A group of masters students from ETH Zurich — including Daniels Faculty Adjunct Lecturer and Digital Fabrication Coordinator Nicholas Hoban (MArch 2012) — have created the world’s first two-storey wooden pavilion using robots. The group was based out of ETH Zurich's Gramazio Kohler Research lab. Hoban recently completed his MAS in Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich during a leave from the Daniels Faculty. A detailed description of the project can be viewed online at Dezeen.

"The goal was to develop adaptive robotic processes which were able to handle unknown material dimensions and surface quality, and therefore limit material waste resulting from using standardised pre-processed (engineered) timber products," Philipp Eversmann, Head of Education for the NCCR Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich, told Dezeen.

The pavilion was designed for the Zurich Design Biennale, which will feature the project at its festival in September 2017.

Hoban is a designer and fabricator based in Toronto. As the Coordinator of the Daniels Faculty’s Digital Fabrication Lab, he oversees faculty fabrication research projects and the operation of its digital fabrication facilities. He teaches digital fabrication methodologies and software to Daniels Faculty masters students.

“In Toronto alone, the number of official noise complaints to the City has more than doubled since 2011, rising roughly in tandem with the new skyscrapers that are causing endless construction commotion downtown” writes Matthew Hague of The Globe and Mail.

He describes how designers such as Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte have taken inspiration from this nuisance to create noise-blocking and sound-dampening solutions like Diplomate, a desk-partition for offices, and Cork Helmet a dome on a rope that lowers onto the user’s head.

Hague's recent article, "Sound off," profiles Daniels Faculty Assistant Professor Brady Peters, who believes that sound/noise can be made more pleasant through the design of the physical environment. Peters’ research focuses on auralization, that is, exploring ways to communicate and investigate sound.

“While architects have many tools to help draw, investigate and explore the way buildings look, there aren’t similar technologies to test and understand how a space might sound," Peters tells Hague. "Visualization is easy, auralization not so much.”

Peters worked with an international team to build the FabPod, a meeting room that showcases the innovations of acoustically driven design. Hague describes it as a cavernous space seemingly made up of a cluster of bubbles. The meeting room is located in the open-plan office of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Design Hub in Melbourne Australia.

Peters teaches graduate level courses in design studio, computational design, comprehensive building design, and visual communication focusing on parametric modelling and digital fabrication. He also teaches computation and design in the undergraduate program.  He completed his PhD at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in Copenhagen focusing on computational methods for predicting, measuring and evaluating sound in architectural spaces. Prior to this, he was an associate partner at Foster + Partners. One of his most notable projects with the firm is the new roof enclosure for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Recently, Peters has received a Connaught New Researcher Award from the University of Toronto and a grant from the Federal Natural Sciences and Research Council which will go towards furthering his research on sound.

For the full article on Peters and his work, visit the Globe and Mail's website.

On January 24th, first year Master of Architecture students in ARC 1012 participated in reviews for their first assignment of the studio. For this project, titled "Split/Twins," students were asked to develop a “double-house” on a shared site for two different residents. The class was instructed to think of the residents as twins, separated at birth; or as reluctant mutualistic collaborators. While some of the activities would be shared between the two residents, most of their activities would be apart. As architects, the students had to negotiate the desires of the twins spatially and ensure that the two houses were equal.

Click here to learn more about the Daniels Faculty's Master of Achitecture program.

Montottone Barchessa, a project by Daniels Faculty Assistant Professor Vivian Lee and Lecturer James Macgillivray will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Syracuse University in Florence.

Lee and Macgillivray are cofounders of the firm LAMAS, an interdisciplinary studio focused on issues of craft traditions and perception in architecture and the fine arts.

A bed and breakfast near the small town Montottone in the Marches of Italy, Montottone Barchessa takes the form of the barchessa, an agricultural appendage of 16th Century Venetian villas. Write Lee and Macgillivray, “this historical reference is complicated by its programmatic mutation from empty storage to the individuated privacy of rooms.

The exhibition will be on view at 25 Piazzale Donatello, Florence starting February 16th.

In other news, Lee and Macgillivray's MoMA PS1 entry Underberg (pictured, above) will be featured in the inaugural issue of The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture's journal WASH, titled "Utopia”.

Lee’s research focuses on the role of craft and labor practices in architecture and building. Her writings, teaching, and design work have touched on the concept of craft in several diverse subjects including professional practice, labor, vernacular traditions, and ornament.

A filmmaker, Macgillivray has published on film, architecture, and projection in 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.

Function and Fantasy: Iron Architecture in the Long Nineteenth Century, published by Routledge, explores iron architecture in the 19th century, offering a study of iron’s architectural reception as an emerging building technology. Daniels Faculty lecturer Peter Sealy co-edited the new book and authored “Dreams in Iron: The Wish Image in Émile Zola’s Novels,” a chapter exploring the immaterial descriptions of 19th-century iron-and-glass buildings in Zola’s novels.

Sealy is an architectural historian who studies the ways in which architects constructively engage with reality through indexical media such as photography. He holds architecture degrees from the McGill University School of Architecture and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is currently completing his PhD at Harvard on the emergence of a photographic visual regime in nineteenth-century architectural representation.

Prior to beginning his PhD, Sealy worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) on exhibitions including Actions (2008) and Journeys (2010). At Harvard, he is a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow, and his dissertation research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For 2016-17, he has been named as a Mellon Researcher at the CCA, where he will study the resurgence of photomontage in contemporary architectural representation.

Last year, Sealy wrote “The Hospital, Future and Past” for Canadian Architect, which explored how hospitals can “adapt to the demands of ever-changing medical technology.” Previous to this, he wrote an article for Domus titled “At the end of the Earth,” which looked at the utilization of “contemporary art and architecture as instruments in the revitalisation of the local economy” on Fogo Island.

Come February 20, Toronto’s Balmy, Kew, and Ashbridges Bay beaches will be dotted with temporary public art installations — stations designed to engage passers-by and celebrate winter along the waterfront.

This year, a number of Daniels Faculty graduates and students are among the winners of Winter Stations, the international design competition held to select the installations.

Master of Landscape Architecture students Asuka Kono and Rachel Salmela reinterpreted a Japanese hot spring for their winning submission I See You Ashiyu. “Providing Torontonians the opportunity to engage physically with water in the winter creates an immersive experience that frames this harsh landscape in a new way,” wrote the duo in their submission.

In BuoyBuoyBuoy, another winning entry by Dionisios Vriniotis, Rob Shostak (MArch 2010), Dakota Wares-Tani (MArch 2016), and Julie Forand, each component of the “infinitely reconfigurable” installation is shaped in the silhouette of a buoy. When the installation is eventually dismantled, the pieces can be kept as a keepsake or donated to schools and community centres for reuse.

A team of students from the Daniels Faculty is also among the institutional winners, which include the University of Waterloo, and the Humber College School of Media Studies & IT, School of Applied Technology. The Daniels Faculty’s submission, Midwinter Fire, “reframes the narrative of our local forests to show the potential power of our urban ecology to city dwellers.” The team of Daniels students included John Beeton, Herman Borrego, Anna Chen, Vikrant Dasoar, Michael DeGirolamo, Leonard Flot, Monika Gorgopa, James Kokotilo, Asuka Kono, Karima Peermohammad, Rachel Salmela, Christina Wilkinson, Julie Wong, and Rotem Yaniv. Assistant Professor Pete North served as their advisor.

Honorable mentions were awarded to 18 teams, four of which involved Daniels Faculty alumni and students. These proposed installations included:

Catalyzed Winter
Seven (Xiru) Chen (MLA 2012), Naiji Jiao (MArch 2014), and Louis (Yi) Liu (MArch 2014)

Every Last Drop Of Sunlight
Yvan MacKinnon (MArch 2013)

Qbic Hangars
Stephen Baik (MArch student) and Abubaker Bajaman (MArch student)

Sift
Deagan McDonald (MArch 2015) and Kelsey Nilsen (MArch 2015)

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the competition. For more about the Winter Stations project, visit: http://www.winterstations.com/

Media:
Toronto beaches winter station design winners announced [CBC]
Eight art installations to make a splash at Toronto waterfront [Metro]

Pictured, above: 1. BuoyBuoyBuoy, by Dionisios Vriniotis, Rob Shostak (MArch 2010), Dakota Wares-Tani (MArch 2016)  2. I See You Ashiyu, by Asuka Kono and Rachel Salmela  3. Midwinter Fire, by Daniels Faculty students  4. Catalyzed Winter, by Seven (Xiru) Chen (MLA 2012), Naiji Jiao (MArch 2014), and Louis (Yi) Liu (MArch 2014)  5. Every Last Drop Of Sunlight, by Yvan MacKinnon (MArch 2013)  6. Qbic Hangars, by Stephen Baik (MArch student) and Abubaker Bajaman (MArch student)  7. Sift, by Deagan McDonald (MArch 2015) and Kelsey Nilsen (MArch 2015)

“Social media is having an increasing impact on architectural education, history and practice at home and abroad,” writes Evan Pavka for Canadian Art. His article, “On Instagram, Archives and Architecture,” looks at the archival nature of social media and how  those in the field of architecture — including Daniels Faculty lecturer Adrian Phiffer — are using platforms such as instagram.

“I think the fact that we have all of these archival projects—from FuckYeahBrutalism to Archive of Affinities—has such a huge impact on how the practice is happening these days, because we are operating by accessing and looking at these archives as a way to project future projects,” Phiffer told Pavka.

In September, ArchDaily listed Phiffer’s instagram feed among "25 Architecture Instagram Feeds to Follow Now."

Read the full article on Canadian Art’s website.

Visit Adrian Phiffer's instagram account: @officeofadrianphiffer

Photo above courtesy of @officeofadrianphiffer

PULP: paper art party — co-founded by a collective that includes third year Master of Architecture student Rotem Yaniv and Mikael Sydor (MArch 2015) — celebrates it’s 5^th anniversary this year on Saturday, January 14^th. “Devoted to the integration of design, architecture, environmental awareness, and social activity to enhance communities around the city,” the annual event includes live music, art, and a late-night dance party. This year, proceeds raised will be donated to the Yonge Street Mission's Evergreen Centre for Street Youth.

What can we look forward to during this year’s festivities? Rotem Yaniv answered a few of our questions about the evolution the popular paper party and how it has influenced his work as a student.

This will be the fifth year of the PULP paper party. How has the party changed over the years?
We tweak it a bit every year. This year, for example, there are two acts: Art Lounge at 8pm and After Party at 11pm. The idea is to have a relaxed, lit exhibit with live music, food, drink, and dance performances in the earlier part of the evening for art and jazz folk music lovers. We will then dim the lights and let the DJs take over after 11pm, when people looking for a good dance party are likely to show up. Of course, we welcome guests to stay the entire six and a half hours.

Photo: Urban Lights, by Rotem Yaniv at PULP 2016, used materials reclaimed from Daniels Faculty's waste bins after the completion of Super Studio

What are some memorable moments from years past?
Lemon Bucket Orchestra busting through a wall made of colourful cardboard boxes created by ROLLOUT; glowing origami Stalactites that collapsed when you pulled strings by Makeshift Collective; women from Street Haven, a Toronto women’s shelter, working with Luisa Ayala and making an installation that resembles a house, to name a few.

What are you most excited about for this year’s party?
Aleks Bartosik is returning to PULP with a multidisciplinary performance and installation including dance, costume, projections, and live musician; BD Studio is returning with their folded paper lattice technique; Susie Shower is bringing 5 overhead projectors to make an interactive environment; Mark Francis and Natalia Bakaeva are hanging paper and letting guests tear parts off it… not to mention the live music by Vivienne Wilder and our DJs — Ebony and Wasserman.

Photo: Paper Igloo by MArch students Richard Freeman and Projection Mapping by Kearon Roy Taylor, photo by Dylan Johnston

Your annual paper party is also a fundraiser. So in addition to promoting environmental awareness, you are raising money for organizations such as the Yonge Street Mission Evergreen Centre for Street Involved Youth. How did this initiative come about?
For PULP 2016 artist Ksenija Spasic and the Centre’s Art Director Sharon Abel started working with the youth at the centre. They created an intimate pod out of reclaimed fabric and set it in the middle of the party. The PULP team — Robyn Lewis, Ammar Ijaz, Justin Shin, Mikael Sydor, Pamela Cottrell, and myself — discussed which charity to work with and we agreed that since they are already making an installation they would be perfect. We raised around $1600 and Sharon used the money to start Jubilee Designs at the centre — a summer program that paid the youth fair hourly wages for creating art decors.

What other kind of projects does PULP do?
We do outdoor installations and performances at Summer Solstice and BIG on Bloor Festival. We did an art installation commission for World Wildlife Fund. We also do private event management when we get the chance.

PULP 2015

PULP is also a platform to engage in research on techniques to re-purpose materials that would otherwise be discarded or thrown in the Blue Bin. What sort of things have you learned through this work and how have you applied it?
We can get cardboard tubes for free at Alexanian Carpets but they melt in the rain. We could apply them with a water resistant coating but the recycling process uses water to break materials apart. That means that when we finally throw them out, they may end up in the landfill which would be the exact opposite of what we want. So we wrap them instead in waterproof fabric sleeves that can be easily removed. The idea of separation of materials is following the Cradle to Cradle approach — we encourage artists not to use glues and resins on paper based materials because that ruins their recyclability. We were able to get 7 pavilions made mostly of cardboard stand up in 24 hours of continuous rain and keep them dry and recyclable.

Part of PULP’s mission is to build a community network. Who are some of the groups that you have worked with and how have you collaborated?
The Bloordale Improvement Group, BIA, CIA, the offices of Councillors Bailão and Wong-tam, The Junction BIA, GALDSU, and our own growing network of artists — we are in constant communication with them and I attend community meetings. Community groups provide networking and promotion in return to PULP bringing something new for community members. It is interesting to think of communities as clients and of PULP as architects — we design spaces for a limited time for communities to enjoy.

Contoured Environment by RAW Design and Sea Pod by Ksenija Spasic and Evergreen Centre at PULP 2016, photo by Dylan Johnston

How does your work with PULP influence or enhance your work as a Master of Architecture student and vice versa? Is the focus of your research as a student related to the work you do through PULP?
Last semester I worked with studio instructors Terri Peters and Stephen Verderber on a mental health facility for children. The design included a skate-park, splash pad, and climbing wall, with the ability for inpatients and community artists to paint murals on exterior walls. The idea that inhabitants can own their space by engaging with it is something I keep exploring with this organization.

Anything else you’d like to add?
Please donate to our fundraiser campaign! Evergreen wishes to expand the Jubilee Design program. Individuals who donate over $50 and businesses which donate over $250 will be mentioned in a special list on our website, but you can donate as little as $2. Visit http://pulpartparty.ca/
 

Photo, top: Paper Environment by Aleks Bartosik at PULP 2015, photo by Haley Park

This week marked the start of undergraduate classes for the winter semester — an opportune time to look back at photos of last semester’s undergraduate reviews and draw inspiration from the projects and presentations by our students. Special thanks to the to Daniels Faculty instructors and guest critics who joined us on December 10 to provide our students with feedback, insight, and encouragement.

To learn more about Daniels Faculty’s programs of study for the emerging architect, landscape architect, urban designer, artist, or curator, visit the programs section of our website.

In 2016, the Toronto Star profiled Monica Adair (MArch 2005) among young architects who “have been turning heads in the profession, while Wallpaper listed her firm, Acre Architects, in its list of 20 “breakthrough practices from around the globe.”

How do Adair and her partner at Acre Architects Stephen Kopp (MArch 2005)  — also her husband, and yes they met here at the Daniels Faculty! — continue to achieve recognition and grow their small New Brunswick-based firm in such a competitive field? Master of Architecture student Ilana Hadad sat down with Adair to learn about her unique approach to business and design.

You describe your practice as developing “storied architecture.” What do you mean by that?
Storied Architecture, for us, is about helping people live great stories. It’s a way for architecture to have permanence beyond physical bricks and mortar. You may never see a building, but you may have learned about it. And rather than hear about a beautiful window or a really great façade, we want to hear: “this changed the way we live.” One of the best compliments we’ve ever received about one of our projects came from a client who said “We get along better as a couple.” That is a really big thing. If you can change the way people think, you can change the way they live their lives.

Why is collaboration so important in your practice?
It’s easy to talk about collaboration as a buzzword, but there are so many talented people out there; it’s really about corralling them. Things become richer when you incorporate other people’s skills and talents. Sometimes it feels we’re on the edge of something really great, but then we ask: “where does the frame start?” and we realize that we’re only looking at it relative to our own world. When you start collaborating with other people, you start to see the world through a new lens.  

Canadian Builder’s Quarterly wrote that every year you embark on a non-traditional project or competition to keep sharp. Why is this important to you?
There are few architects in New Brunswick, which limits our dialogue with others in the field, so we want to make sure that we’re not getting complacent or comfortable. Instead, we’ll challenge ourselves by entering a competition or going after a new project. We’re now doing fewer competitions, but pitching more projects. We look for a need and we propose a project for it. Instead of waiting for projects to come, we chase them.

How do you decide which projects to chase?
It’s something that evolves out of relationships. Sometimes I feel like the clients I’m going to be working for in the future are the people I’m just getting to know now. It takes years for people to trust you and to learn what you have to offer. You don’t just start a project. You hone a project. You develop a relationship. Even clients that I have today, like Picaroons Microbrewery — our relationship may have started five years ago, but it’s only now that we really feel like we’re on the same side of the table and asking, “where can we go together?” The owner knows we’re looking after helping him build a successful company.

We also recently broke ground on a wedding retreat outside of Austin, Texas. This was a relationship that started as a business mentor turned friend, turned client. At the end of the day, these meaningful relationships with people who are willing to think big are the grounding for all our projects.

How did it feel to receive the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's 2015 Young Architect Award?
It’s definitely humbling. I remember we were just moving offices, and I got the letter and I gave it to Stephen and said “can you read this a couple times?” I just didn’t believe it. I’m used to opening letters and saying “oh yeah, we didn’t get accepted.” In life you don’t always get people to validate your work. You’re lucky when you do. So you take it when you get that. It’s really nice.

What do you like about living and working in Saint John?
It’s funny because I’m still getting used to saying that I live in Saint John again. It really is a great place to start and grow a business. It’s full of people that want great things to happen so there is a lot of support. It feels like a family, a great community. I’ve lived in Taiwan and Spain, and I’ve lived in Toronto and New York. I’m open to where the world is going to take me, but for now it’s a beautiful place to grow and we are excited to exercise the potential that Saint John has to offer.

Your first project as a firm was a 100-square-foot patio. What did you learn from that project that you still apply to projects you’re doing today?
The importance of good-quality craftsmanship. The patio was temporary, built to come down every year and get thrown in the back of a shed for the winter. If it hadn’t been built properly, the first year they took it down would have been the end of it. It wouldn’t have gotten published the next year. It wouldn’t have ended up in “top places to kiss in Saint John.” If you want something to last, you have to build the care to make it last.

We also learned that small projects are as important as big projects. A small project is still somebody’s dream. It’s still important to their business. So treating small projects with the same value, regardless of the scale, is important.

How did your time at U of T help inform the work you are doing today?
I loved architecture school. I think as a student you don’t realize it, but the stuff that you do in school stays with you forever. And it touches other people. If you work really hard on one project, that project will influence all your other projects forever. Your thesis work follows you. It’s part of who you are. I’m proud to be an alumna here.

Do you have any advice for current students?
Don’t be entitled; be engaged. Entitlement kills creativity. Engagement, in a way, is the opposite. It says that you’re willing to make a contribution and listen to the people around you and hear what they have to offer. It’s an active position versus a passive one. Be open to the world. See what it has to offer. Be open to be perpetually learning.

Image credits, top to bottom:

1:  Into the Wild. Saint John, NB | Photo by Mark Hemmings 
2: The Centennial. St. Andrews, NB | Photo by Sean McGrath
3: Tinkers Orchard, Kingston Peninsula, New Brunswick | photo by Mark Hemmings
4: LeParc - Petanque. Part of Third Shift Sait John, NB | Photo by Mark Hemmings