Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni is this year’s recipient of the World Monuments Fund (WMF) Watch Award, which the international preservation organization is bestowing on her for “her innovative work in heritage preservation through the implementation of sustainable technologies” in arid climates and elsewhere.

“Chaouni’s leadership and inventive solutions,” says the body, “have benefited multiple communities and sites across the globe, including her recent collaboration with Lafarge-Holcim Morocco on post-earthquake reconstruction efforts in [the Moroccan province of] Haouz.” 

It adds: “Her collaborations with WMF at Ontario Place in Canada, Old Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone and Maison du Peuple in Burkina Faso exemplify her ability to integrate cultural preservation with sustainable design.”

In addition to teaching at the Daniels Faculty, Chaouni (pictured below) is the founding principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects, a multidisciplinary design practice based in Toronto and Fez, Morocco. Among its primary mandates are “researching and making resilient and environmentally sensitive designs, buildings, neighbourhoods and cities.” 

Chaouni’s work has been recognized with numerous international awards, including top honours from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, which extolled projects in both its Global and Regional Africa and Middle East categories.

“Aziza Chaouni has been instrumental in merging architectural preservation with environmental sustainability, particularly in regions that receive low rainfall [and] where such efforts are crucial,” says Bénédicte de Montlaur, President and CEO of the WMF. “Her partnerships with World Monuments Fund in North America and Africa demonstrate her dedication and her resourceful approach.”

Since 1965, the WMF has raised $300 million to support more than 700 cultural-heritage sites in 112 countries. Through the World Monuments Watch—a biennial, nomination-based program—the organization uses cultural-heritage conservation to empower communities and improve human well-being. 

Chaouni will receive the 2024 Watch Award at the WMF’s annual Summer Soirée, which will take place in New York City, the organization’s home base, on Wednesday, June 5.

For further information on the body’s work, visit wmf.org. For more details on the 2024 Watch Award, click here.

Banner images: 1. Maison du Peuple, Burkina Faso. 2. Ontario Place, Toronto. 3. Old Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone.

Ever wondered what's inside 1 Spadina Crescent? Curious about the history of the revitalized neo-Gothic building at its centre? Whether you have always wanted to wander the halls or simply haven’t visited in a while, there is something for everyone to discover during Doors Open Toronto 2024.

More than 150 buildings and sites are on the roster of this year’s instalment of the popular annual event, which sees local landmarks throw their doors open to the public. The Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent will be open for self-guided tours on Sunday, May 26 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Originally built as a prospect to the lake, the historic structure was the first site of Knox College in 1875, a military hospital during the First World War and the place where Connaught Laboratories manufactured insulin in the 1940s. Today it’s home to the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, which reimagined the complex for the 21st Century.

A striking contemporary addition, designed by NADAAA and completed in 2018, combines the Knox College structure with cutting-edge facilities, from versatile new studios to a digital fabrication lab. In addition to taking in the architectural splendours and storied history of the revitalized 1 Spadina hub, visitors will have plenty of current work to take in as well.

Here’s a glimpse at what will be on view:

End of Year Show 2023/2024 

A Daniels Faculty tradition encompassing a wide range of projects, this exhibition showcases student work from across the Faculty’s degree programs in Architecture, Forestry, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Visual Studies. Student work can be seen on all three floors of the Daniels Building. 

Outer Circle Road by Seth Fluker 

Outer Circle Road by Seth Fluker is a collection of Toronto photographs depicting a city’s energy in constant flux. On view in the first-floor Larry Wayne Richards Gallery and presented in partnership with CONTACT Photography Festival, the series reflects the dynamism of our urban context, a landscape of abundance, waste and regeneration.  

Robotics in Architecture and Design  

Throughout the building you will encounter robotic arms as well as a variety of installations and objects created with their help. Many of these were produced over the past week as a part of workshops run during ROB|ARCH 2024, an international conference centred on robotics in architecture and design. Outside, don’t miss Geosphere, a larger, immersive display by the faculty’s John Nguyen, Nicholas Hoban, Paul Kozak and Rahul Sehijpaul, that is installed at the south entrance.

Building Black Success through Design Showcase 

Head to room DA240 on the second floor for a celebration of the outstanding design achievements by the young designers who recently completed the Building Black Success Through Design (BBSD) program. BBSD is a free mentorship program at the Daniels Faculty for Black high-school students that inspires them to pursue excellence and innovation within design industries and academia, enhancing diversity in the fields. 

Eberhard Zeidler Library 

The library is open to the public, offering students, researchers, urban planners, design professionals, journalists and design aficionados access to art, architecture, landscape architecture and urban design collections unrivalled in Toronto.  

Admission to the Daniels Building and to all Doors Open venues is free. A dedicated brochure with map of the Daniels Building will be available for visitors.

Visit the Doors Open Toronto website for a full list of participating sites.

In March, the exhibition “How to Steal a Country” opened in the Daniels Faculty’s Larry Wayne Richards Gallery, transforming the display space at 1 Spadina Crescent into scenes from the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Using scale- and life-size dioramas, vignettes and tableaus, the immersive exhibition reflects some of the research conducted by 2022-2024 Emerging Architect Fellow Lukas Pauer into the role that architecture can play in asserting or suppressing national identity and sovereignty. 

As both the exhibition and his fellowship wind down, Pauer took the time to answer a few questions about the show and the work behind it. “How to Steal a Country” closes on May 14.

“How to Steal a Country,” your research-based exhibition on the role of architecture in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is part of the research and teaching you have undertaken as an Emerging Architect Fellow. Can you elaborate on how the exhibition reflects this work?

My work has been concerned with the histories of space and power in the built environment and their entanglements with the present. On arrival here at Daniels and building upon the findings of my doctoral dissertation, I started developing a series of teaching aids for my students in various formats to allow them to better understand imperial-colonial violence as a pervasive and ongoing reality around the world that is not a historic event but that continues to be manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices and built objects of the everyday.

For example, in a series of input lectures, I shared my theoretical framework and research on many case studies from different sites around the world in which countries presently instrumentalize buildings and infrastructure to project power, to claim authority over people and land. These cases were envisioned as exemplary vehicles for students to acquire and test unconventional skills that most students might not have acquired yet during their studies. In a series of skills workshops, I taught a range of techniques I have employed in my practice and research for students. Consequently, having spent a large part of my fellowship translating my practice and research into original teaching aids in the context of the courses I taught, it felt only natural to also conceive my fellowship exhibition as a teaching aid.

In terms of its medium/format, the aim behind the work remains a didactic-pedagogical one—how do we develop a vocabulary that allows us to visually, materially and spatially describe how authority over people and land is manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices of the everyday?

The title of your exhibition is a provocative one. Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a prototypical case of using built objects to project power and subvert sovereignty or an atypical one?

Many visitors of the exhibition would speak to me about the parallels they saw in the exhibition with what is part of the imperial-colonial history and ongoing present of what is presently known as Canada. For example, one section of the exhibition discusses the forced deportation and naturalization of Ukrainian children. By supposedly “evacuating” Ukrainian children into the supposed “care” of “foster parents” in Russia under the guise of supposed “reeducation” and “welfare services,” the Russian government has sought to make it difficult to preserve their independent post-Soviet Ukrainian identity. Not unlike what happened to many Indigenous local children in what is presently known as Canada, this has led to the assimilation of children, by invalidating their originally identity.

So in terms of its topic, the exhibition applies the aforementioned theoretical framework and analytical techniques for the role of architecture in sovereignty disputes to discuss a very specific context. However, part of the didactic-pedogagical intent of the exhibition is for the visitor to be able to make parallels to other contexts. This is not by chance. Over the past 10 years, I have critically studied how imperial-colonial expansion has been performed architecturally throughout history in ancient, medieval, modern and recent times, as well as still today.

This has led to a comparative theoretical framework and repository of case studies from different sites around the world in which countries presently instrumentalize buildings and infrastructure to project power. This includes but is not limited to the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is not necessarily an atypical case. So there will be subsequent exhibitions and associated publications applying the framework and techniques to other sovereignty disputes. Stay tuned.

What lessons might be learned from your research by either governments or their people about recognizing subversion and protecting sovereignty?

Although recent scholarship alludes to a relationship between space and power as well as the various ways in which power has configured space, many people seeking to participate in the political life of their community still lack the vocabulary to describe how authority over people and land is manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices of the everyday.

We have come up with diplomatic doctrines to respond to soft power. We have military doctrines to deal with hard power. However, policy-makers lack appropriate tools and models that aid the recognition of more hybrid kinds of non-verbal visual, material and spatial interventions. These come above the line of what is commonly understood as diplomacy but below the line of warfare. Within this grey zone, recent practices have instrumentalized many different types of built objects. For example, in the case of the current exhibition on display, Russia has instrumentalized humanitarian aid operations, bank branches and Internet and telephone facilities, as well as child boarding and care facilities to project power.

Such objects capitalize on their ambiguity. They seem to be neither diplomatic nor military in function, which renders their instrumentalization plausibly deniable. A lack of understanding how any object may be instrumentalized for political purposes limits people’s ability and responsibility to contribute to political decisions about the built environment.

One of your conclusions is that “sovereignty is a performative concept dependent on an audience.” Can you elaborate on this idea?

Sovereignty has been a key term for my work. If we untangle the very definition of this concept, which refers to “authority over people and land” and then untangle the concept of authority itself, which refers to “recognized power,” or a power that is being seen, that is being recognized by individuals or a community as being legitimate.

So if power over people and land depends on being seen, on being recognized in order to become legitimate, by definition sovereignty depends on an audience. As such, the very definition of sovereignty is a theatrical, a performative concept. It depends on being seen by a domestic or foreign audience. The hinge that can anchor a claim to authority over people and land to the ground are sovereignty markers, the “facts on the ground.” You can plant a flag or construct a building as a marker of sovereignty, to make a claim in a very specific place, but if you do not document this flag or building in various media such as taking a photo or making a drawing of it, it may as well have never happened.

In the case of the current exhibition on display, these would be the buildings and infrastructure that Russia has instrumentalized to legitimize its claims to sovereignty—the humanitarian aid operations, bank branches and Internet and telephone facilities, as well as child boarding and care facilities. These four case types are each displayed in a niche of the gallery. Not by chance have they been displayed as theatrical prop-like objects to create an immersive experience. These techniques from theatrical set model-making in the design of the exhibition are a nod to the theatricality of claims to sovereignty.

All images, including Lukas Pauer at the opening of “How to Steal a Country” in March 2024, by Harry Choi

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced that the Living Room Collective will represent Canada at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 23, 2025. 

Selected by a Council-designated selection committee, from among the group of five shortlisted candidates, the Living Room Collective will curate the next architecture exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. 

The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, a lecturer and the Director of Applied Technologies at the Daniels Faculty, Vincent Hui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, and Clayton Lee, a curator, producer and performance artist.  

Together this group of architects, scientists, artists, and educators will work at the intersection of architecture, biology, and digital fabrication to situate architecture as an integral and supportive component of our ecosystem.  

“It is an incredible honor to have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale,” the Living Room Collective said in a statement. “In demonstrating the possibilities of a collaborative relationship with nature, we look forward to leveraging this global platform alongside national and international partners to engage in a critical dialogue around alternative design practices that can sit alongside contemporary carbon neutral building strategies.”  

Read the full announcement from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

About Living Room Collective   

Andrea Shin Ling is an architect and bio-designer who works at the intersection of design, digital fabrication and biology. Her work focuses on how the critical application of biologically and computationally mediated design processes can move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones. She is the 2020 S+T+ARTS Grand Prize winner for her work as Ginkgo Bioworks’ creative resident designing the decay of artifacts in order to access material circularity. Shin Ling is a founder of designGUILD, a Toronto-based art collective, and was a researcher in the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab, where she worked on Aguahoja I, a 3D-printed bio-material pavilion. She is currently a doctoral fellow at the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at the Institute of Technology and Architecture, ETH Zurich.

Nicholas Hoban is a computational designer, fabricator and educator. He works at the intersection of computational design, robotics, construction and simulation in pedagogy, research and practice. Hoban is the Director, Applied Technologies, at the Daniels Faculty and a lecturer within the Daniels technology specialist program, leading various research and teaching labs while developing curriculum for studios and seminars on advanced fabrication and robotics within architecture. His research focuses on the application of robotics within fabrication and construction, and how we can solve critical problems in geometry through integrated processes. Hoban was a lead fabricator and computational designer for two previous Venice Biennales: for the 2014 Canadian Pavilion for Lateral Office’s Arctic Adaptations and for the 2016 Swiss Pavilion for Christian Kerez’s Incidental Space.  

Vincent Hui is a distinguished professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, imparting knowledge across diverse domains from design studios to digital tools. His pedagogical excellence has earned him multiple teaching accolades, as he delves into the intersections of architecture, fabrication and allied disciplines. With over 25 years of experience, his extensive publication portfolio focuses on design pedagogy, simulation, prototyping and technological convergence, complemented by a rich body of creative work showcased globally. Collaborating with esteemed organizations such as the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) and the Canadian Architecture Students’ Association (CASA), Hui endeavors to empower the next generation of designers, navigating emergent shifts in praxis. Committed to bridging academia and industry, he advocates for experiential learning initiatives and outreach endeavors for aspiring designers. His remarkable contributions have culminated in his induction into the esteemed RAIC College of Fellows.  

Clayton Lee is a curator, producer and performance artist. He is currently the Director (Artistic) of the Fierce Festival in Birmingham, England. He was previously the Director of the Rhubarb Festival, Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Lee has also worked as Creative Producer on Jess Dobkin’s projects, including For What It’s Worth, her commission at the Wellcome Collection in London, England; as Curatorial Associate at the Luminato Festival; and as Managing Producer of CanadaHub at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Lee’s performance projects have been presented in venues across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. He was one of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2023 Artists-in-Residence.  

Banner image from left to right: Andrea Shin Ling. Photo: Andrei Jipa; Nicholas Hoban. Photo: Nazanin Kazemi; Clayton Lee. Photo: Sam Frank Wood; Vincent Hui. Photo: Florencio Tameta.

The annual Thesis Booklets showcasing the final thesis projects of both graduate and undergraduate students at the Daniels Faculty are available for viewing.

The Graduate Booklet features the work of Master of Architecture (MARC), Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA), Master of Urban Design (MUD) and Master of Visual Studies (MVS) students at the Faculty, while the Undergraduate Booklet showcases the final project work of students in the Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies (BAAS) and Bachelor of Arts in Visual Studies (BAVS) programs.

Thesis booklets are a Daniels Faculty tradition, printed for and distributed to thesis students, as well as thesis advisors, external reviewers and guests.

The Booklets contain images and brief statements by students who are presenting final projects for the semester listed at the culmination of their studies.

Flip through the latest booklets below or download PDFs by clicking here: graduate, undergraduate.

GRADUATE FLIPBOOK

UNDERGRADUATE FLIPBOOK

And flip through a special digital edition of the Thesis Booklet featuring a diverse array of Post-Professional Master of Architecture (MARC) projects. The post-professional MARC is an advanced design and research program for individuals already holding a professional degree in architecture.  

POST-PROFESSIONAL FLIPBOOK

The lineup for the University of Toronto’s 2024 Alumni Reunion has been revealed—and it includes an intrigiung lecture at the Daniels Faculty.

On Friday, May 31, the Faculty will host “Constructing Health: How the Built Environment Enhances Your Mind’s Health,” a lecture and book talk by alumnus Tye Farrow, whose new volume of the same name will be published next month by University of Toronto Press.

A globally recognized expert in how the intentional shaping of our environment can support our physical and neurological well-being, Farrow acquired his Bachelor of Architecture degree at U of T in 1987 and was the first Canadian architect to earn a Master of Neuroscience Applied to Architecture (University of Venice IUAV), and has a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University.

He is a currently a senior partner at Toronto-based Farrow Partners Inc., a full-service architecture and master planning firm known internationally for “creating architecture that lifts the human spirit.”

Among the firm’s projects is the SZMC Helmsley Cancer Center in Jerusalem, Israel’s flagship facility for cancer treatment. Realized in partnership with Rubinstein Ofer, the 7,500-square-metre complex (pictured above and on the cover of Farrow’s new book) provides physical, psychological, social and spiritual care services in addition to patient assessment and treatment.

Farrow’s lecture, which will explore how recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and neuroscience can help form “health-giving person-to-place relationships that are similar to healthy and meaningful person-to-person relationships,” will take place from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent.

To register for this free event, click here.

Copies of Farrow’s book will be available for purchase at the University of Toronto Bookstore (at 214 College Street on the St. George Campus) as well as at the lecture, where the author will be available for signings.

For the full roster of 2024 Alumni Reunion events, click here.

Wednesday, April 10 – Friday, April 26
Daniels Building
1 Spadina Crescent

Whether you're a future student, an alum, or a member of the public with an interest in architecture, landscape architecture or urban design—you're invited to join the Daniels Faculty for Winter 2024 Reviews. Throughout April, students across our graduate and undergraduate programs will present final projects to their instructors and guest critics from academia and the professional community.

All reviews will take place in the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (unless otherwise stated). Follow @UofTDaniels on social media and join the conversation using the hashtags #DanielsReviews and #DanielsReviews24.

Please note that times, dates and locations are subject to change.

Wednesday, April 10 | Undergraduate

Design Studio I (JAV101H1)
Coordinator: Jay Pooley
Instructors: Kara Verbeek, Mariano Martellacci, Phat Le, Sifei Mo, Katy Chey, Scott Sorli, Reza Nik, Harry Wei, Brian Boigon, Danielle Whitley, Jamie Lipson, Jeffrey Garcia
Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330, 340, Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Thursday, April 11 | Undergraduate

9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET
Design Studio II (ARC201H1)
Coordinator: Fiona Lim Tung 
Instructors: Dan Briker, Shane Williamson, Carol Moukheiber, Kara Verbeek, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Behnaz Assadi, David Verbeek, Maria Denegri, Francesco Martire
Rooms: 209, 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, 340, Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Friday, April 12 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio 2 (LAN1012Y)
Instructors: Liat Margolis, Terence Radford
Rooms: 230, 330

Urban Design Studio Options (URD1012Y)
Instructors: Samantha Eby, Zahra Ebrahim
Room: Main Hall B

9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET
Drawing and Representation I (ARC200H1)
Coordinator: Roberto Damiani
Instructors: Jon Cummings, Dana Salama
Rooms: 215, 240

Monday, April 15 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio 2 (ARC1012Y)
Coordinator: Behnaz Assadi
Instructors: Chloe Town, Anne-Marie Armstrong, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Brian Boigon, Aleris Rodgers, Julia DiCastri
Rooms: 230, 330, Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Design + Engineering I (ARC112H1)
Coordinator: Jay Pooley
Instructors: Jennifer Davis, Clinton Langevin
Room: 200

Tuesday, April 16 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio 4 (ARC2014Y)
Coordinator: Samuel Dufaux
Instructors: Brigitte Shim, Steven Fong, Chris Cornecelli, James Macgillivray, Maria Denegri, Francesco Martire
Rooms: 230, 330, Main Hall A, Main Hall B

Landscape Architecture Studio IV (ARC364Y1)
Instructor: Peter North
Room: 315, 340

Wednesday, April 17 | Graduate

Design Studio 4 (ARC2014Y)
Coordintor: Samuel Dufaux
Instructors: Brigitte Shim, Steven Fong, Chris Cornecelli, James Macgillivray, Maria Denegri, Francesco Martire
Rooms: 230, Main Hall A, Main Hall B

Design Studio 4 (LAN2014Y)
Instructors: Todd Douglas, Reinaldo Jordan
Room: 330

Thursday, April 18 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio Thesis (LAN3017Y)
Coordinator: Elise Shelley
Instructors: Behnaz Assadi, Peter North, Alissa North, Liat Margolis, Francesco Martire, Matthew Perotto
Rooms: 209, 230, 242, 330

Architecture Studio IV (ARC362Y1)
Coordinator: Jon Cummings
Instructors: Chloe Town, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco
Rooms: Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Friday, April 19 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio Thesis (LAN3017Y)
Coordinator: Elise Shelley
Instructors: Behnaz Assadi, Peter North, Alissa North, Liat Margolis, Francesco Martire, Matthew Perotto
Rooms: 209, 242, 330

Urban Design Studio Thesis (URD2015Y)
Coordinator: Mason White 
Room: 230

Technology Studio IV (ARC381Y1)
Instructors: Paul Howard Harrison (Coordinator), Suzan Ibrahim
Rooms: Main Hall A, Main Hall B

Monday, April 22 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis) (ARC457Y1)
Instructor: Petros Babasikas
Room: Main Hall B

Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis) (ARC462Y1)
Instructor: Laura Miller
Room: 230

Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis) (ARC487Y1)
Instructor: Nicholas Hoban
Room: 330

Tuesday, April 23 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis) (ARC457Y1) 
Instructor: Petros Babasikas
Room: Main Hall B

Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis) (ARC462Y1)
Instructor: Laura Miller
Room: 230

Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis) (ARC487Y1)
Instructor: Nicholas Hoban
Room: 330

Wednesday, April 24 | Graduate

9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET
Post-Professional Thesis 2 (ALA4022Y)
Coordinator: Mason White
Room: 242

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2 (ARC3021Y)
Instructors: Jeannie Kim, Stephen Verderber, Lukas Pauer, Carol Moukheiber
Rooms: 209, 230, 315, 330, Main Hall B

Thursday, April 25 | Graduate

9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET
Thesis 2 (ALA4022Y)
Coordinator: Mason White 
Room: 242

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2 (ARC3021Y)
Instructors: Petros Babasikas, John Shnier, Miles Gertler, Brady Peters
Rooms: 200, 209, 230, 240, 330, Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Friday, April 26 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2 (ARC3021Y)
Instructors: Petros Babasikas, John Shnier, Shane Williamson, Zachary Mollica, Laura Miller
Rooms: 209, 230, 240, 241, 242, 330, Main Hall A, Main Hall B, Main Hall C

Associate Professor Claire Zimmerman, Director of the Faculty’s PhD in Architecture, Landscape, and Design, has been named Associate Editor of the prestigious Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, the main peer-reviewed journal in the U.S. in the field of architectural history.

Announced last month, Zimmerman’s term as JSAH Associate Editor will begin on June 1, to be followed by a two-year term (January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027) as the JSAH’s Editor.

As Associate Editor, Zimmerman will assist current editor Alice Y. Tseng in reviewing manuscripts, securing blind peer reviews, communicating decisions to authors, soliciting content and preparing materials for four issues of the journal per year.

Her duties will also include supervising the review editors and the JSAH Managing Editor, and working with staff at the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and at University of California Press to ensure timely publication of the journal.

Zimmerman’s academic work focuses on “protocols of modernization and modernity” in architecture and the built environment. Her current teaching includes courses on multi-species consciousness in the built environment and studies of the intersections of class, race and ethnicity in the industrialization of the world.

In 2014, she authored Photographic Architecture in the Twentieth Century (University of Minnesota Press). Her latest book, Albert Kahn Inc.: Architecture, Labor, and Industry, is forthcoming from MIT Press this year.

In addition, Zimmerman has contributed to numerous books and publications, co-editing, with Jean-Louis Cohen and Christina Crawford, 2023’s Detroit Moscow Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945 (MIT Press), as well as Architecture against Democracy: Histories of the Nationalist International, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press in 2024, with Reinhold Martin.

Zimmerman has also contributed peer-reviewed articles to Architectural Histories, Footprint, Architectural Theory Review, Art History, the Journal of Architecture and the JSAH. 

She has been a member of the SAH since 1998 and served on the SAH Board from 2016 to 2019.

Three members of the Daniels Faculty—Nicholas Hoban, Reza Nik and Phat Le—are among those on the shortlist of candidates vying to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

Hoban (pictured below) is part of the Living Room Collective in the running to show in Venice. A computational designer specializing in the fields of digital fabrication, robotics and computational workflows, he is currently a lecturer at the Faculty and Director of Technology Services.

Led by biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling of ETH Zurich, the Living Room Collective is a group of architects, scientists, artists and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication technologies. 

The collective seeks to move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones by inventing design methods and processes that centre on natural systems.

The Living Room Collective’s proposed Venice project is an ambitious, large-scale living pavilion that utilizes materials embedded with biologically active, living cells in an architectural context. 

Nik and Le, meanwhile, are part of the Mixtape Collective aiming to show in Venice. Nik (pictured below) is an Assistant Professor in the Teaching Stream at the Faculty, while Le is a sessional lecturer at Daniels and alumnus of the school.

Composed of architects, urban planners, artists and cultural curators who are “passionate about exploring the intricacies of art, culture and the built environment,” the Mixtape Collective is “a diverse crew of cultural instigators who are leading the global discourse in architecture and urbanism as it intersects with and conveys the complexities of multidisciplined artistic expression.

Seeking to answer the question of how “radical acts of listening and reciprocity [can] (re)imagine our sense of belonging,” the collective’s proposed Venice project “challenges the politics and policies of sound shaping our cities while learning from the sonic landscapes of Indigenous and marginalized communities as they offer alternative pathways to designing shared spaces of belonging, resistance and joy.”

In addition to teaching at the Faculty, Nik is the founding director of the experimental art and architecture studio SHEEEP. Le (pictured below) is also an architectural designer for the Infrastructure Institute at U of T’s School of Cities.

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition will be held in Venice from May 24 to November 23 in 2025. In December, it was announced that Italian architect Carlo Ratti would serve as Curator of the 2025 Biennale.

For a full list of the five shortlisted Canadian teams, visit the Canada Council for the Arts website by clicking here. The chosen team and proposal will be announced in May of this year.

Photo of Nicholas Hoban by Nick Iwanyshyn/U of T News. Photo of Reza Nik by Mohammad Bayati. The homepage and banner image depict the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023.

The 2024 edition of Lumière: The Art of Light has opened at Ontario Place and once again the Daniels Faculty is represented with a dynamic installation.

A free outdoor light-based art exhibition, Lumière welcomes visitors to Toronto’s Trillium Park to experience bold and imaginative public art created by Ontario artists from all artistic streams. Its theme this time around is CONNECTIONS, a catalyst for exploring “the various ways in which light can create connections between people, the environment and different aspects of our lives.”

Geosphere, the Daniels Faculty installation, is a large-scale timber reciprocal frame pavilion designed, fabricated and installed by a team of students and faculty led by John Nguyen, Nicholas Hoban, Rahul Sehijpaul and Paul Kozak.

One of 17 installations on display in the park, the pavilion is designed to create an immersive experience, allowing visitors to see and appreciate the structural capabilities of a reciprocal frame.

“Through computational geometry and robotic fabrication,” the Geosphere team explains, “individuals can explore this robust unique geometric system…rarely constructed at pavilion scale. A reciprocal frame is a grid of discrete linear timber elements where each timber element simultaneously supports and is supported by its neighbouring elements. The elements are structurally interdependent and in a hierarchy of equal importance.”

During the daytime, the length and width of the timber elements comprising Geosphere are on full display. At dusk, the UV light reveals the short side of the timber element, allowing the structure to seem weightless in space, and demonstrating how short-length timber can be used to span large distances in compression.

The fabrication and assembly team for Geopshere consisted of Cameron Manore, Liam Cassano, Ala Mohammadi, Sadi Wali, Kosame Li-Han, Selina Al Madanat, Zhenxiao Yang, Sophia de Uria, Mucteba Core, Shannon Dacanay, Nicole Quesnelle and Olivia Carson.

This is the second year in a row that a Daniels Faculty team has had a project featured at Lumière. Last year’s entry, Aeolian Soundscape, was created and installed under the leadership of Nguyen, Hoban, Sehijpaul and Brady Peters.

To view Geosphere this season, visitors have until Saturday, April 20, when the Lumière exhibition ends. All 17 light installations can be experienced seven nights a week from sunset to 11:00 p.m.

Every Friday and Saturday, bonfires will also be hosted at the Trillium Park firepit from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., weather permitting.

For more information on Lumière, click here.

Photography by 6ix Films