The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Claire Zimmerman has been appointed Director of the PhD in Architecture, Landscape, and Design, effective January 1, 2024. Her term is for three and a half years and concludes at the end of 2027. She takes over from Interim Director Peter Sealy.  

A member of the Faculty since July 2023, Zimmerman came to U of T from the University of Michigan, where she served first as an assistant professor and then as an associate professor of architectural history and theory at the Taubman College of Architecture and Planning and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

The Daniels Faculty’s post-professional Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture, Landscape, and Design is a uniquely interdisciplinary program that trains students to pursue new research at a high level, in multiple specialties and disciplines related to architecture and design. Exploring the methodologies required by different disciplines produces graduates who advance current scholarship while also creating new models of research-based practice that can then be implemented in real-world settings.

Encouraging such collaboration to even greater degrees will be a focus of Zimmerman’s leadership.

“To me, a successful PhD program is one in which a team of researchers with very different specializations works together to fashion a highly versatile craft, one that can navigate the seas of our present, challenging knowledge environment.”

Zimmerman’s immediate priorities, she says, include “onboarding myself, attending to admissions, meeting with students and faculty, revisiting the basic protocols of the program, making some minor curricular adjustments, addressing the funding situation for PhD students, and laying out the plan for 2024-25.”

A particular focus of this semester, she adds, “is a public-facing ‘self-study’ of the PhD program on April 5 and 6, details to follow.”

Looking farther ahead, “I would like to see the ALD PhD program explore new potentials in doctoral education through at least two means. The first of these: multidisciplinary, multimodal doctoral projects that make the most of Daniels’s amazing faculty members, who span such a wide range of fields in the study of constructed and natural environments and visual culture. We might seed new knowledge constellations through collaborative partnerships with our students and among ourselves.”

The second means, she continues, is “pioneering a more engaged PhD program in which our students can find opportunities outside the architecture school as part of their doctoral education. This might include paid internships, community activism or engagement projects, or professional opportunities—all tailored to fit within the framework of their proposed doctoral study. This would supplement our current reliance on teaching and research assistantships with a more varied set of professionalization opportunities.”

Although the interdisciplinarity of the ALD PhD makes it unique among doctoral programs, Zimmerman sees potential for growth, evolution and even greater dynamism.

“It is up to us to make our PhD program special,” she says. “The materials to do so, I believe, are in our hands. They include: a multidisciplinary, multimodal group of colleagues, a great metropolis, and an architecture school with dedicated staff and faculty who are committed to working on the built environment. From these we might fashion a program that prioritizes new knowledge with new practices in our field, training our students to be future professors, certainly, but also to be engaged citizens capable of effecting change in in the future.”

The Daniels Faculty’s Design Research Internship Program (DRIP) invites local practitioners in architecture, landscape architecture and design to participate in a unique academic internship that partners upper-year Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies (BAAS) students with design professionals.

The experiential learning initiative, launched by Associate Professor Pina Petricone in 2021, is expanding its roster of participating firms and opening a call for practitioners for the first time.

Any Toronto-area firms interested in participating in DRIP this coming summer should contact p.petricone@daniels.utoronto.ca by February 16, 2024. 

Now in its third year, the LEAF-funded program bridges academic knowledge with professional practice. DRIP offers undergraduate students the opportunity to apply critical research and visual communication skills to focused work within a local firm and in turn exposes the rich community of design practitioners to the uniquely skilled students at U of T. 

Key to the DRIP model is the definition of design research projects by host firms in advance of the internship, as well as a weekly seminar delivered by Petricone that both presents models of design research to students and allows interns to position their work in a larger disciplinary context.

Information for interested students will be available in March 2024. 

Banner image: Collage of student work from the DRIP pilot project in 2021 at Gianonne Petricone Architects.

From serving as guest critics during reviews to providing mentorship to students and fundraising for scholarships, four esteemed Daniels Faculty community members have received Arbor Awards, the University of Toronto’s highest honour for volunteers, for their significant contributions to the University and the Faculty. 

“Our success is due in no small measure to the excellence of our alumni and friends, whose dedication is exemplified by our Arbor Award winners, past and present,” said President Meric Gertler at a January 16 ceremony honouring award recipients, the first in-person celebration since 2019.  

Congratulations to all awardees, including 2023 recipient Jocelyn Squires (pictured above with President Gertler), 2022 recipient Eha Mai Naylor and 2020 recipients Heather Dubbledam and Jane Welsh.

Jocelyn Squires
Master of Architecture, Daniels Faculty, 2016

Squires has consistently supported students and instructors at the Daniels Faculty for more than five years. Her contributions include volunteering as a guest critic, mentoring students, leading a faculty tour with visiting architects and participating in the Faculty’s accreditation review.

Arbor Award recipients (from left to right) Jane Welsh, Eha Mai Naylor and Heather Dubbeldam with President Gertler. 

Jane Welsh
Master of Science in Planning, Faculty of Arts & Science, 2000

Jane is a dedicated champion of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design’s Student-Professionals Networking Event. As president of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, she acts as a bridge between the Faculty and the profession. 

Eha Mai Naylor
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, 1980

For over 20 years, Naylor has generously supported the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Her many contributions include serving as a Faculty Council member and as a guest critic; mentoring and hiring Master of Landscape Architecture graduates; advising on governance and oversight issues; fundraising for student financial aid; and founding a scholarship. Recently, she was also named a U of T alumni governor. 

Heather Dubbeldam

Acclaimed architect Dubbeldam was pivotal in establishing the Daniels Faculty’s Student-Professionals Networking Event, which brings together graduate students and industry leaders. She also serves as a guest critic at Design Studio reviews. 

Associate Professor Pina Petricone (BArch 1991) has been appointed to Waterfront Toronto’s Design Review Panel, the independent advisory body responsible for setting design standards across the city’s lakefront.

Formed in 2001 by the federal, provincial and municipal governments, Waterfront Toronto has a 25-year mandate to transform some 800 hectares of brownfield lands on the city’s lakefront into “beautiful, sustainable mixed-use communities and dynamic public spaces.” Comprised of experts in the fields of architecture, landscape design, engineering and planning, its Design Review Panel is responsible for establishing design standards across the waterfront and with helping Toronto achieve recognition as a centre of creativity and design.

“The Panel strives to add value to every project by providing expert advice that is professional, fair and constructive,” Waterfront Toronto says. “Its role is to promote design excellence, improve environmental performance, and ensure a cohesive approach to waterfront revitalization.” 

Petricone replaces the late George Baird on the advisory body. The professor emeritus and former dean of the Faculty passed away in October.

She also joins two other members of the Daniels Faculty—Professor Brigitte Shim and Associate Professor Fadi Masoud—already on the panel.

A founding principal with Ralph Giannone of Giannone Petricone Architects (GPA) in Toronto, Petricone teaches design and theory at all levels of the Faculty’s architecture programs and was recently awarded a LEAF Impact Grant by the Vice Provost for Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching.

The LEAF grant was awarded to assist in the development of a unique design research internship program (known as DRIP) for graduating Architectural Studies students. Centred around tectonics, craft and detail, Petricone’s work and research seek diversity and durability from the specificity of projects to define an approach to city-building at every scale. 

Among the award-winning projects that Petricone has executed with GPA are the Daniels Waterfront City of the Arts in Toronto and the Trinity College Centre for Ethics, an interfaculty and interdisciplinary initiative at U of T. Other projects include the Block 22 affordable housing complex for the Regent Park Revitalization Project, the Herman Miller Canadian Design Centre and the Royal Hotel and Annex in Ontario’s Prince Edward County.

ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home, the exhibition on view in the Architecture and Design Gallery until March 22, 2024, has been reviewed by The Globe and Mail. 

The newspaper’s architecture critic, Alex Bozikovic, calls the show, which was organized by and first presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, an “exceptionally rare thing: an Indigenous-led exhibition on architecture.”

Co-curated by Joar Nango (a Norway-based Sámi architect and artist), Taqralik Partridge (Associate Curator, Indigenous Art - Inuit Art Focus, Art Gallery of Ontario), Jocelyn Piirainen (Associate Curator, National Gallery of Canada) and Rafico Ruiz (Associate Director of Research at the CCA), the exhibition showcases installations by Indigenous designers and artists, reflecting on how Arctic Indigenous communities relate to land and create empowered, self-determined spaces of home and belonging. 

“The exhibition’s approach to architecture is loose—inevitably so. It explores the expansive ways in which Northern Indigenous people define, and strive for, a sense of home,” Bozikovic notes. He adds that “expansive ideas about place spill through the exhibition, in which the artists pose some broad questions about domesticity. That idea is inevitably complex for individuals and peoples whose homes and lives have been profoundly disrupted by the rippling effects of colonization.”

Read the full review in The Globe and Mail or view the print version here.

Banner image: Harry Choi Photography 

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is excited to present its Winter 2024 Public Program. 

Our program this semester addresses a range of pertinent issues concerning the natural and built environments, continuing the Faculty’s tradition of fostering dialogue and exchanging knowledge through a curated series of exhibitions, lectures, book talks, panel discussions and symposia. 

Through these events, we aim to engage our local and international communities on the important social, political and environmental challenges confronting our disciplines and the world today. Topics addressed include design and ecology, space and social justice, urbanization and housing, art and biopolitics, and architecture land sovereignty. 

All of the events in our program are free and open to the public. Register in advance through Eventbrite and consult the calendar for up-to-date details at daniels.utoronto.ca/events. 

January 23, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Jeffrey Cook Memorial Lecture: HEALING
Featuring Võ Trọng Nghĩa (VTN Architects)

RSVP

February 1, 6:30 p.m. ET
I heard you were looking for me
Featuring Germane Barnes (School of Architecture, University of Miami)

RSVP

February 8, 6:30 p.m. ET
Michael Hough/OALA Visiting Critic in Landscape Architecture Lecture: Design and the Just Public Realm
Featuring Chelina Odbert (Kounkuey Design Initiative) 

RSVP

February 15, 6:30 p.m. ET
Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto
Featuring Kholisile Dhliwayo (afrOURban Inc.)

RSVP

February 27, 6:30 p.m. ET
MVS Proseminar: In Ekstase
Featuring P. Staff (visual and performance artist)

RSVP

February 29, 6:30 p.m. ET
Architecture’s 21st-Century Promise: Spatial Justice Practices
Featuring Dana Cuff (UCLA Architecture and Urban Design) 

RSVP

March 7, 6:30 p.m. ET
Designing Delivery: An Examination of the Intersection of Design and Birth
Featuring Kim Holden (School of Architecture, Yale University) 

RSVP

March 21, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Architecture and the Right to Housing
Generously Supported by the Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing
Featuring Leilani Farha (The Shift) and  Paul Karakusevic (Karakusevic Carson Architects) with Karen Kubey (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto)

RSVP

March 28, 6:30 p.m. ET 
CANCELLED: Cabin as Tactic and Strategy
Featuring John Bass (School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia) and Snxakila Clyde Michael Tallio (Cultural Director, Nuxalk First Nation)

Events will be livestreamed and available to view on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube channel. 

EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW

October 25, 2023-March 22, 2024
ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home
Organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture with the Daniels Faculty

December 11, 2023-February 26, 2024
USING TREES AS THEY ARE
Curated by Zachary Mollica (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 
Public Lecture: USING TREES AS THEY ARE, February 26, 6:00 p.m. ET 

RSVP

March 6-May 14, 2024
How to Steal a Country
Curated by Lukas Pauer (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto)
Exhibition Opening: March 6, 5:30 p.m. ET

RSVP

Public Lecture: Recognizing Facts on the Ground: Deconstructing Power in the Built Environment, March 14, 6:30 p.m. ET 

RSVP

“Berlin is a food you have to marinate carefully.”

With this metaphor, the writer, musician and podcaster Musa Okwonga (pictured at centre below) welcomed a group of 18 Daniels Faculty students on their first morning in Berlin as part of a unique global studio led by Assistant Professor Peter Sealy.

Having read Okwonga’s Berlin memoir In The End, It Was All About Love (Rough Trade Books, 2021) before travelling there, the students engaged in a lively discussion about his creative process, why he left Britain for Berlin, and what life is like as a Black, bisexual man in Germany’s capital.

“Musa is a wonderfully generous person whom the students were thrilled to meet,” says Sealy. “His writing captures Berlin’s essence: It’s a city that requires patience to discover in all its complex flavours; you have to find your own way in.”

For Sealy, that “way in” to learning about Berlin is through films. He titled his iteration of ARC 300/2016 “Berlin, A City in Film,” and designed the course to reflect cinema’s powerful role in the construction of Berlin’s image as a modern metropolis. “Berlin’s unique status as a place where movies are made, whether that was in the 1920s or today, makes film an ideal lens for deciphering this huge city,” according to Sealy.

As a historian of media such as film and photography, Sealy himself has studied the Berlin Wall as it has appeared in films. “I believe film is a uniquely accessible medium for students to learn about new places,” he says. “As a society, we constantly consume moving pictures, which often show how people inhabit urban spaces.”

Prior to travelling to Germany, the students watched a series of films set in Berlin, beginning with Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987). Their spectatorship continued with a series of nightly screenings during their three-week stay in Berlin. Highlights included seeing Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin—Symphony for a Metropolis (1927) at a freiluftkino (open-air cinema) in one of Berlin’s ubiquitous courtyards. The film was accompanied by a live performance by the electronic music group Tronthaim. Other films watched included Roberto Rosseillini’s Germany Year Zero (1948), Heiner Carow’s The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973), Cynthia Beatt’s Cycling the Frame (1988) and Sebastien Schipper’s Victoria (2018).

By day, the students explored the city through an intensive schedule of guided tours, site visits, meetings with local experts, and workshops. Among the highlights was an emotionally moving tour of the archives of the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police: a repository showcasing the banal bureaucracy of evil. Architect and U of T alumnus Bruce Kuwabara arranged a tour of the Canadian Embassy on Leipziger Platz, which he designed with his firm, KPMB Architects. The students also took day trips to Potsdam, Hamburg and Dessau, seeing the famous Bauhaus in the latter.

Yixuan Zhang, a third-year student in the Daniels Faculty’s Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Studies program, “loved exploring buildings we usually only see on [lecture] slides…going inside a building and being able to feel its materials is something I treasured from all our site visits.”

In addition to Okwonga, local Berliners who met the students included the architects Christoph Heinemann, Jochen Jürgensen and plattenbaustudio, the photographer Stefan Berg, and the author Maria Zinfert. In the course’s spirit of experimentation and discovery, one afternoon was spent learning to use analog printing presses at galerie p98a, and an evening was set aside for a Hertha Berlin soccer match at the Olimpiastadion.

The students’ main assignment was to make an eight- or 16-millimetre film using Super-8 or Bolex cameras. To do so, they were guided by three young Berlin-based filmmakers from the LaborBerlin collective: Christian Flemm, Jules Leaño and Adèle Perrin. Working in small groups, the students traversed Berlin, each trying to capture some aspect of the city’s unique spatial tapestry. “The goal of the project,” Sealy says, “was to introduce a new, unfamiliar medium [analog filmmaking] while prompting the students to see Berlin ‘through the lens.’ In other words, making films provided an opportunity to glimpse the city as filmmakers do.”

For Auden Tura, a fourth-year student in Daniels’ Bachelor of Arts, Visual Studies program, “the slowness and careful preparation required for 16mm filmmaking” allowed her and groupmates Ella Spitzer-Stephan and Gillian Stam to consider “Berlin’s urban spaces from a new perspective. With our Bolex, we began to see Berlin’s overgrown courtyards and empty buildings as mystical spaces.” Inspired by Maya Deren’s ground-breaking 1943 short Meshes of the Afternoon—which the students watched at a special screening curated by Flemm—their film investigated the surreal qualities of these semi-abandoned spaces found all over Berlin.

For Taylor Joseph, a second-year student in the Faculty’s Master of Architecture program, the entire cinematic focus of the course proved edifying. “Without the context of the course, I don’t think I would have watched or had the knowledge to be pointed in the direction of these films, most of which are in the German language. They provided a wealth of information on and such insight into the metropolis over generations. As an architecture student, I was able to understand the built environment of the past through the films and thus experience it [more richly] in the present.”

The participating students (both undergraduate and graduate) were drawn from the Daniels Faculty’s many disciplines, including architecture, visual studies and landscape architecture. “I was blown away by the way the students’ own knowledge of architecture and urban practices—how people inhabit cities—helped them decipher a multicultural city like Berlin,” Sealy says. “I took a lot of joy from the students’ own moments of discovery and cannot wait to return as soon as possible!”

“All in all,” concludes Joseph, “every moment of Berlin could make the highlight reel, as it was an unforgettable experience and hopefully will be ongoing.”

“Berlin, A City in Film” was one of four global studios offered by the Daniels Faculty in 2023. Other courses included studies in Athens, Greece; Kumasi, Ghana; and Fez, Morocco. A domestic studio also took place on Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Banner image by John Henry. Last image by Mint Song. All other photos by Peter Sealy.

Two practices spearheaded by members of the Daniels Faculty—Lateral Office and Ja Architecture Studio—have been awarded 2023 Canadian Architect Awards of Merit.

A Toronto-based platform for new spatial environments, Lateral Office is co-led (with Lola Sheppard) by Professor Mason White, Director of the Faculty’s Master of Urban Design and Post-Professional programs. The practice was recognized, with Verne Reimer Architecture Inc., for the Inuusirvik Community Wellness Hub, a multipurpose community centre in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut.

Also based in Toronto, Ja Architecture Studio was co-founded (with architect and alumnus Nima Javidi) by Assistant Professor Behnaz Assadi. Ja was recognized by Canadian Architect for The Parti Wall, a multigenerational residential project proposed for a narrow lot in downtown Toronto.

Opened officially on November 30, the ICWH (pictured above and below) unites counselling services, a daycare, a wellness research centre, a research library and food-preparation and gathering spaces in a single, 883-square-metre facility.

Characterized by lightweight materials and panelized components, “the building utilizes the practical modular building techniques necessary for the North, but introduces colour and setbacks to the massing to make a building that will stand out and welcome the community,” as architect and urban strategist Michael Heeney, one of the awards jurors, put it.

“The building section, with its clerestory central atrium, pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved in Northern public buildings.”

Architect and urbanist Claire Weisz, another juror, was equally impressed. “This building does so much with a very constrained set of design moves. It uses straightforward means to prevent environmental damage and mitigate strong winds for the users, and [it] improves local conditions for passersby. Its bright yellow ramps and entrance walls can be seen in lower light conditions, and set the stage for it to connect to other community assets in this High Arctic city.”

Ja’s winning design (pictured in slideshow below) envisions the spine shared by two adjoining residences and their respective laneway suites as an armature that works with the context of its block to draw natural light deep into the homes, incorporate a range of outdoor spaces within each property...and create interior, multi-storey “nested gardens” for the two street-facing houses.

“This exploration of space and materials,” Heeney enthused, “is just the kind of thing that is good to see in small-scale residential work.”

Fellow juror Omar Gandhi, an architect celebrated for his own housing projects, added: “It is evident that the end result is the product of a highly intensive formal investigation based on spatial relationships, access to natural light, responses to climate, and relationships to the landscape.”

In total, Canadian Architect bestowed 18 Awards of Excellence and Merit for projects around the country this year. For a full list of recipients, click here.

Monday, December 4 to Tuesday, December 19
Daniels Building
1 Spadina Crescent

Whether you're a future student, an alum, or a member of the public with an interest in architecture, forestry, landscape architecture or urban design—you're invited to join the Daniels Faculty for Fall 2023 Reviews. Throughout December, students from 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 #DanielsReviews23.

Please note that times and dates are subject to change.

Monday, December 4 | Graduate 

Design Studio I
LAN1011Y
Coordinators: Alissa North, Peter North 
Room: 330 

Tuesday, December 5 | Graduate 

8:45 a.m.–6:30 p.m. ET 
Design Studio I 
ARC1011Y
Coordinator: Chris Cornecelli 
Instructors: Fiona Lim Tung, Anya Moryoussef, Aleris Rodgers, Julia Di Castri, Tom Ngo 
Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330 

Wednesday, December 6 | Graduate 

Integrated Urbanism Studio
ARC2013Y, LAN2013Y, URD1011Y
Coordinators: Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Rob Wright, Roberto Damiani
Instructors: Karen Kubey, Aziza Chaouni, Jon Cummings, Christos Marcopoulos, Mariana Leguia Alegria, David Verbeek, Megan Esopenko
Rooms: 200, 215, 230, 240, 330 

Thursday, December 7 | Graduate  

Integrated Urbanism Studio
ARC2013Y, LAN2013Y, URD1011Y
Coordinators: Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Rob Wright, Roberto Damiani
Instructors: Karen Kubey, Aziza Chaouni, Jon Cummings, Christos Marcopoulos, Mariana Leguia Alegria, David Verbeek, Megan Esopenko
Rooms: 200, 215, 230, 240, 330 

Friday, December 8 | Graduate  

Design Studio Options 
LAN3016Y

The Hart House Farm
Instructor: Liat Margolis 
Room: 330 

Urban Design Studio Options 
URD2013Y
Instructors: Kanwal Aftab, Maya Desai 
Room: 230 

Monday, December 11 | Undergraduate  

Drawing and Representation I 
ARC100H1
Coordinator: James Macgillivray
Instructors: Matthew De Santis, Dan Briker, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Nicolas Barrette, Anne Ma, Jeffrey Garcia, Monifa Charles-Dedier, Angela Cho, Mariano Martellacci, Connor Stevens, Ji Hee Kim, Kyle O’Brien, Lara Hassani, Brandon Bergem 
Rooms: Main Hall (170A, 170B), 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, 340 

Tuesday, December 12 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

9 a.m.–2 p.m. 
Drawing and Representation II 
ARC200H1
Coordinator: Roberto Damiani
Instructors: Nova Tayona, Simon Rabyniuk, Reza Nik, Paul Howard Harrison, Sam Dufaux, Karen Kubey, Katy Chey, Phat Le, Samantha Eby, Alejandro Lopez 
Rooms: Main Hall (170A, 170B, 170C), 209, 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, 340 

10 a.m.–3 p.m. 
Capstone Project in Forest Conservation 
FOR3008H
Instructor: Catherine Edwards 
Room: 200 
View detailed schedule.

Wednesday, December 13 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1 
ARC3020Y

Rehearsing the Parade: Ephemeral Assemblies and Persuasion on the Move
Instructor: Miles Gertler 
Rooms: Main Hall (170C), 209 

Architecture and Health Equity in an Imperiled World
Instructor: Stephen Verderber 
Room: 330 

Architecture Studio III
ARC361Y1
Coordinator: Adrian Phiffer
Instructors: Shane Williamson, Carol Moukheiber 
Rooms: Main Hall (170A, 170B), 230 

10 a.m.–3 p.m. 
Capstone Project in Forest Conservation (FOR3008H)
Instructor: Catherine Edwards 
Room: 200 
View detailed schedule.

Thursday, December 14 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1 
ARC3020Y

The Certainty of Uncertain Forms, or in search of anexact typologies
Instructor: Carol Moukheiber 
Room: 330 

Counterhegemonic Architecture
Instructor: Lukas Pauer 
Rooms: 215, 240 

If robots are the answer, what was the question?
Instructor: Brady Peters 
Rooms: 209, 242 

Bridging the Divide: An Architecture of Demographic Transition
Instructor: Shane Williamson 
Room: 230 

Design Studio Options 
LAN3016Y

Generative Design in Landscape Architecture: Explorations and Applications
Instructors: Rob Wright, Matthew Spremulli 
Room: 200 

Landscape Architecture Studio III 
ARC363Y1
Instructor: Behnaz Assadi 
Rooms: 315, 340, Main Hall (170C) 

Technology Studio III
ARC380Y1
Instructors: Nicholas Hoban (Coordinator), Maria Yablonina 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Friday, December 15 | Graduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1
ARC3020Y

Swarm / Counterarchive
Instructor: Jeannie Kim 
Room: 330 

ARCHIPELAGO, 4.0: Docu-Drawing, Activism, Re-Building
Instructor: Petros Babasikas 
Room: 230 

SUPERNATURAL
Instructor: Laura Miller 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

USING TREES
Instructor: Zachary Mollica 
Room: 240 

HOUSE FOR PIRANESI at Hadrian’s villa: TRIUMPH OF THE FRAGMENT DRAWING AS THESIS An allegory for illustrated ARCHITECTURAL narrative
Instructor: John Shnier 
Room: 1st Floor Hallway 

Monday, December 18 | Undergraduate & Graduate

9 a.m.–2 p.m. 
Design Studio II
ARC201H1
Coordinator: Miles Gertler
Instructors: Brian Boigon, Jennifer Kudlats, Aleris Rodgers 
Rooms: 215, 240, 315, 340 

9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Post-Professional Thesis Review
ALA4021
Rooms: 209, 242

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Research) 
ARC456H1
Instructor: Petros Babasikas 
Room: 330 

Senior Seminar in Design (Research) 
ARC461H1
Instructor: Laura Miller 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research) 
ARC486H1
Instructor: Nicholas Hoban 
Room: 230 

Tuesday, December 19 | Undergraduate 

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Research) 
ARC456H1
Instructor: Petros Babasikas 
Room: 330 

Senior Seminar in Design (Research)
ARC461H1
Instructor: Laura Miller 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research)
ARC486H1
Instructor: Nicholas Hoban 
Room: 230 

In Rehearsing the Parade: Ephemeral Assemblies and Persuasion on the Move, a Design Research Studio (ARC3020) led by Assistant Professor Miles Gertler, Master of Architecture students have spent the semester examining parades, processions, pageantry and other ephemeral events as pragmatic tools for city-building.

“Processions, convoys, assemblies and parades are all about performance,” writes Gertler in the studio description. “They have order and itinerary. Parades affirm a here and a there and, often, a center. Parades are spatial and animate. Parades are wholes made of many parts. They transmit messages, have audiences, and are themselves rehearsals of prospective worlds or realities to come. We could similarly attribute these conditions to architecture, and indeed, parades are designed and behave like so many artifacts shaped by design labor.”

Within the context of the studio, student Jia Chen Mi has been studying Quebec’s Mitis River Salmon Run as a logistical convoy that develops ecosystemic collaboration between humans and fish. Since the damming of the river in 1973, designated stewards of its salmon population have stepped in with various mechanical and vehicular tools to assist the salmon in their annual return upriver.

Jia’s drawings study this situation with a focus on the epigenetic instrumentation that salmon use to navigate their journey, and the sensorial tools that humans and fish use to orient their engagement with the site.

Jia writes: “Every spawning season, in the Mitis River, as in many other rivers in Quebec, salmon are captured and driven past hydroelectric dams to prevent their extinction. The Mitis salmon transportation is a meticulously rehearsed operation. The salmon cage and truck can accommodate only a dozen bodies at a time. A human worker is always on watch, counting, loading, and driving. Inattention can spell death. In this regard, the Mitis salmon run is a delicate parade requiring close inter-species collaboration. It is a waltz of flesh and machines, orchestrated by a myriad of devices. A drive for renewable energy has made the fish dependent on human intervention, yet humans also rely on salmon. For Wolastoqiyik and Mi’gmaq communities of Eastern Quebec and New Brunswick, fishing and eating wild salmon has always been vital for survival—both spiritually and culturally, as well as biologically. For many settler anglers visiting the Mitis River every summer, Atlantic salmon fishing is a way to heal from the strains of urban life. What is the story of the participants in this parade, and what tools do they use to choreograph their mutual survival?”

Lara Sedele’s research into Toronto-based art collective General Idea’s 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant examines how the city and its urban and social infrastructures were instrumentalized toward the construction of an art practice. Lara has enriched her inquiry with archival research at the Art Gallery of Ontario and interviews with AA Bronson, a founding member of General Idea.

Lara writes: “To tell the story of General Idea and the art ecosystem that surrounded them in Toronto, The Miss General Idea Pageant in 1971 takes center stage as a temporal and performative means of challenging the art economy and the value placed on traditional visual art formats.”

Lara’s examination has focused chiefly on three aspects: the mythology crafted by General Idea themselves, the documentary ephemera disseminated through mail, and the financial records of 1971 and 1972, documented by the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Navjot Dhanoa, another student in the studio, has been investigating the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade through the lens of inflation. Navjot has studied how variations in the value of the US dollar track with the scale of the parade's balloons, Macy's revenue, and the value of helium, which is a rare and finite resource.

By studying trans-continental helium infrastructure, recent Macy's store closures across the United States and the locations and audiences of advertisers who participate in the parade, Navjot has developed a nuanced understanding of today's mass consumer market, "where merchandising and spectacle meet."

Rehearsing the Parade: Ephemeral Assemblies and Persuasion on the Move will conclude this semester with a first sketch of a float vehicle or device, and a schematic outline for next term’s focus on thesis, where students may lean into the format of parades or depart from it entirely. Final assignments will be added to a single-issue magazine produced by the studio with this semester's collective research.

Image credits: 1) Banner image: Students participate in a “Speed dating” Typology Workshop in the first part of the studio, which focused on Representation and Language. "BOOMING COMMENTARY" image by Gianlorenzo Giannone and Emilie Tamtik. 2) Student Work: Jia Chen Mi, "Choreographing the Natural: The Mitis Salmon Run" 3) Student Work: Lara Sedele, "The General Idea Behind the Pageant: The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant Grand Awards Ceremony" 4) Navjot Dhanoa, "Inflating Traditions: The Ballooning Consumption of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" 5) A sample publication spread from the research articles each student has prepared for the single-issue magazine that will collect all of the semester's projects.