Join the Daniels Faculty for this afternoon workshop complementing the Housing Multitudes: Reimagining the Landscapes of Suburbia study and exhibition, followed by an evening lecture featuring Jae Shin and Damon Rich, principals of Newark-based HECTOR urban design.

Housing Multitudes Roundtable: Crafting Creative Housing Solutions for a Better, Healthier Future
3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Architecture and Design Gallery, Daniels Building

This daytime workshop uniting urban scholars, designers, planners, community developers and policy specialists will explore how to take some of the ideas of the Housing Multitudes exhibition forward. Discussion will be especially focused on what is being forgotten or ignored in the proposed “solutions” to housing shortages and affordability that Ontario’s Bill 23, and Toronto’s Housing Action Plan, seek to address.

The event will centre on two questions primarily: 1. How can “first growth” suburban neighbourhoods and communities transform the physical infrastructure that surrounds them for greater economic, social and ecological benefit? And 2. What planning, finance and design strategies can Toronto leverage to evolve its vast suburban geography in a way that accommodates its housing needs, makes communities more liveable and contributes to the sustainability of the city? And how might we pilot these ideas? 

Roundtable participants will include:

Misha Bereznyak
Architect and Urban Designer, Smart Density

Alex Bozikovic
Architecture Critic, The Globe and Mail

Jaegap Chung
Architect and Principal, Studio JCI

Juan Du
Dean and Professor, Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto

Lesli Gaynor
Owner, Goco Solutions

Meg Graham
Architect and Partner, superkül

Marcel Greaux
Founder and CEO, Garrison

Karen Kubey 
Urbanist and Assistant Professor, Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto

Heela Omarkhail
Vice President - Social Impact, The Daniels Corporation

John Lorinc
Urban Affairs Journalist and Writer

Patricia McCarney
Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto
President and CEO, World Council on City Data

Fadi Masoud
Assistant Professor and Director of the Centre for Landscape Research, Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto

Michael Piper
Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urbanism and Director of the Master of Urban Design program, Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto

Damon Rich
Designer and Urban Planner, Partner at HECTOR

Jae Shin
Architectural and Urban Designer, Partner at HECTOR

Matti Siemiatycki
Professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, Director of the Infrastructure Institute at U of T’s School of Cities

Shoshanna Saxe
Associate Professor of Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Infrastructure

Leslie Woo
Urban Strategist and CEO, Civic Action

The roundtable will be moderated by Richard Sommer, Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Daniels Faculty and Director of the Faculty’s Global Cities Institute.

Evening Lecture: Freedom Schools for Accountable Architecture
Featuring Jae Shin and Damon Rich of HECTOR
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Main Hall, Daniels Building

With questions such as Where do roads come from?, popular educators in the US Black Freedom Movement like Septima Clark have long used discussions about architecture and the built environment to unpack ideas of citizenship, politics and power. People’s observations and analyses of built form offer insights into the surroundings we share and opportunities for collective action to change it. In this lecture, Jae Shin and Damon Rich of HECTOR urban design will share stories from their attempts to learn from this tradition of popular education as a resource for architecture, urban design and planning. 

Based in Newark, HECTOR practices urban design, planning and civic arts. Informed by traditions of visionary architecture, popular education and community organizing, it works on landscapes, buildings, development plans and regulations with complex constituencies and competing priorities. Founded by Jae Shin and Damon Rich based on their experiences working as designers within municipal bureaucracies, HECTOR’s recent projects include a South Philadelphia neighbourhood park, a youth-centric development plan for a district of 37,000 people on Detroit’s west side, and a memorial for ecofeminist Sister Carol Johnston. The MacArthur Foundation has described HECTOR’s designs as “vivid and witty strategies to help residents exercise power within the public and private processes that shape our cities.”