalization featured projects are linked together through an extensive green and industrial corridor that shape the city experience.

Since its inception in 2001 by 5 Université de Montréal graduates (Mathieu Casavant, France Cormier, Josée Labelle, Michel Langevin, Mélanie Mignault), NIPpaysage is a leader of a new wave of landscape architects. The team counts currently 14 collaborators.
 
The meaning behind the firm’s name refers to the inherent identity of all project sites. NIPpaysage’s design process is defined as a collective approach valued by multiple viewpoints. This openness leads to sound choices and creates meaningful environments. Eager to provide a renewed vision of the profession, NIP’s works combine a powerful conceptual basis, an approach sensitive to functionality and sustainability issues.

Image: Grand Quai du Port de Montréal,  project completed in collaboration with Provencher Roy Architectes in 2018.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Adrian Phiffer.

Eiri Ota with Irene Gardpoit founded the multidisciplinary architecture studio UUfie in 2009.  The practice celebrates experimentation, diversity, and site-specific — often inspired by nature — and aims to create “experiences of transition” in all of its work.

Every project is unique, yet unified by working in a highly participatory and collaborative method, with clients, engineers, fabricators, and specialist consultants all contributing from the beginning of a project to completion.  While continuing to push for innovation and experimentation, the studio addresses the specific features and potential of a particular situation, embracing them into the project while responding to the requirements of the program.

Standout architectural projects include Ports 1961 Shanghai; Printemps Haussmann Verticalité; and Lake Cottage, a two-story family home along the lake that references of being in a tree house.  Notable furniture and object designs include Yin-Yang; Echo; Whiteout; and Peacock, a set of chairs embodying the frozen moment of the plumage of their namesake.

The studio's work is recognised with numerous awards including the American Architecture Prize and OAA Design Excellence Award.  In 2017, UUfie received the esteemed Design Vanguard from Architectural Record which showcased emerging architects from around the world.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.
 
Introduction by Mauricio Quirós Pacheco.

Pat Hanson (Partner BFA MArch OAA AAA FRAIC) is a founding partner of gh3*. Under her leadership, the firm has established a reputation for design integrity across a range of building typologies and through all scales of practice. She is the architect of institutional, infrastructural and residential projects that create meaningful connections between architecture and landscape within the urban realm. Exemplary projects include the internationally-recognized June Callwood Park in Toronto, the Trinity College Quadrangle at the University of Toronto, and the Governor General's Medal-awarded projects Borden Park Pavilion in Edmonton and the Boathouse Studio on Stoney Lake, Ontario.

Hanson is an expert communicator of compelling design visions that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. She is a strong and insightful advocate for the potential for built form to rise above the merely functional, to integrate the pragmatic with the poetic, and to achieve an aesthetic impact that brings pleasure to everyday uses. For over 30 years, she has led clients and interdisciplinary design teams through complex programs, negotiating extensive public consultation processes to achieve internationally-recognized, award-winning projects, whether at the scale of infrastructure or the sheltering of a community programme.

Hanson currently serves on the Toronto Waterfront Design Review Panel, and is a senior advisor for Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), which supports diversity and women in the design fields. She has lectured on the work of gh3* in Europe and North America, and has taught at University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. In 2016, Pat was recognized by the international arcVision Prize for Women and Architecture.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Alissa North.

Atlantic Canada’s dramatic landscapes, rich histories, and quaint communities provide both unique opportunities and constraints for the disciplines of landscape architecture, architecture, and planning. Matthew will discuss recent work of Halifax-based firm, Ekistics, to demonstrate projects that use contemporary design to reveal and celebrate the rich histories and unique sites found around the east coast. Three projects will highlight the specificity of the Atlantic Canadian context at different scales: Destination Borden-Carleton Master Plan, Fort Needham Memorial Park, and the new Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Center.

Matthew Brown is a practicing landscape architect and planner in Atlantic Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies – Planning from the University of Waterloo, a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where he graduated with distinction.

As a proud Newfoundlander, his connection to the east coast is exemplified through his research on the capacity of landscape and ecology to act as catalyst in economic diversification and coastal rural regeneration. His research has won awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, as well as a research fellowship from Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Professionally, Matthew spent the first seven years of practice working as an Associate with the award-winning firm of Stimson Associates, before returning to Atlantic Canada to practice as a Senior Landscape Architect with Ekistics in 2017.

Matthew has taught landscape design studios at Northeastern Universities School of Architecture, and has been an invited critic at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Massachusetts, Boston Architectural College, Dalhousie University, University of Toronto, and the University of Waterloo.

Note: This Midday Talk will take place on a Tuesday (most other Midday Talks happen on Wednesdays).

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Wei-Han Vivian Lee.

BairBalliet is a joint design venture invested in architectural research in the form of both speculative and built projects. As designers, they reference the current world around them, lean on a long history of precedents, and imagine what lies ahead in the form of drawings, models, objects, films, and physically constructed spaces. This talk will focus on recent work produced in the office, specifically a body of work titled Loud Lines which imagines new three-dimensional possibilities for what is conventionally considered two-dimensional.

Kelly Bair is co-founder of BairBalliet and principal of Central Standard Office of Design. She is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture. Bair is a graduate of University of Colorado at Boulder (Bachelor of Environmental Design) and the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design (Master of Architecture).

Bair is a co-founder of Possible Mediums, a collaborative with Kristy Balliet, Adam Fure and Kyle Miller, fellow Midwestern architects and educators interested in shaking up the context and format in which architecture is taught, produced, and engaged

BairBalliet's work has been exhibited internationally in the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale and in various locations around the United States including New York (Museum of Modern Art as part of the PS1 Young Architects Program 2018)), Los Angeles (The Architecture & Design Museum), Detroit (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), Chicago (The Night Gallery) and Pittsburgh (Miller Gallery/Carnegie Mellon University).

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

In this talk, Gena Wirth will discuss SCAPE’s method for designing and implementing living infrastructure using two case studies: Living Breakwaters and Public Sediment. Planned for the neighborhood of Tottenville, Staten Island, the Living Breakwaters project links in-water infrastructure with on-shore education and outreach, to help increase awareness of risk, enhance ecologies, and bring local school curriculum to the waterfront. Public Sediment is the SCAPE-led team in the Rebuild By Design Bay Area Challenge to develop solutions to subsidence and sea level rise in the region. The proposal aims to design with mud, connecting the uplands and the lowlands into a productive and resilient ecological system.

Gena is the Design Principal at SCAPE. Trained in landscape architecture, urban planning and horticulture, Gena draws from her interdisciplinary training to create ecologically rich and culturally relevant landscapes from the infrastructural scale to the site level. Gena leads the design on several significant projects in the office.
 
Gena was on the original Oyster-tecture team and was the Project Manager for SCAPE’s involvement in SIRR, studying large-scale harbor-wide strategies for coastal protection measures that will be utilized in preparation for the next Superstorm. She was also the Project Manager for SCAPE’s winning Rebuild By Design proposal, Living Breakwaters, a climate change resiliency strategy for the South Shore of Staten Island.
 
Gena holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Master of Urban Planning with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture from the University of Delaware.

Image: SCAPE

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Jason Siebenmorgen will discuss current landscape architecture projects at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.  A series of case studies will focus on the design and construction of urban public spaces as well as the practical challenges of intensive use, varying horticultural practices and long term maintenance.

Jason Siebenmorgen is Associate Principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA), a landscape architecture firm based in New York City.  At MVVA, Jason leads the planting design and its implementation in projects ranging from courtyard gardens to large scale public parks. One of his focus areas and passions is how planting in public spaces is becoming increasingly rich—informed by both natural and urban ecologies—rendering park spaces both more diverse and more resilient.  At MVVA, Jason’s current projects include Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York, A Gathering Place for Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Waterloo Park in Austin, Texas, and continuing work at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York.
 
Jason is the recipient of the 2016 Garden Club of America Rome Prize. As a resident at the American Academy in Rome, he investigated the evolving role of plants in both historic and contemporary Italian gardens, bridging his interest in fine arts, horticulture, and landscape architecture.
 
A graduate of the sculpture department of the Kansas City Art Institute, Jason earned a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Jason lives and works in New York City and the Catskills.

Image: Pier 6 Flower Field, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn NY