Students, donors, faculty and staff came together at the Faculty Club recently for the yearly breakfast gathering celebrating student award recipients and those who support them.

This year’s Student Awards Breakfast took place in the main room of the Club on the morning of February 26. 

A total of 216 students from across the Faculty’s disciplines were supported through 41 awards in 2024/25. Many were in attendance at the breakfast last month.

“In hosting this event today, we are very pleased to be bringing together our faculty, our many generous donors and our talented award recipients, the latter having distinguished themselves academically and as student leaders,” said Acting Dean Robert Levit, who introduced the proceedings.

“At the University of Toronto,” he continued, “awards have been a part of academic life for nearly 200 years, contributing immeasurably to U of T’s achievements and to its global reach. Today, as the funding of post-secondary institutions by government continues to decline, the support by donors of endowed scholarships, awards, prizes and bursaries at universities is crucial.”

Among the new awards singled out by Dean Levit (pictured below) was the Nelda Rodger Indigenous Student Award in Architecture and Design, a renewable award that provides financial support to full-time Canadian students of First Nations, Inuit and Métis heritage in the Faculty’s Architectural Studies program.

This award, he noted, is the first of its kind devoted to the study of architecture at U of T. 

Matthew Arnott, a third-year Master of Landscape Architecture student, was one of two award winners to address the breakfast gathering. The recipient of this year’s Claude Cormier Award in Landscape Architecture, he expressed how much the award, which was established by the acclaimed landscape architect and alumnus before he passed away in 2023, meant to him personally.

“Claude, being queer, Canadian and unapologetic in his design approach, has long served as a source of personal inspiration, blazing a trail for so many young designers like myself that previously did not exist,” Arnott said.

“To Claude and the folks at CCxA [Cormier’s Montreal-based practice], I’d like to express great thanks for establishing an award that makes graduate education so much more accessible and, more broadly, for their celebration of creativity, whimsy and humour in their approach to design.”

Olivia Carson, a student in the Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program, also addressed the breakfast. She is a recipient of a John and Myrna Daniels Foundation Opportunity Award.

“I have been fortunate to have my family, peers and professors as my greatest supporters and inspirations,” Carson said. “But even with that support, there are moments when external recognition is needed—a reminder that what we are doing [as students] matters.”

“These awards,” she continued, “do just that; they nurture curiosity, fuel ambition and enable students to embrace learning as more than just an academic pursuit, but as a lifelong endeavour. Their support reminds us that education is not just about meeting requirements but [also] about exploration, creativity and growth. I would like to express my gratitude to the John and Myrna Daniels Foundation for the award I have been granted and for their generous contributions to the Daniels Faculty.”

In concluding the event, Dean Levit thanked both Carson and Arnott for sharing their experiences.

“You have painted a touching picture of the importance of recognition by others,” he said, “and of the impact of the kind of financial support shared by all of the award recipients who have joined us this morning.”

As of this year, the Daniels Faculty administers more than 125 donor-supported funds, a large proportion of which are devoted to student aid and recognition.

All photos by Richard Ashman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The most valuable tool in addressing the climate crisis is collaboration,” says Matt Arnott, reflecting on his time as a 2024 Holcim Foundation Fellow. 

Now a third-year Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) student, Arnott traveled to New York City this past August to participate in the inaugural Holcim Foundation Fellowship in North America. Focused on the theme “Decarbonization at Scale,” the competitive two-week program brought together participants from architecture, engineering, urban planning and landscape architecture to tackle pressing sustainability challenges.  

Read on to learn more about his experience creating connections, designing beyond neutrality, and how he plans to incorporate this knowledge into his final year of the MLA program.

How did you first learn about the inaugural Holcim Foundation Fellowship? What inspired you to apply? 

I found the fellowship through an Instagram story. I felt the theme was of great importance. As the pressures of the climate crisis continue to compound, I feel the role of the designer must adapt, placing the socioecological impacts of our work at the fore. 

Tell us a bit more about your experience over the summer.

The fellowship was incredibly enriching. By engaging with workshops, lectures and site visits, we were exposed to the numerous angles that you can frame sustainability. Some of my highlights include a trip to the Parsons Healthy Material Lab where we explored ecologically and health-conscious alternatives to traditional building materials; a visit to the future site of the New York Climate Exchange led by representatives from SOM who emphasized the role of landscape in sustainable design; a salvage material reuse workshop facilitated by ARUP; and examining socially responsible approaches to sustainability at Henning Larsen. 

The Fellowship’s central theme was “Decarbonization at Scale.” How has it impacted your perception of sustainability in the built environment? 

I feel that as designers we have the unique opportunity to shape how we care for and engage with our surrounding environments. Sustainability has always been something near and dear to my heart, however, the ways that we can engage with sustainable design have always felt vague to me. The fellowship offered an opportunity to bridge this divide, giving firsthand and tangible insight into the most current approaches to tackle the layered challenge(s) of climate resiliency. 

In speaking with professionals navigating the complex world of sustainability within the (L)AEC industry, I could develop an actionable tool kit for sustainable design. I was encouraged to challenge the unwavering industry standard, framing the design process as an opportunity to be ecologically beneficial—not just neutral. Most importantly, the fellowship made clear that no one person alone can tackle the issue of sustainability—the most valuable tool in addressing the climate crisis is collaboration. 

How do you plan to incorporate what you learned into your future projects? 

During the fellowship, we were asked to explore themes of decarbonization as they relate to our individual research interests. In preparation for my thesis this coming year, I had the opportunity to study forestry management systems as they relate to the increasing threat of wildfires with Professor Robert Wright. During the fellowship, I was exposed to the industry of carbon dioxide removal (thanks to Professor David Benjamin of Columbia GSAAP). The industry seemed aligned with my previous research and I was curious about what potential synergies existed. 

As we developed our research project throughout the course of the fellowship, I was given the time, space, and support to flesh these ideas out further. (If you’re interested, snippets from all of the fellows’ research projects can be found here.) Moving forward, I hope to integrate the work from the fellowship into potential design strategies for my thesis! 

Arnott's fellowship research project (images above) looked at the scalable potentials of biochar. Here, it was argued that through engaging with both short- and long-term interventions, biochar appears as a key tool in the pursuit of decarbonization and an even more vital agent in the process of carbon dioxide removal. By leveraging instances of oversight in larger supply chains and the remnant materials found following wildfires, adaptable land-based solutions can be created bringing the industry closer to its goals of net zero. 

What advice would you give to future students considering applying for this fellowship or similar opportunities? 

Apply! Apply! Apply! The people you’ll meet along the way will become valuable connections and friends. Walk into each experience with open eyes and ears, allow conversations with those outside of your field to highlight gaps in your knowledge, and be open to change! 

The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce its newest Emerging Architect Fellows: Humbi Song and Anthony Kalimungabo Wako.

Song’s fellowship, which commenced on July 1, will run until July of 2026. Wako’s residency will start in 2025, running until 2027.

The two-year Emerging Architect Fellowship, a non-tenure appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, was established by the Faculty in 2022 to offer early-career architects an opportunity to teach in a supportive environment as well as the resources to develop focused research. 

The aim is “to bring new voices and matters of concern to the school through teaching and research,” says Jeannie Kim, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream and Associate Dean, Academic. “We are excited to welcome this new cohort and look forward to the conversations and ideas that will ensue.”

Song (pictured above) holds a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard GSD, Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology. 

Her work, she says, focuses on the intersection of architecture, technology and human-computer interaction. She is currently teaching an option studio in the Daniels Faculty’s MARC program.

“Humbi is committed to a humanistic approach to technology that holds space for lived experience and intersectionality,” says Kim. “Her work explores the potential of co-creation and co-design with machines and AI, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between human and machine agency.”

Wako, meanwhile, has been a lecturer in the Faculty of the Built Environment at Uganda Martyrs University, from which he also holds a Master of Architecture degree, since 2020.

“Anthony will be joining us next July,” says Kim, “with an exciting proposal to trace diasporic movements and transnational exchange between Uganda, South Asia and Canada through migrating building and constructional practices that find their imprint on cultural spaces, commercial activity, agricultural practices and other moments of spatial exchange.”

Earlier this year, Wako was awarded a 2024 Graham Foundation grant for his research documenting the socio-cultural encounters of the Ugandan city of Jinja’s built heritage, “a visible but hidden legacy” of generations of immigrants from South Asia, many arriving as labourers between 1895 and 1901 to construct the famed Uganda Railway.

“The contribution of Asians to Uganda’s urban and architectural heritage,” says the Graham Foundation, “is often talked about but poorly documented. This project seeks to rectify this oversight.”

Song portrait by Richard Ashman

Professor Brigitte Shim has been recognized with one of the country’s highest honours in the fields of arts and science: election to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) as a 2024 Fellow.

Every year, a select group of artists, academics and scientists are inducted into one of the RSC’s three Academies—the Academy of Arts and Humanities, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Science—on the basis of their impact, both nationally and  internationally, on their respective disciplines. 

Professor Shim, who has been teaching at the Daniels Faculty since 1988, will be elected to the RSC’s Academy of Arts and Humanities. 

There are currently 2,524 Fellows in the Society, which has been recognizing creative excellence in Canada since 1882.

Professor Shim was selected, according to the RSC, for “an exceptional body of design work that is committed to craft, tectonics, site and ecology.” Also cited was her “ongoing commitment to advocacy, mentorship and teaching.”

“She is one half of a collaborative partnership,” the Society says, referencing her longtime personal and creative alliance with husband and fellow architect A. Howard Sutcliffe, “addressing built work that tackles multiple scales [in] architecture, landscape, interiors, furniture and hardware—all developed to a high standard, with craft, rigour, sense of place, mastery of proportions and placemaking.” 

Professor Shim co-founded her practice, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, in 1994. She and Sutcliffe have since been recognized with 16 Governor General’s Medals and Awards for Architecture, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Gold Medal in 2021 and an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award. 

Her induction into the RSC, which was announced last month, will formally take place at a ceremony in Vancouver on November 8. A total of 104 new Fellows are being inducted this year.

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is excited to announce Isabel Okoro as its inaugural Filmmaker-in-Residence.  
 
This new initiative, generously supported through private donor support and the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives Fund at the Faculty, provides a platform for emerging and mid-career filmmakers whose work reflects a commitment to historically underrepresented communities within the Faculty’s diverse disciplines. 

“I am thrilled that this new residency has begun this fall,” says Robert Levit, Acting Dean of the Daniels Faculty. “It’s an important demonstration of our desire at the Faculty to include as wide a range of voices and experiences as possible in the work we do and to encourage the kind of cross-fertilization of ideas that comes with such exchanges. I want to congratulate and thank everyone who worked toward bringing the residency about and very much look forward to Isabel’s time with us.” 

Running from early October to late November 2024, Okoro’s residency will engage a wide array of Daniels Faculty members, including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff through a series of workshops and a public lecture. The goal of the residency is to explore how cultural representations in film and video can build community, foster belonging and enhance engagement across the Faculty. 

Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria and now based in Toronto, Okoro produces multidisciplinary work inspired by her identity and the diverse community of creators from the global diaspora of which she is a part. Recent projects include the video installation it’s real, i watched it happen, exhibited during Nuit Blanche in Toronto, and the exhibition Constructing Eternity at FÁBRICA in Mexico City. 

As an artist whose work sits comfortably on the line of reality and imagination, world-building is Okoro’s preferred method of storytelling. She has spent the last three years developing the visual universe Eternity.  

“I think a lot about what is and how that informs what could be,” Okoro explains. “In moments of uncertainty and distress, I tend to find myself looking back at my dreams and imagining the stories I’d like to see. Dwelling in the present leaves very little to the imagination, so I find solace in my own visual universe, Eternity, where hope and trust in Black imagination is the sole foundation.” 

Her work is characterized by “Normatopia,” a concept she coined to describe a world where lived experiences—both good and bad—are central. “A Normatopia describes what is normal, not perfect,” Okoro notes. “So the question becomes, what is normal to me? I believe that normal is simply the right to be.” 

During a series of workshops over the Faculty’s Reading Week (October 28-November 1) and a public lecture on Wednesday, November 13 at 4:00 p.m., Okoro intends to expand on the factors she considers when world-building and developing her cinematic language—including discussions on research, screenwriting, directing, music and post-production.  

“My hope is that my time on campus will promote a transparent and inclusive space where students, faculty, and the surrounding community can hold space for one another while we experience the power of communal discussion and creation.” 

Details on how to participate in the workshops and registration for the public lecture will be published soon.  

Photo Credit: Bidemi Oloyede

A design team headed by JA Architecture Studio, the practice co-led by Assistant Professor Behnaz Assadi and alumnus and former lecturer Nima Javidi, has been selected by the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) to transform the grounds of its Toronto headquarters into “a more sustainable, accessible, artful and welcoming space.”

Called The Grounding Meadow, the winning design (pictured in slideshow above) was chosen anonymously by a five-person jury.

The design team, which also includes landscape architect and sessional lecturer Todd Douglas of Janet Rosenberg & Studio and civil engineer Kayam Ramsewak of MTE Consultants, receives a $20,000 prize and the job of refashioning the OAA property, which is located at 111 Moatfield Drive near the Don River. 

Praised for its “embrace of natural systems that allow the landscape to evolve as a biodiverse ecosystem with minimal intervention, as well as its thoughtful integration of public art and innovative stormwater-management strategies,” the winning proposal addresses the site both ecologically and culturally.

“It allows water to freely run underneath the wild meadow, bringing a more natural ecology to the site and welcoming stormwater to support and sustain the habitat,” says the OAA. “The project also pays homage to Indigenous communities by including plants of cultural significance, including a diversity of perennials and grasses that will also attract pollinators, wildlife and birds.”

“Our project,” explains Javidi, “tries to address the two core themes of the competition—climate change and Reconciliation—through one legible protagonist: the ground. We aimed to translate our awareness of the importance of land, its history and ecology into a spatial and experiential one.”

Assistant Professor Assadi adds: “By recalibrating the contours of the site, we converged the flow of water, people and plants into an ecological threshold where the overlay between the act of entering, the collection of water and the changing landscape will make the visitors physically aware of the interrelationship between architecture, access and ecology—an awareness long embedded into the Indigenous way of coexistence with nature.”

Launched in March, the OAA’s Landscape Design Competition challenged competitors to reimagine the terrain of the OAA headquarters as a symbol of design innovation, environmental sustainability and active community involvement, “creating an inviting space that respected environmental principles and celebrated the natural beauty of the Don River ravine.”

Among the eligibility requirements was that each team include a full member of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects (OALA) and a civil engineer. Membership in the OAA was not a requirement, although Javidi is an OAA architect.

In addition to the jury, a technical advisory team comprising a landscape architect, a civil engineer and a cost consultant, as well as senior OAA staff and members of its Building Committee, offered feedback on all submissions. The 19 interdisciplinary teams that submitted proposals were kept confidential from the jury and OAA.

For a full list of participating teams, visit the OAA website. Construction on the exterior overhaul is anticipated to begin in the spring of 2025. 

In addition to securing the OAA redesign, JA Architecture has also received an Honourable Mention in the international competition to design the Museum of History and the Future in Finland's oldest city, Turku.

Called Dot, Dot, Dot, Dot, JA’s design for the facility, on the tip of the Turku Peninsula, comprised a linear cluster of two-and-a-half-storey architectural volumes (one of which is shown below) that would maximize water views but be open at ground level to the city.

More than 400 proposals from around the world were accepted for evaluation.

The winning design, announced at Turku Castle on June 17, was submitted by Finnish firm Sigge Architects Ltd.

Jason Nguyen, Assistant Professor in the history and theory of architecture, is the 2024 beneficiary of the Mayflower Research Fund, the research endowment established by a generous donor in 2018 to encourage and stimulate study in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, allowing for collaboration with other areas of the University where appropriate.

Nguyen’s awarded research project, “Crafting Contracts: Law and the Architecture of Commemoration in Old Regime France,” looks at building practice and the regulatory bodies that structured it during the 17th and early 18th centuries in France. The project considers how reforms in contract and cost management contributed to a reframing of the architect as a civil and commercial figure at the dawn of the modern age.

Beyond its scholarly impact, the research is significant because it provides an historical instance in which debates on labour and project financing helped establish the scientific and institutional grounds on which the profession of architecture first came and continues to be practiced.

“The award means quite a lot, and is a testament to the work that I have been undertaking since my doctoral dissertation,” says Nguyen. “[The award] will help advance the project through one of the last stages of research, which considers how the streamlining of contract documentation abetted the professionalization of the architectural trade during a period of momentous social and intellectual change.”

In particular, this facet of the project examines how the architect and theorist Pierre Bullet (1639-1716) streamlined the drafting, notarizing and filing of legal contracts into professional architectural practice, taking a lawsuit that he and sculptor Philippe Magnier filed in November 1698 against the estate of Jean Coiffier de Ruzé, the Abbot of Effiat, as a starting point.

In that injunction, Bullet and Magnier sought compensation for drawings and models they had completed for the abbot, who had hired the pair to design and build a sumptuously decorated family mausoleum in Paris. When the abbot died unexpectedly in October 1698, he left a mountain of unpaid bills and, ultimately, insufficient direction and funding to see the mausoleum finished. The French court’s eventual decision, which privileged the architect’s contract, stands as a legal precedent in the professionalization of architectural practice.

Remarkably, Bullet had warned of labour and fee disputes in his treatise Architecture pratique (1691). The book included sample contracts as guides for architects to measure decoration and draft expedient legal documents. This move helped to formalize the architect’s civil function as a coordinator of labour and arbiter of taste in an increasingly commercial society. That Bullet’s study unfolded alongside contemporaneous theorizations of the social contract by the philosopher John Locke and habits and customs by the jurist Montesquieu testifies to the period’s broader concerns for legal order and the structures of modern governance.

“Contemporary conversations in Canada about labour rights and the politics of project financing and development have parallels in this formative moment in architectural history,” says Nguyen, who plans to apply his Mayflower funding to research-related travel, publishing, and student training.

“The training will include primary and secondary source documentation, mapping and digital reconstruction of since-lost buildings,” he says.

Nguyen’s broader project, of which this research is a part, is titled Bodies of Expertise: Architecture, Labour, and Law in Old Regime France. 

“Ultimately,” he says, “Bodies of Expertise will argue that the effort to establish a legal category of expertise, rooted in the labour and law of building practice, directly contributed to the professionalization of architectural practice as well as the crystallization of public and commercial culture at the dawn of the modern age.”

Aspects of this research have to date been published in a variety of journals, including Grey Room, Livraisons d’histoire de l’architecture and Oxford Art Journal.

Drawing image: An anonymous drawing, likely after Pierre Bullet, depicts the Mausoleum for Antoine Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis d’Effiat, at the convent of the Filles de la Croix in Paris (c. 1698). The drawing is housed in the Nationalmuseum Stockholm in Sweden.

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.

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.