What was the most memorable part of your Master of Architecture degree?
I think the most enjoyable part of my studies was having a community of classmates and professors whom I was always able to discuss and exchange ideas with. 

What inspired your thesis topic?
My thesis topic was inspired by my frustrations with the way our city is developing, and from the desire to participate constructively in the discussion on how we can change the city we live in.  Defining public spaces in an ever more privatized urban realm is a continued interest of mine, and something I would like to continue to work on in my professional career as well.

Tell us more about your thesis!
My project creates an urban promenade from the ground floor to the roof. Conventional private residence amenities ( gym, party room, and lounge) are converted into public amenities such as co-working spaces, basketball courts, a dance studio, a botanical garden and skating rinks. Seasonal programming such as warming huts in the winter, and market stalls in the summer, transform the podium into an active space all year long. The premise of this research is that without changing the tectonic and infrastructural needs of the tower and podium, spaces can be redesigned with a more public ambition.

What advice would you give to a new student?
Work and travel! If you can, do an internship or semester abroad. 

What are your plans after graduation?
I'd like to get some insight into how other countries in the world are approaching similar architectural and urban problems, and work in an architecture office outside of Canada before maybe one day opening my own office.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students was on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

Degree: Honours, Bachelor of Arts, Double major in Architectural Studies and Psychology

What was the most enjoyable or memorable part of your degree?
I know parents won't want to hear it, but definitely the late night antics that happen in the studio during an all-nighter (or my personal favourite, the 3/4 nighter). Going through the intensity of studio work is a lot more fun when you're with your closest friends, listening to music, and bouncing ideas off each other. The most memorable moments don't happen in the classroom, they happen unexpectedly in the studio late-night, at Orientation Week or an AVSSU event, or games night with your arch/vis friends. 

Daniels is a unique experience because it is so community and family based. At no point did I feel in competition with my classmates. We all strive to succeed by helping each other. One of my most enjoyable moments was taking part in the Daniels Mentorship Program as a mentor and then the coordinator of the program a year later. Daniels has a unique community where first years aren't afraid to walk up to a fourth year in the studio and ask for help, and I really enjoyed going out of my way to help first years the way the upper year students did for me when I was a new student.

What advice you would give to a new student?
Architecture may be your start goal, but it may not (and probably won't) be your end goal. What I mean is that architecture is a room with many doors (pun intended), and all those doors can take you in so many directions in the world of design. As my classmates and I graduate, I see more and more of them interested in pursuing other fields, such as video game design, set design, graphic design, furniture and lighting design, urban design, and the list goes on. My advice for prospective students would be to stay open minded, you might just fall in love with something else along the way.

Stay involved, and take advantage of all the events / clubs / organizations that are available to you (most of them offer free food!). The most memorable moments don't happen in the classroom, they happen unexpectedly in the studio late-night, at Orientation Week or an AVSSU event, or games night with your arch/vis friends. 

How has your understanding of architecture changed over the course of your degree?
I think architecture surprised me with its differentiation from the ordinary. Architecture in our everyday life seems so simple and functional, yet there are designers out there making arguments for the 'paper architecture', the challenge of the conventional. Daniels challenges us to not only learn and understand this critical thinking, but to also critique it ourselves.

Architecture surprised me with its collaboration with other disciplines. Not just the classic 'engineer and urban planner' collaboration, but a cross-pollination from the realms of business, technology, psychology, and sociology, and even sports and politics. As someone who has a passion for psych, I was, and am, able to bring my own experiences and interests into architecture using a unique perspective from another discipline. 

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
I am excited to be continuing my studies in architecture at Daniels as a graduate student in the Master of Architecture program. My BA was instrumental in affirming my passion for architecture, helping me gain knowledge and insight into the design, history, and theory of architecture first before pursuing it at the rigorous and fast-paced level of masters.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students was on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

On Saturday, June 9, Daniels Faculty lecturer James Macgillivray will be introducing a screening of L'Eclisse, as part of TIFF's film series on Modernist Master: Michelangelo Antonioni. 

MacGillivray is a principal and founder of Lee and Macillivray Architecture Studio (LAMAS), and has published widely on film, architecture, and projection. As described in the TIFF listing for the event, he will discuss "how Antonioni frams space, landscape, and Rome's postward architecture in L'Eclisse to construct an environment that is as important as the people within it."

Macgillivray is also a filmmaker. He has written on film, architecture and projection for Scapegoat, ACSA Journal, The Journal of Modern Craft, the Canadian Journal of Film Studies and Tarkovsky, a collection of writings on the work of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. In conjunction with his work at LAMAS he is currently writing a book that delineates the notion of space in the arts of architecture and film. Before founding LAMAS Macgillivray worked as a designer at Steven Holl Architects and as a project manager at Peter Gluck and Partners Architects where his project won the 2013 AIA Housing Award.

The Modernist Master: Michelangelo Antonioni series was co-organized by Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero, Luce Cinecittà. For more information, visit TIFF's website.

Degree: Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies

What was the most enjoyable or memorable part of your degree?
The most enjoyable part of my undergraduate degree was being able to explore the interdisciplinary intersection between architecture and visual studies and being able to use my education to question the notions of culture and identity in relation to the themes of colonialism, war, and political turmoil.

What advice you would give to a prospective student?
Make sure to take advantage of all the co-curriculars at UofT. Take as many courses outside of your major as you can. Your interests outside your major add a lot of depth in your art and architecture projects. 

How has your understanding of architecture changed over the course of your degree?
Before I started my degree I felt that architectural education was just about making beautiful drawings and endless critiques on form and structure. Once I was here I realized through the instruction of professors like Zeynep Celik, Hans Ibelings, and Jeannie Kim that there’s always a social impact of architecture that manifests itself in the form of occupation, displacement and gentrification which is equally important when we talk about the built environment.

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
I would like to stay in the interdisciplinary world of arts and architecture as I continue to engage with themes that address the politics of design and how it engages with the society. Being a part of SHIFT magazine has made me realize that the world of publishing is a place where I find a lot of comfort so I’m planning to continue down this path until I’m ready to pursue a master's degree.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

What was the most enjoyable/memorable part of your Master of Architecture degree?
I remember that when I received my admission — I was so happy. It was a really memorable moment for me. I hope that the same emotional situation happens to me in the future! I thought it was a great achievement at that time because I was being selected among the many talented students in Canada and worldwide. 

What inspired your thesis topic?
The feminism movement in Islamic countries such as Morocco inspired me to work on the issue of space dichotomies in women's workspaces in remote areas of the MENA region. I traveled to southern Morocco and Central Iran to find a specific location for my thesis project and also to learn more about the women's workspaces in the rural areas in the MENA region. 
In short, my thesis project tackles issues of politics, the experience economy, and women's empowerment within the spatial arrangement of handicraft cooperatives in rural areas, in the face of the fast-growing tourist industry in the Guelmim region (located in southern Morocco). 

What is a piece of advice you would say to a prospective student?
Many students do not believe in themselves because they have no idea how talented they are!  I recommend students to rely on and believe in their skills and beliefs. In my opinion, the future of every country in the world is constructed by university students.  Being at school is the proper time to reconstruct, construct, and revise old and new ideas and strategies for the future. 

What are your plans after graduation?
My long-term plan after graduation is to establish my own business to help people to live in better conditions by providing them with better design solutions. I hope this dream comes true soon!  
 

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

Hotel Giudecca 2028, a design project by Daniels Postdoctoral Fellow Roberto Damiani in collaboration with Emma Dunn (MArch 2015), Mina Hanna (MArch 2015), and Zoé Renaud (MArch 2015), will be featured in the 2018 Unfolding Pavilion: Giudecca Social Housing / Little Italy, curated by Davide Tommaso Ferrando, Daniel Tudor Munteanu, and Sara Favargiotti on the Giudecca island in Venice.

Sited between the social housing complex designed by the Italian architect Gino Valle and the southern shore of the island, Hotel Giudecca 2028 is a design proposal for an open-framework hotel to provide the adjacent social housing complex with economic support and new amenities, and to promote more conscious modes of tourism.

The 2018 Unfolding Pavilion: Giudecca Social Housing / Little Italy opened on May 25th in Venice, with the opening of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale.

For more details on the 2018 Unfolding Pavilion http://unfoldingpavilion.com

Associate Professor Brian Boigon participated in the panel discussion "Non-ordinary reality: Beyond the Virtual" at the 2018 Venice Biennale on May 26. Organized by the Institute of Architecutre at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the panel included Kutan Syata, Agnieszka Kurant, Sanford Kwinter, Andrew Witt, and Barbara Imhof.

A writer and theorist, Boigon's research spans the last three decades in which analogue and digital modalities have confronted one another. From the multimedia days of the early 90s, when he developed a proto-avatar environment called  “The Cartoon Regulators,” to his current project, a series of speculative environments entitled “The Interopera,” Boigon's work marries the problems of motion design in cartoon animation and elsewhere with speculative notions derived from theoretical biology, quantum physics, and literary universes such as those of Geoffrey Chaucer, Timothy Leary, science fiction, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Boigon is author of Speed Reading Tokyo (1990), Culture Lab (1992), We Have Impact (2014) and most recently The Interopera Reader (2017).

Image, top: 
Ember's Chrome Throat  2017
Corten steel, chrome, MDF plinth
edition of 2
22 x 29.5 x 5 inches 

What was the most enjoyable part of your Master of Architecture degree?
The most enjoyable part of my degree was working on my thesis at my own pace while making time to research, read and learn so much within my electives.

What inspired your thesis topic?
After travelling to an array of diverse cities around the world to explore their varying cultures and architectures, I was overcome by the importance of removing oneself from the noise of the metropolis and all of the benefits that come with a solitary experience. I wanted to foster the architecture of convents, monasteries, and other meditative spaces I had experienced into the city that I live in. Naturally, I was swayed to Toronto Island where the Artscape Gibraltar Point commune is located. The artists residency was not only an incredibly relevant program, but also in need of more space, resources and amenities. The site also happened to be seriously affected by erosion and flooding, so the design evolved into a solitary retreat that also incorporated the crucial coastal solution of a groyne field to build back up the land over time. 

Tell us more about your project!
My thesis explores architecture's ability to adapt over time. Located on Toronto Island, Artscape Gibraltar Point is an international, live-in artists residency that occupies a former schoolhouse. The design proposes an environmental solution to coastal erosion in the form of a groyne field, while incorporating the architecture of the artist's commune. The program is very carefully separated into the solitary and the communal and the architecture serves to frame its surroundings. As the groynes build up the land over time, the dynamics of the spaces between will evolve. As the program continues to expand, the axis are designed to accommodate fragmented additions as necessary.  

What is one piece of advice you would say to a new student?
Stressing will never help you, but sleep will.

What are your plans after graduation?
I took a two month trip around South America and am currently working at Diamond Schmitt Architects.

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

Unceded: Voices of the Land — Canada's exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale — is the country's first Indigenous-led entry in architecture's most prestigious international festival. Presented by acclaimed architect Douglas Cardinal, with co-curators Gerald McMaster and David Fortin, the exhibition presents the work of 18 Indigenous architects from across Turtle Island (Canada and the United States).

In addition to highlighting and celebrating the contributions of Indigenous designers in the field, the exhibition underlines the important role of Indigenous architects in shaping the country's future.

“I firmly believe that the Indigenous worldview, which has always sought this balance between nature, culture and technology, is the path that humanity must rediscover and adopt for our future," said Cardinal in the Canada Council for the Arts' media release. "The teachings of the Elders are not the teachings of the past. They are the teachings of the future.”

As Murray Whyte reports in the Toronto Star, "the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada lists only 12 members who identify as Indigenous," but that could change, writes fellow Star columnist Shawn Micallef, “if educators and funding entities worked to attract youth to the profession using all the resources available and let them know they won’t be alone.”

Perhaps with the future in mind, Unceded curators enlisted James Bird, who will be starting his Master of Architecture degree at the Daniels Faculty this fall, to help coordinate a group of Indigenous architecture students from across Canada, including Daniels Student Katari Lucier-Laboucan. The university students will act as cultural ambassadors, offering tours, providing translations, and answering visitor questions at the exhibition over the course of its run.

A knowledge keeper from the Nehiyawak nation and Dene Nation, Bird, who recently completed his Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies and Renaissance Studies at U of T, decided to pursue his undergraduate degree followed by a master’s in architecture after nearly 30 years as a carpenter, journeyman, and cabinet maker. He is also a member of the RAIC’s Indigenous task force, launched in June 2016 to seek “ways to foster and promote Indigenous design in Canada.”

For more information on the Canadian exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, visit www.unceded.ca, and read Elizabeth Dowdeswell’s article “Celebrating Indigenous people through their architectural vision,” in the Toronto Star.

Degree: Honours, Bachelor of Arts, major in Architectural Studies, minor in Italian Studies

What was the most enjoyable part of your degree?
I think studio courses are the most enjoyable part of an architectural degree. Studio culture is about learning how to incorporate creative thinking and problem solving into the design process, but it is also about learning how to communicate, collaborate, and negotiate with different people. Leaning into the discomfort of these challenges with other students by working together and supporting each other has led to some of the most memorable and meaningful moments of my degree.

What advice would you give to a new student?
I would encourage students to make a mess. Design schools are places where people of similar interests come together to exchange ideas; they are spaces of testing and making, of using experience and gaining experience. To make the most of your degree, give yourself the freedom to experiment, to play around, to make a mess, to fail, to wander and to grow.

Farah spoke at the official opening of the Daniels Building on November 17, 2017, providing remarks on behalf of the student community.

How has your understanding of architecture changed over the course of your degree?
Architecture as a discipline turned out to be a lot more dynamic than I imagined it to be, and I am always fascinated at the extent to which architectural thinking lends itself to other fields of knowledge. Over the course of my degree, I started understanding architectural design as a response to the context-specific conditions of different times and spaces. Consequently, I found architectural history to be the most engaging way to tell stories about and make connections between these different times and spaces, and the societies that occupied them.

What are your plans after graduation? How has this degree prepared you for the future?
What I appreciate the most about my undergraduate degree is that it helped foster in me a sense of curiosity and a desire to keep learning. Developing techniques and skill sets is certainly an important component of the undergraduate degree at the Daniels Faculty, but what I found to be most valuable is the way that my program encouraged me to think critically about and engage with architectural discourse. Carrying that perspective forward, I plan to continue learning at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the graduate level in September.  

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Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!