Explore the Daniels Building at Doors Open Toronto 2022
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1 Spadina Crescent
IMPORTANT: For public health and safety, the University of Toronto requires that masks be worn in indoor spaces where physical distancing cannot be maintained. Masks are therefore required to attend this event. Thank you for your cooperation.
At Doors Open Toronto 2022, come see why the Daniels Building — groundbreaking home of the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design — has been named one of the best buildings in Canada of the past decade.
Generously supported by Postsecondary Education Fund for Aboriginal Learners
Graphic by Mariah Meawasige (@Makoose)
Schedule
Opening Ceremony by Indigenous Traditional Healer and Elder James Carpenter
with Helper Jode Kechego
Friday, May 27, 2022
12 p.m. – 12:20 p.m., Stantec Architecture Courtyard
Rain Location: Student Commons
Open InSights – Keynote Talk
“Truth & Reconciliation: Indigenous Perspectives on the Role of Art and Architecture on University Campuses”
Friday, May 27, 2022
6:30 p..m. – 8:30 p.m., Main Hall
Daniels Faculty Doors Open Self-Guided Tours
Saturday, May 28 & Sunday, May 29, 2022
10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (last entry at 4:30 p.m. both days)
Exhibitions include:
- Daniels Mural Project, Ambe Magada, North Facade
- Building Black Success Through Design Showcase, Room 230
- Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag, Indigenous Youth Program, Room 330, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
- Engage-Design-Build, Room 300
- End of Year Show 2022, First Floor & Graduate Studio
NEW Storytelling Hour
Saturday, May 28 & Sunday, May 29, 2022
12 p.m. - 1 p.m., Zeidler Reading Room
Youth Workshops with Lena Recollet
Saturday, May 28 & Sunday, May 29, 2022
1 p.m. – 3 p.m., Main Hall
ImagineNATIVE Animation Short Films Focus Program Screening
Saturday, May 28, 2022
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Main Hall
ImagineNATIVE Reclaiming Short Films Focus Program Screening
Sunday, May 29, 2022
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Main Hall
Closing Ceremony by Indigenous Traditional Healer and Elder James Carpenter
with Helper Jode Kechego
Sunday, May 29, 2022
3 p.m. – 3:20 p.m., Stantec Architecture Courtyard
Rain Location: Student Commons
Programming
Opening and Closing Ceremonies
Indigenous Traditional Healer and Elder James Carpenter
with Helper Jode Kechego
Friday, May 27, 2022 & Sunday, May 29, 2022
12 p.m. & 3 p.m., Stantec Architecture Courtyard
James Carpenter is a recognized Indigenous Traditional Healer and Oshkabewis (Helper). His First Nations Ancestry is from the Anishnaabek/Mississauga First Nation of Alderville, Chippewa ancestry from the Traditional territory around the Great Lakes, Oneida ancestry from Upper New York State, and Cree ancestry from the Cree Nation around the shores of James Bay. He continues to reclaim his Anishnaabek/Chipewyan and Cree languages. James specializes in providing Indigenous Traditional Healing Services and Sacred Indigenous Ceremonies to children, families and communities.
Open InSights – Keynote Talk
“Truth & Reconciliation: Indigenous Perspectives on the Role of Art and Architecture on University Campuses”
Friday, May 27, 2022
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Main Hall
Indigenous knowledge keepers, architects and artists from across Turtle Island will gather to share their artistic work and involvement in creative projects situated at local post-secondary institutions. This is happening at a time when universities are re-imagining their role in collective education and knowledge, as well as in sharing narratives of Indigeneity, settler colonialism and Canadian identity.
Details of this in-person event and registration are available here.
NEW Storytelling Hour
Saturday, May 28 & Sunday, May 29, 2022
12 p.m. - 1 p.m., Zeidler Reading Room
Our storyteller on Saturday is Star Nahwegahbo, an Anishinaabe, Scottish and English from Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation, Ontario (part of the Robinson Huron Treaty), currently living in Tkaronto. Star is a mother, interdisciplinary artist, former Social Service Worker of 12 years, grassroots community organizer, and trained expressive arts facilitator. Star’s work explores the parallels of motherhood and land, grief and medicine, and the art of braiding ourselves back into our rightful place in creation. She acknowledges that her work is guided and co-created with ancestral and land-based intelligence.
Our storyteller on Sunday is Elder Whabagoon an Ojibway Elder who sits with the Loon Clan, a Keeper of Sacred Pipes, a member of the Lac Seul First Nation, and a 60’s Scoop survivor. Whabagoon is a speaker, land defender and water protector. She is the First Peoples Leadership Advisor to the Dean at the Daniels Faculty. Recently she initiated, led and supported a team to curate the award winning mural, Ambe Magada, with artist, Que Rock, at 1 Spadina Crescent. In the summer months, Elder Whabagoon continues to share her teachings with Indigenous youth in a summer program Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag, a UofT Access program she co-founded four years ago.
Youth Workshops with Lena Recollet
1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Daily (May 28 & 29), Main Hall
First-come first-serve, limited capacity
Bring your child(ren) and learn about Ambe Magada, the large-scale mural by Indigenous artist Que Rock on the north facade of the Daniels Building. The mural features Indigenous teachings that will be shared. For younger audiences (two to seven years old), a replica banner of the mural will be available for colouring. For older audiences (eight+ years), the red circles honouring the 215 children whose unmarked graves were discovered at a former residential school site will be discussed. Youth will be invited to create their own red circle with messages to the spirits of the children, their families and their communities.
The workshop will be led by Lena Recollet, an Anishinaabe multi-disciplinary artist from Wikwemikong. Her arts facilitation experience started at Red Pepper Arts in the early stages of her theatre training in 2002. Later, she went on to be an arts mentor with Seven Generation Image Makers, becoming a self-employed artist on what was formerly called the Aboriginal Artists in Education roster with Toronto District School Board and Ontario Arts Council. Combining Anishinaabemowin and arts this led her to being a full-time high school teacher of Native Language at TDSB for five years. Revisiting arts facilitation or being a guest speaker while taking a break from teaching full time is a way of honouring the skills she gained as an educator while choosing to return to her award-winning art career again.
ImagineNATIVE Animation Short Films Focus Program Screening
Saturday, May 28, 2022
3:30 p.m - 4:30 p.m., Main Hall
FREE No tickets required
A dynamic selection of seven animated short films created by Indigenous filmmakers and presented at the 2021 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. This program is geared towards diversity, inclusion, reconciliation, and learning about the land and its people.
Films include:
ImagineNATIVE Reclaiming Short Films Focus Program Screening
Sunday, May 29, 2022
3:30 p.m - 4:30 p.m., Main Hall
FREE No tickets required
A dynamic selection of five short films created by Indigenous filmmakers and presented at the 2021 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. This program narrates the transfer of knowledge, reclaiming identity, and embracing the strength in spirit!
Films include:
Exhibitions
Daniels Mural Project:
Ambe Magada
North Facade
Anishnaabe painter Que Rock was selected as the artist for the Daniels Mural Project by the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design for its inaugural Indigenous installation.
The temporary mural by Que Rock, who is a member of Nipissing First Nation, honours the 215 children discovered at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. as well as the unmarked graves that continue to be found across Turtle Island. Read more about the project here.
Building Black Success Through Design Showcase
Room 230
The Building Black Success Through Design Showcase celebrates the outstanding design achievements and emerging talent of young designers that have gone through the Building Black Success Through Design (BBSD) mentorship program. BBSD is a free mentorship program for Black high school students interested in architecture and design. Participants in this 10-week program received one-on-one mentorship from Black architecture and design students to create final projects for the BBSD design competition. The mentees were guided through a series of design lectures and workshops that introduced the concepts, tools, techniques and methods used in the architecture and design industry. They created sketches, digital drawings, a 3D digital model, a physical model, and wrote project concepts and descriptions. They also connected with mentors and peers to explore their creative potential and develop their confidence in their design skills. This program was designed by Black Students in Design (BSD) and supported by the Daniels Faculty with a grant from the Access Program University Funds.
Photo by: Harry Choi
Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag, Indigenous Youth Program
10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Daily (May 28 & 29)
Room 330
Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag is a land-based education and summer employment program for Indigenous youth at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. The program weaves together cultural teachings with landscape architecture and environmental conservation field work. Responding to the U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action #26, youth are introduced to postsecondary education and career paths in the fields of design, ecology and Indigenous environmental studies. Teachings shared by Elders and Knowledge Keepers strengthen the youth’s self-confidence, cultural identity and connection to land. Through collaborations with a range of partner organizations, youth engage in various methods of research, design and realization of projects, including tree planting, campus landscapes, medicine gardens, post-industrial forest restoration and urban agriculture.
Engage-Design-Build
Room 300
The Daniels Faculty has partnered with the Toronto District School Board to build a community project with George Harvey Collegiate Institute, a high school near the city’s Little Jamaica neighborhood. The pilot program at George Harvey developed a curriculum that will be expanded to other schools.
Engage-Design-Build is an experiential learning program for secondary school youths who are underrepresented in the design professions due to economic or racial barriers. Its goal is to open pathways for these youths to careers in architecture and design by applying technical design skills from their high school curriculum to a community design project in their school’s neighbourhood, thereby helping youths experience design by exploring design in their immediate community.
End of Year Show 2022
First Floor & Graduate Studio
Showcasing student work from across the degree programs at the Daniels Faculty, this exhibition encompasses a broad range of projects, revealing how an emerging generation is envisioning ways to address challenges and opportunities as future stewards of the built and natural environments.
About the Daniels Building
Designed by architects Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner, principals of the acclaimed firm NADAAA, in collaboration with architect-of-record Adamson & Associates, landscape architects Public Work, and heritage architects E.R.A., the Daniels Building at the University of Toronto is a model of flexible learning, featuring dynamic study and research environments for faculty and students of architecture and design.
A merging of 19th and 21st century architecture, the history of the Daniels Building parallels the history of the city itself. The original neo-Gothic-style building was the first home of Knox College, a Presbyterian theological school. The building later served as a military hospital, the home of Connaught Laboratories and, later, a U of T auxiliary and servicing facility.
To create the new home of the John H. Daniels Faculty, the historic building was pared back to its roots, restoring original details. A three-storey contemporary addition integrates the Faculty’s more active, creative spaces, iconically represented by the design studio, with its soaring bow tie truss ceiling and clerestory windows. The Principal or Main Hall surprises and delights with fins and stripes in charged colours, creating a dynamic environment for large lectures and events.
Photo by: Nic Lehoux