A community-focused exhibition that documents and celebrates the experiences, spaces and places that have significance to Black Torontonians will open in the Faculty’s Architecture + Design Gallery on Tuesday, March 11.

Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto is an interactive exhibition and geolocated digital archive featuring over 500 stories and 12 commissioned short films created by more than 150 Black Torontonians. 

Facilitated by afrOURban Inc. and the Museum of Toronto, it will run in the Daniels Building until April 14.

The multifaceted project exemplifies how oral narratives, filmmaking and exhibitions can be both archival and aspirational—archival in celebrating the diversity of Black life and communities in Canada’s largest city and aspirational in articulating the hopes and dreams that manifest within the built environment.

In 2024, architect and academic Kholisile Dhliwayo discussed the tenets and methodology behind Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto (as well as a Naarm-Melbourne version) as part of the Faculty’s annual Public Program series.

Dhliwayo is a founding member of afrOURban Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and celebrating the spaces that have meaning to Black communities worldwide.

Since 2017, the organization has, in addition to Toronto and Melbourne, hosted exhibits and screenings in Manahatta-New York City, Tiohtià:ke-Montreal and Warrane-Sydney. The Black Diasporas project was started by afrOURban in 2020.

Located on the lower level of the Daniels Building, the Architecture + Design Gallery is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

To watch Dhliwayo’s 2024 lecture at Daniels, visit the Faculty’s YouTube channel by clicking here.

Image by Bonn Creative from the exhibition Black Diasporas Naarm-Melbourne.

The Integrated Urbanism Studio (ARC2013/LAN2013/URD1011) serves as a core component of the architecture, landscape architecture and urban design programs at the Daniels Faculty, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to address the complex challenges of 21st-century urbanism. 

During the Fall 2024 term, the graduate studio focused on the decommissioned Downsview Airfield in Toronto—a transformative project with the potential to house over 80,000 residents. This ambitious undertaking positions Downsview as one of North America's most significant urban redevelopments, offering a unique platform for students to explore and address critical urban planning and design issues.  

Students developed transformative schemes from creating a new agricultural food hub and an integrated water management system, to reevaluating systems of home ownership and reconsidering the site as a regenerative landscape. Read on to learn more about the diverse array of group projects.

Block-by-Block 

Students: Jason Chen, Riling Chen, Shixun (Peter) Wang, Zixuan (Kathy) Zhou 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Chloe Town 
Website: rescaling-downsview.cargo.site

"Downsview Airport, located in the northern part of Toronto, is a site shaped by its aviation history. Following its decommissioning, the linear runway remains vacant, resembling a gash in the landscape and surrounded by isolated neighborhoods that function like archipelagos. The unused land has become the subject of intense speculation, particularly for condominium developments. However, these large-scale, top-down plans often result in homogeneous ownership models and architectural typologies, which deter social diversity. 

Our scheme, Block-by-Block, explores the question: How can we build incrementally? At the urban scale, we re-evaluate the rectilinear property lines that define much of Toronto’s fabric and systems of ownership. These alternative ownership models facilitate smaller scale building typologies, fostering more intimate and interconnected communities. At the individual scale, each unit is designed to be flexible, equipped with essential plumbing and electrical infrastructure but left unfinished, allowing residents to customize their spaces according to their needs and preferences." 

Terrain Bound 

Students: Kiana Rezvani Baghae, Benjamin Dunn, Patrick Minardi, Orly Sacke 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: terrainbound.cargo.site

"Terrain Bound challenges the convention of boundary-making in city-building processes, arguing that large scale developments should be planned holistically, in connection with adjacent communities and with respect to existing ecologies. Downsview’s history as an airport has been defined by the assertion of rigid boundaries. While the airport’s function has ceased, its legacy persists in the surrounding neighbourhood. Our project identifies key boundary conditions and reimagines them as opportunities to bridge, buffer, and rebalance Downsview’s insular condition."

Reimagining Urbanism Through Integrated Agriculture 

Students: Abby MacEwen, Amanda Nightingale, Denise Akman, Noel Sampson 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Mauricio Quirós Pacheco  
Website: nadasuperstufinal.cargo.site

"Toronto has lost 62.5% of its agricultural land, and with a growing population and the climate crisis, this project puts food security at the forefront of its development. This project transforms an industrial site into a new urban food hub, integrating agriculture across community, public, industrial, and institutional scales (S-M-L-XL). Through vertical farming retrofits to hangar buildings, banded field/greenhouse conditions, a new food terminal, and strategic connectivity, the site evolves as population and food needs grow. It envisions a self-sustaining urbanism, where housing and food production coexist, creating resilient systems that redefine city living—balancing density, sustainability, and food security as an essential urban infrastructure." 

Diverse and Connected 

Students: Zahra (Asal) Cheraghi, Neha Haider, Pablo Vasquez Segura 
Program: MUD 
Instructor: Roberto Damiani 

"The project restores connectivity by integrating the site into the city fabric through three public connectors linked to the ecological network. An east-west green connector and extended street networks strengthen ties to the urban context, while the former runway becomes a vibrant pedestrian strip. Four distinct districts emerge, featuring diverse building typologies that balance density, porosity, and privacy. Green fingers activate Downsview Park, and existing structures are adaptively reused as amenities, unifying the overall vision." 

Embracing Afterlife 

Students: Angela Jang, Claire Leverton, Georgia Posno, Lauren Tran 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud
Website: embracingafterlife.cargo.site

"Embracing Afterlife explores the evolving narrative of Downsview Park, where the past, present, and future coexist. The park’s ecological memory, shaped by history, climate, and industrialization, leaves traces in its soil and plant communities. Our guiding quote, 'every environment bears a palimpsest of its past. Every woodland is a memoir made of leaves and microbes that catalog its 'ecological memory,' helped encourage us to think beyond the site as it presently exists. 

Our project honors this afterlife by integrating the site’s history, particularly the runway’s past into its future design. By repurposing materials like old concrete, fallen trees and stone, we created an integrated circulation plan that reflect the potentiality of the site as a highly regenerative landscape. Interwoven through these repurposed materials is a robust planting plan that aims to remediate the site’s soil from chemicals and create a multi-seasonal space that entirely leads with landscape."

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once 

Students: Ardy Chang, Nathan Shakura, Sharon Lam, Siena Buzzelli 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Christos Marcopoulos 
Website: integrated-urbanism.cargo.site

"Key terms that we examine throughout our project are: ultimate mixed use, fine grain, weaving, democratic planning, community life.  The overarching concept for our proposed plan of Downsview Park involves the homogenous redistribution of the Framework Plan to weave together land use patterns of Toronto.  We are critiquing the Framework plan which proposes an urban 'island', neglecting its surrounding neighbourhoods.  Our project considers what mixed use means at the scale of the community and the city.  We approach mixed use design by splitting up and rearranging the Framework’s land use plan evenly throughout Downsview Park. The Framework Plan is developer driven and we are challenging it with a radically democratic, fine grain, community-driven project." 

Runways to Waterways 

Students: Andy Lee, Ryan Grover, Olivier Beaudoin, Ram Espino 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: runwaystowaterways.cargo.site 

"Runways to Waterways transforms Downsview’s former airfield into an integrated water management and urban ecology system. Positioned at the ridge of Toronto’s watersheds, it captures, stores, and filters water, mitigating lowland flooding while creating biodiverse public spaces. Repurposed runways form basins that direct stormwater through cloudburst roads, detention streets, and green corridors back into the Humber and Don Rivers. These interventions not only slow water, but establish dynamic spaces for recreation, education, and ecological restoration." 

GREEN THREADS: Weaving Nature Through Urban Hyperdensity 

Students: Jack Ahn, Casper Li, Suet Wing (Sylvia) Lo  
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: highdens.cargo.site

"GREEN THREADS: Weaving Nature Through Urban Hyperdensity is a visionary response to Toronto’s rapid growth and escalating urban sprawl. This high-density experiment challenges conventional development by seamlessly integrating nature and city life, creating a compact, efficient, and vibrant urban fabric. Drawing from global precedents, it weaves together a transit-oriented nucleus, mixed-use towers, and dynamic public spaces—maximizing vertical and horizontal potential to cultivate a resilient, livable, and ecologically adaptive future." 

The Strip

Students: Nour Fahmy, Timothy Soribello, Ming Yin 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Samantha Eby 
Website: downsviewthestrip.cargo.site   

"The Strip explores the role of open spaces in urban settings, questioning what draws people to gather and how design can foster connectivity, inclusivity, and a sense of community. Through a carefully designed framework of the strips, each with distinct functions and typologies, we have created a dynamic and adaptable environment that encourages diverse social, cultural, and economic activities. This approach not only accommodates the growing needs of the population but also strengthens the collective identity of Downsview, making it a vibrant and welcoming destination for all." 

Downsview in Reciprocity 

Students: Olivia Chan, Susan Xi, Ariel Zhang   
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Mariana Leguia Alegria 

"The proposal for Downsview reimagines Toronto living as a community-centric and regenerative urban model of local food production, affordable housing, and sustainable infrastructure. Strategies of adaptive reuse and flexible planning are prioritized while providing design agency for residents. In reciprocity, community members become stewards of the land and actively participate in culture sharing and learning through nature as they engage with the social amenities within the central park and its green-fingers that weave the site back into the surrounding context." 

Production City

Students: Huzaifa Chughtai, Jacob Majak, Oliver Parsons
Program: MARC
Instructor: David Verbeek

"Downsview, with its vast expanses of underutilized land, presents a unique opportunity to address farmland loss caused by urban sprawl. Production City utilizes Downsview to develop a prototype for harmonious relationships between food production, the city, nature, and people. By employing the Westland greenhouse model, we aim to boost food production through urban agriculture. This method utilizes UV lights for year-round plant growth, allowing us to ultimately feed nearly 80,000 people, about 75% of our revised Downsview population."

Whether you want to explore Berlin through film, design an agrarian prototype in Costa Rica, get hands-on experience with AI tools and robotic fabrication or intern at one of Toronto's top design firms, there is plenty for Daniels Faculty students to choose from this summer. 

Watch the Summer 2025 Info Sessions on YouTube and read the full Course Descriptions to learn more. 

Interested current students must submit the online application form by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, February 26.

Studies Abroad

Learn more about the Faculty’s two global studios this summer:

Berlin, a City in Film
Instructor: Peter Sealy

Costa Rica: No Artificial Ingredients
Instructor: Mauricio Quirós Pacheco

These courses are available to undergraduate Architectural Studies and Visual Studies students in all streams who have completed 1.0 credit of ARC courses at the 200-level before Summer 2025 (including fourth-year students graduating this June). MARC, MLA and MUD students are also invited to apply. 

Design Build

Design Build offers a hands-on approach to course material:

Robot Made
Instructors: Nicholas Steven Hoban, Aryan Rezaei Rad (U of T Engineering), AnnaLisa Meyboom (UBC SALA)

social/technological
Instructor: Humbi Song

These courses are available to undergraduate Architectural Studies students in all streams who have completed ARC200H1 and ARC201H1 before Summer 2025 (including fourth-year students graduating this June). MARC, MLA and MUD students are also invited to apply. 

Design Research Internship Program (DRIP)

The Design Research Internship Program places third- and fourth-year Architectural Studies students with leading Toronto design practices for a period of six weeks during the May-June summer period. Check out @drip_daniels.uoft for testimonials and examples of student work.

Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni was the subject of a recent BBC Outlook podcast episode that focused on her upbringing in Fez, Morocco and on her return years later as a recently trained architect on an epic journey across the Sahara Desert.

Chaouni was the first Moroccan to study architecture at Harvard University, where her thesis advisor and mentor, Hashim Sarkis, encouraged her to pursue a project close to home—one inspired by social responsibility to a community versus a starchitect’s vision for a monumental building. 

In the end, Chaouni set out to restore the heavily polluted river that runs through Fez's ancient medina—and found her true calling in the process.

Listen to the episode.

The graduate seminar Land Practices/Prácticas de la tierra (ARC3313) taught by Rafico Ruiz (Canadian Centre for Architecture) seeks to situate a range of ‘land practices’ to document how the land holds memories, marks and modes of orientation across subject positions that include humans, but also exceed our capacity to articulate relationships to land. 

Designers, artists and researchers from Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other communities in Colombia will contribute to the seminar discussions.

Daniels students, faculty and staff are invited to tune in virtually on Mondays from 6-7:30 p.m.

February 10
Josefina Klinger Zúñiga with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente

Colombian environmentalist and community activist Josefina Klinger Zúñiga and Pedro Aparicio-Llorente, architect and founding principal of APLO, will discuss:

• Afro-Colombian land rights and knowledges
• Environmental activism and education in Nuqui, Chocó
• Pacific coast as Afro-Colombian homelands
• Building youth-based environmental knowledges  

Join online.

March 10
Gilma Mosquera with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente

Gilma Mosquera is an architect, teacher and researcher with a wide trajectory on the habitat of the Colombian Pacific and Afro-Colombian ways of creating domestic and urban spaces.   

Topics covered 

• Afro-Colombian-defined architecture on the Pacific Coast
• Community-based methods
• Afro-Colombian spatial knowledges
• Cultural memory and design 

Join online.

March 17
José de la Cruz with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente 

José de la Cruz is a community leader in Bojayá, Colombia. 

Topics covered 

• Bojayá as a site of violence and memory work
• Afro-Colombian commemoration and activism
• Land as a place of healing and repair
• Afro-Colombian land reparations  

Join online.

Images: 1) Mangrove, Jurubira. Courtesy of Pedro Aparicio 2) Payao, engraved drawing. Courtesy of Pedro Aparicio.

Taught by Professor Richard Sommer, Exploring Design Practices (ARC302) introduces students to the practice of architecture and its allied disciplines through a series of presentations by an array of leading practitioners and scholars. 

The emphasis is on a diversity of vocations pursued by individuals with architectural training both inside and outside the field. Presentations and conversations will go beyond the case studies and examples of architecture and design typically presented in lecture-based courses to probe the ideas and influences speakers have drawn on, whom they collaborate with, and the background frameworks to their work.

The following lectures are open to all members of the Daniels community as well as to the public. Each takes place in Main Hall in the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent. Registration is not required.

Winter 2025

January 15, 12:30 p.m.
Nader Tehrani
Architect, founder of NADAAA in Boston/NYC and designer of 1 Spadina

January 22, 12:30 p.m.
Diana Anderson
Architect and physician, Montreal

January 29, 12:30 p.m.
Jay Pooley
Architect, film set designer and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream at the Daniels Faculty, Toronto

February 5, 12:30 p.m.
Tosin Oshinowo
Architect and urbanist, Oshinowo Studio, Lagos, Nigeria

March 5, 12:30 p.m.
Maria Yablonina
Architect, artist, robotics researcher and Assistant Professor at the Daniels Faculty, Toronto

March 12, 12:30 p.m.
Brandon Donnelly
Developer, architect and founder of Globizen Group, Toronto

March 19, 12:30 p.m.
Amy Whitesides
Landscape architect and resilience researcher, STOSS/Harvard GSD, Boston

March 26, 12:30 p.m.
Andrea Mastrandrea
Fornaio, architect and retailing entrepreneur, Forno Cultura, Toronto

The Mass Timber Institute based at the Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce the publication of Historical Tall-Wood Toronto, an open-source digital document authored by Daniels alumnus Ross Beardsley Wood. 

Funded by the Institute, the Canadian Wood Council and Ontario WoodWorks, the publication features contributions by fellow alumnus Daniel Wong and a foreword by Professor Ted Kesik.

Historical Tall-Wood Toronto (the cover of which is pictured below) is an evidentiary database of late 19th and early 20th century vernacular brick and beam buildings that were built using the fire restrictive specifications and construction technology of Heavy Timber Mill-Construction (mill-construction) in Toronto. 

The research in the publication illustrates the urban trajectories of 42 select examples of mill-construction and analyzes patterns in their development to create a morphological index of this set of buildings.

The publication’s index provides a record of architectural, urban development and sociocultural information that defines this distinct urban-vernacular building typology.

To download the document, click here. For more information on the Mass Timber Institute, including other current projects, click here.

Collage in banner and on homepage by Ross Beardsley Wood

The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Brady Peters has been appointed Associate Dean, Academic (ADA). His three-year term began on January 1. 

Dr. Peters, who joined the Faculty in 2013, succeeds Associate Professor Jeannie Kim, who had served as ADA since January 1, 2022.  

Over his time at Daniels, Dr. Peters “has developed a growing understanding of many areas of our Faculty and an increasing appreciation for the complexities of our interdisciplinarity,” says Acting Dean Robert Levit. “His research, moreover, spans both artistic practice and scientific exploration, giving him a sensitivity to the requirements of managing our wide range of programs.”

Prior to joining the Faculty, Dr. Peters was an Associate Partner at Foster + Partners, where he helped lead the office’s Specialist Modelling Group (SMG), its internal research and development consultancy. 

He was also a Director, from 2013 to 2024, of Smartgeometry, an international, not-for-profit organization that promoted innovation and new technology in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. 

Before acquiring his PhD in Architecture from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in 2015, Dr. Peters graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree (1999) and a Master of Architecture degree (2001). 

He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree (1997) from the University of Victoria.

Since arriving at Daniels, Dr. Peters has secured funding from a variety of sources, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Data Sciences Institute (DSI), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Mass Timber Institute.

Among his areas of research are digital fabrication and material investigation, computation and simulation.

Peters portrait by Richard Ashman

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is excited to present its Winter 2025 Public Program. 

This semester’s program highlights the work of leading global thinkers and practitioners who are shaping the future of our built and natural environments. Through a dynamic series of lectures, book talks, discussions and more, they’ll explore such themes as extractivism, scarcity, landscape heritage and mosques as sites of contemporary architectural innovation, examining the role of our disciplines in addressing urgent challenges at home and across the globe.  

From the evolving relationship between the built world and the natural one to the ways in which architecture can foster social and environmental innovation, the Daniels Faculty’s Winter 2025 Public Program aims to provoke dialogue across timelines and geographies. 

All events in the series are free and open to the public. Register in advance and consult the calendar for up-to-date details here. Many events will be live-streamed and available on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube channel. 

Register

January 23, 6:30 p.m.  
The Dominion of Flowers: North American Book Launch 
Featuring Mark Laird (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) in conversation with Therese O’Malley 

January 30, 6:30 p.m. 
The Legacy of Claude Cormier: Film Screening & Panel Discussion 
This event is being held as part of DesignTO Festival 2025 and in partnership with the Toronto Society of Architects, The Cultural Landscape Foundation and the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. 

February 6, 6:30 p.m.  
An Alternative Urbanism: The Culture of Self-organising Systems 
Featuring Tosin Oshinowo (Studio Oshinowo) 

February 7, 6:00 p.m. 
Lewerentz Divine Darkness: Film Screening 
Featuring Sven Blume, Director 

February 11, 6:30 p.m.  
Common Mud and Flooded Pits 
MVS Proseminar Artist Talk
Featuring Cooking Sections 

February 13-14 
Mosque Architecture Now: Public Spaces for Social, Technical & Environmental Innovation 
Organized by Aziza Chaouni (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) and Ruba Kana’an (University of Toronto)
This event has been cancelled. 

March 6, 6:30 p.m.  
‘One clover, and a bee’ 
Featuring Shirley Blumberg (KPMB Architects) 

March 13, 6:30 p.m. 
NEW EVENT It is about time
Featuring Stefano Pujatti (ELASTICOFarm)

Jeffrey Cook Memorial Lecture: A Measure of Architecture
Featuring Amin Taha (GROUPWORK), Pierre Bidaud (The Stonemasonry Company) and Steve Webb (Webb Yates) 
This event has been postponed until Fall 2025.

March 20, 6:30 p.m. 
Placeknowing
Featuring Theodore Jojola (University of New Mexico) 

New alumnus Jose Power, who graduated from the Daniels Faculty with his Master of Architecture (MARC) degree this past spring, is the recipient of Canadian Architect’s 2024 Student Award of Excellence.

Power was awarded the honour for his highly inventive thesis project, a reimagination of the elevator entitled Ascending Worlds.

The project, Canadian Architect notes, nods to the “historical significance and spatial essence” of elevators while redefining them as catalysts for “reshaping communal dynamics within residential towers.”

Power proposed 10 different elevator prototypes in his thesis. Among them, the two-elevator-wide Express Café offers riders “a chance to grab a barista-pulled espresso on their way downstairs,” while the multi-level Venue “includes a lower storey stage and comfortable seating on upper balcony levels for acoustic mini-concerts.”

The one-elevator-sized Matchmaker, meanwhile, “includes a cozy interior with a small table to set the stage for an intimate conversation between two individuals. If the chemistry is right, either participant can slow down the journey—or, conversely, opt to discreetly access the ‘speed up’ or ‘emergency exit’ buttons under the table to bring the blind date to a quick end.”

Other suggested functions include a library, a confessional and a speakeasy.

“The jury was delighted by this project’s witty and irreverent reworking of generic elevator spaces in residential buildings,” member D’Arcy Jones enthused in his summation of Ascending Worlds. 

“Emphasizing the differences between people’s wants and needs, the design proposes new short-term communal uses, such as moving coffee shops, speed-dating tables or speakeasies,” Jones added.

In his own words, Power describes his project, for which Associate Professor Jeannie Kim served as advisor, as a restoration of the elevator and its surrounding core “to their former status as integral components of communal interaction within buildings.”

“In the 21st century, the elevator has faded into obscurity, its potential for strangeness and opportunity overlooked,” Power writes. “Ascending Worlds endeavours to reignite the allure of the elevator, infusing it with newfound vibrancy and significance within our evolving urban landscapes.”

His thesis, he adds, “celebrates the complexity of human behaviour, recognizing the myriad individual routes, purposes, urgencies and characteristics that converge within these vertical spaces. These designs are not dictated by the typical restrictions of vertical transportation, but the quality and duration of the potential interactions that our ascending rooms may evoke.”

Power’s winning project is documented in the December 2024 issue of Canadian Architect. To read more about it, click here.

Banner images: With his award-winning thesis project Ascending Worlds, 2024 MARC graduate Jose Power reimagines elevator spaces as catalysts for new communal dynamics within residential towers. Among the alternate uses he proposes are, from left to right, speakeasies, “express cafés,” confessionals and libraries.