Starting on Thursday, for the second time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Daniels Faculty will be holding its thesis reviews online. Students from the Master of Architecture program will be logging into Zoom to present projects that represent the culmination of their time and studies at the school.

Those presentations will be open to the public (click here to find out how to join) — but, with 62 students presenting, it's not going to be possible for anyone to attend all of them.

That's where the Fall 2020 Thesis Booklet, the latest edition of our biannual thesis guidebook, comes in. The booklet contains a short description of every student thesis project being presented this semester. Because we can't hand out copies in person, we've put it online.

Flip through it above, or download a copy to browse offline.

Sing Zixin Chen, a 2020 graduate of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Landscape Architecture program, is no stranger to accolades. She recently racked up another victory: one of her student projects received an honour award from the Society of American Registered Architects.

Sing's was one of six student designs recognized at the "honour" level (there is also a higher "excellence" level) of the the 2020 SARA National Design Awards, which are granted annually. She created her winning project for Longitudinal Landscapes: Memory, Medium, and Mobilization, a third-year option studio taught by Justine Holzman.

Sing Zixin Chen.

Students in Holzman's option studio studied the Los Angeles River, a once-natural waterway that now flows through Los Angeles in a manmade concrete channel. For their final projects, students developed proposals for redesigning the river, taking into consideration a real-world revitalization effort that is being led by the Army Corps of Engineers. The studio made a (pre-COVID) class trip to Los Angeles to view the site in person.

Sing approached the problem by thinking about the site's various users, both human and animal. Her project introduces a series of interventions designed to replicate the type of underwater environment that would be found in a natural river. At the same time, she widens the water channel to create space for human enjoyment.

Renderings of Sing's winning design.

The design creates different kinds of underwater habitats by manipulating the speed and direction of the river's flow. Tight curves and strategically placed underwater boulders and logs are intended to slow down the water, allowing the river to deposit sediment and form pools where fish can live. Shallower curves allow the water to speed up, creating areas ideal for recreational boating and other human activities. Along the river's banks, Sing envisioned a network of public amenities, including fishing platforms and parks.

"The naturalization of the Los Angeles River has been the subject of design and engineering exploration for over two decades," says Liat Margolis, director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Landscape Architecture program. "The SARA jury recognized that Sing's proposal offers a new possibility of braiding concrete and riparian vegetation to reconcile the extreme conditions of deluge, drought, and restoring the river's life."

The SARA award has been a confidence booster for Sing, who is now working her first job in the profession, as a landscape designer at SvN Architects + Planners. "I was really happy and honoured to win this award," she says. "This was one of my favourite school projects. I enjoyed it and the design studio. And having the chance to travel to Los Angeles was a fun and memorable experience."

Noor Alkhalili, a third-year Master of Architecture student at the Daniels Faculty, was singled out for a rare honour late last month. The Ontario Building Envelope Council named her as the recipient of its 2020 OBEC Graduate Research Scholarship.

OBEC, a group that connects professionals from architecture, engineering, construction, and related fields, awards the $1,000 scholarship annually to one graduate student. Recipients must have a record of academic achievement, and they also need to be pursuing research related to building science.

Alkhalili was presented with a framed certificate at a socially distanced award ceremony in November. She says the scholarship is both a personal honour and a reminder that the discipline of building science is becoming more important at Daniels. "I was really happy to have received this scholarship, especially considering that building science is still an emerging topic," she says. "It's not recognized as much as it needs to be, but it is a very important topic in architecture."

Alkhalili has spent her entire graduate career performing building science research. In her first year at Daniels, she worked with professor Ted Kesik on a conference paper about metrics for visual privacy in buildings. She has continued that work, and is now preparing to co-publish a journal article on the topic with Kesik and Terri Peters, an assistant professor at Ryerson University.

In 2019, Alkhalili and fellow MArch student Jing Li co-founded the Daniels Faculty's OBEC student chapter. And Alkhalili has been a TA in several building science courses at Daniels.

"Noor is a gifted student, a dedicated teaching assistant, and a tireless research assistant," Kesik says. "Soon she will graduate and become a valued colleague. Her journey at Daniels is a testament to the dreams that become reality when the hard work of our students is generously sponsored by scholarships and bursaries."

Top image: Noor Alkhalili.

Alumni, future students, and members of the public are welcome to join us for final reviews. Daniels Faculty students in architecture, landscape, and urban design will present their final projects to their instructors, as well as guest critics from the professional community and local and international academic institutions. 

This semester the Daniels Building is closed to the public, because of COVID-19. As a result, all reviews will be held online, on Zoom. If you'd like to attend, all you have to do is pre-register on Eventbrite and you'll receive login instructions for Daniels On Air.

We welcome our alumni/members of the professional community tuning in to this year’s reviews. Although we won’t be able to greet you personally, please do let us know if you plan to attend the online reviews by confirming your name/affiliation with jacqueline.raaflaub@daniels.utoronto.ca. Your continued engagement with the Daniels Faculty and its talented students is appreciated by us all.

Register for Graduate Reviews on Eventbrite now

Register for Undergraduate Reviews on Eventbrite now

See our Daniels Reviews Online - Instructions

Follow UofTDaniels on Twitter and Instagram and join the conversation using the hashtag #DanielsReviews. All reviews take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (unless otherwise stated). Please note that the times and dates of the review schedule may change.

Monday, December 14 | Undergraduate

Drawing and Representation I ARC100H1F
Instructors: James Macgillivray, Genevieve Simms, Fiona Lim Tung, Daniel Briker, Chloe Town, Danielle Whitley, David Verbeek, Kearon Roy Taylor, Nicolas Barrette, Scott Norsworthy, Anne Ma, Tom Ngo, Nuria Montblanch, Andrea Rodriguez Fos, Kara Verbeek, Luke Duross, Jamie Lipson

Tuesday, December 15 | Undergraduate

Drawing and Representation II ARC200H1F
Instructors: Michael Piper, Francesco Martire, Leon Lai, Simon Rabyniuk, Sam Ghantous, Katy Chey, Samuel Dufaux, Mohammed Soroor, Monica Hutton

Design Studio II: How to design almost nothing
ARC201H1F Instructors: Miles Gertler, Jennifer Kudlats, Aleris Rodgers, Brian O'Brian

Wednesday, December 16 | Undergraduate

Architecture Studio III ARC361Y1F
Instructors: Petros Babasikas, Anne-Marie Armstrong, Adrian Phiffer

Landscape Architecture Studio III ARC363Y1F
Instructors: Behnaz Assadi

Technology Studio III ARC380Y1F
Instructors: Nicholas Hoban, Nathan Bishop

Thursday, December 17 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory ARC456H1F
Instructors: Jeannie Kim

Senior Seminar in Design (Research) ARC461H1F
Instructors: Jeannie Kim

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research) ARC486H1F
Instructors: Nicholas Hoban

Friday, December 18 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Research) ARC456H1F
Instructors: Jeannie Kim

Senior Seminar in Design (Research) ARC461H1F
Instructors: Jeannie Kim

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research) ARC486H1F
Instructors: Nicholas Hoban

Friday, December 11 | Graduate

Design Studio I ARC1011YF
Instructors: Vivian Lee, Tei Carpenter, Miles Gertler, Sam Ghanthous, Aleris Rodgers, Carol Moukheiber, Maria Denegri

Design Studio I (The Language of Landscape) LAN1011YF 
Instructors: Behnaz Assadi, Peter North, Elnaz Sanati

Monday, December 14 | Graduate

Design Studio III (Integrated Urbanism Studio) ARC2013YF / LAN2013YF / URD1011YF
Coordinators: Fadi Masoud, Mason White, Michael Piper
academic.daniels.utoronto.ca/urbanism

Tuesday, December 15 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research I ARC3020YF

(L9101) Redeployable Architecture for Health—Pop-up Hospitals for Covid-19
Instructor: Stephen Verderber

(L9103) STUFF 
Instructor: Laura Miller

(L9105) ARCHITECTURE ♥ MEDIA
Instructors: Lara Lesmes, Fredrik Hellberg

(L9106) Designing Buildings with Complex Programs on Constrained Urban Sites that include Heritage Structures
Instructor: George Baird

Design Studio Option LAN3016YF: Toronto Ravines—CREATURE
Instructor: Alissa North

Design Studio Option LAN3016YF: Our Plant Relations and Decolonizing Design
Instructor: Sheila Boudreau

Wednesday, December 16 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research I ARC3020YF

(L9107) What is Inclusive Architecture (Landscape Architecture, Urban Design)?
Instructor: Elisa Silva

(L9108) The Usual Suspects 
Instructors: Filipe Magalhaes, Ahmed Belkhodja, Ana Luisa Soares

(L9109) Towards Half: Climate Positive Design in the GTHA
Instructor: Kelly Doran

(L9110) Anthropocene and Herd
Instructor: Gilles Saucier, Christian Joakim, Gregory Neudorf

Design Studio Option LAN3016YF: Our Plant Relations and Decolonizing Design
Instructor: Sheila Boudreau

Design Studio Option LAN3016YF:  Mediated Reconstructions: Developing a historiographic design method in landscape
Instructor: Aisling O'Carroll

Design Studio III URD2013YF
Instructors: Angus Laurie, Mariana Leguia

Thursday, December 17 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio VII: Thesis ARC4018YF
Instructors: Adrian Phiffer, Petros Babasikas, Laura Miller, Robert Levit, John Shnier, Michael Piper, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Carol Moukheiber

Friday, December 18 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio VII: Thesis ARC4018YF
Instructors: Adrian Phiffer, Petros Babasikas, Laura Miller, Robert Levit, John Shnier, Michael Piper, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Carol Moukheiber

Post-Professional Thesis I ALA4021YF (12:00-4:00 pm)
Instructors: Mason White (Coordinator), Adrian Phiffer, Maria Yablonina, Carol Moukheiber, Jesse LeCavalier

Photo by Harry Choi.

A project by associate professor Jesse LeCavalier has made the shortlist in a competition to envision an ambitious future for Sudbury, Ontario.

Le Cavalier's project is one of eight finalists in Sudbury 2050, a design competition initiated by the McEwen School of Architecture, at Laurentian University. The competition brief called upon entrants to create proposals for a complete overhaul of Sudbury's city centre, keeping in mind the city's setting amidst the forests of Northern Ontario, its history as a mining town, and its future as a hub for research and development. The jury includes Marianne McKenna, of KPMB Architects, and Bruce Mau, of Bruce Mau Studio.

LeCavalier titled his design "Alimentary Urbanism" — a name meant to suggest a style of redevelopment that places residents and their wellbeing ahead of financial profits. The core of the proposal is a pair of new rail spurs that connect the existing Sudbury VIA Rail station with the downtown GOVA transit hub and the nearby Elm Place shopping centre. These new spurs would become the centrepiece of a new network of rail lines that would provide rapid transit, community programming, and other services to neighbourhoods throughout the city centre.

As a way of leveraging all this new rail, Alimentary Urbanism proposes transforming Sudbury's former mining sites into locations for new industries, like agriculture, cold storage, and geotourism. The proposal also calls for substantial new land development. The city would conduct a survey of its existing building stock and decommission obsolete structures so that the space they occupy could be repurposed for collective uses. The businesses that occupy those old buildings would be incentivized to move their operations into modern mass-timber structures alongside the new rail corridors.

The project was developed with assistance from Jake Rosenwald, Connor Stevens, Jennifer Tran, Siqi Wang, and Michael Wideman.

To learn more about Alimentary Urbanism and the other Sudbury 2050 finalists, visit the Sudbury 2050 website.

Top image: A slide from the Alimentary Urbanism master plan.

Statement from the Dean's Office

Earlier today, President Gertler made a University-wide announcement about an important change in the start date for winter term. This shift is intended to support the U of T community's health and wellness during an unprecedented time. 

I understand how difficult this year has been for so many in our Daniels Faculty community, and I want to assure you the wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff remains our highest priority. That is why winter break will be extended by one week for all Daniels undergraduate and graduate students.

The new start date for Daniels Faculty winter 2021 undergraduate and graduate classes is January 11.

This extra time will allow us to regroup and refresh before our next term begins. As a reminder, all winter 2021 classes, labs, and tutorials will be conducted online.

Reading week dates will remain the same (February 15-19), and any previously scheduled field courses will continue remotely during that time as planned. Classes will end on April 9; final exams and reviews will be completed by April 30.

While our classes will start on January 11, the University will still be reopening on January 4. President Gertler also announced three additional paid days off for staff, to be taken individually or as a block. At the Daniels Faculty, only essential staff-related meetings are to occur during the week of January 4–January 8. Managers will meet with staff to discuss how we can organize this time to provide as much of a break as possible during this week.

We will share more information about what to expect next term very soon. The Daniels Faculty COVID-19 FAQs will be updated to reflect new information on an ongoing basis, as will the UTogether website.

For now, I want to reinforce how important it is to strike a balance between work and the other aspects of our lives. If you ever feel that it's impossible to find that balance, remember that we are here to support you. Ask for help, and you will receive it.

Lauren Shiga is one of U of T's 26 divisional student ambassadors participating in this fall's virtual convocation event (photo by Matthew Volpe)

Article by Geoffrey Vendeville originally posted on U of T News 

On a recent morning, University of Toronto architecture student Lauren Shiga stood outside the north facade of the Daniels Building at One Spadina Crescent to record a congratulatory message for the Class of 2020.

She was joined by Robert Wright, the interim dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and – just beyond the camera’s frame – a pair of beaming parents.

“We all worked really hard to get our degree,” Shiga told U of T News after the shoot wrapped up. “I know it was really challenging sometimes and I know friends who pulled all-nighters trying to finish their projects on time.”

That’s in addition to the challenges that arose in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need to adapt to online classes.

Shiga is one of 26 divisional student ambassadors representing U of T’s faculties and colleges, as well as U of T Mississauga and U of T Scarborough, who will make a cameo in this fall’s virtual convocation, which will be made available for public viewing on Nov. 21 at 12 p.m. EST. There are also three student welcome ambassadors who appear in the video, each representing one of U of T’s three campuses. (See the full list of student ambassadors here.)

For only the second time in the university’s history, U of T graduates – more than 5,200 of them – will receive their degrees in absentia.

Shiga says she plans to watch the virtual convocation with friends, in addition to celebrating in person with her family and others in her social bubble.

Keep reading on U of T News

Take me to the Fall 2020 Convocation Hub

The Daniels Building is now a canvas for a giant-sized mural that serves as a call to action for dismantling systemic racism in the discipline of design.

The temporary installation, which spells out the words "Support Black Designers" in large letters, now occupies the wall of windows on the building's north facade. The words are visible to anyone travelling south of Willcocks Street on Spadina Avenue, one of downtown Toronto's busiest traffic arteries.

The mural project was a community effort by the Daniels Art Directive, a student-run art group. The design is the work of two Daniels Faculty alumni, Ashita Parekh and Tolu Alabi.

Each letter is made up of "pixels" — individual poster-sized pages, some of which are decorated with artwork submitted by designers in response to a call for pixel designs over the summer. The mural's creators received 84 pixel submissions, but decided to include only the ones that were created by Black designers — which turned out to be about 20 per cent of the total.

"The original call was open to everyone," Parekh says. "But after consultation with faculty members and students at Daniels who are Black, we realized that it was not right to give this platform to people who were non-Black. The Black creatives could not be a minority."

The mural is intended as a call to improve diversity and inclusivity in the design disciplines, where Black creatives have historically been underrepresented. "There need to be opportunities for students and designers to understand the benefits that Black people have provided within the design industry," Alabi says. "And for them to understand that Black people have always been essential to the design industry."

The Daniels Faculty has committed to creating a culture of inclusion. "It is important to understand how vital the input and work of our students has been in helping us understand issues around systemic racism in our institutions and professions," says interim dean Robert Wright. "We are learning every day from students, designers, and artists who are educating and transforming this faculty. The 'Support Black Designers' mural is a great demonstration of how the Daniels Faculty can do better."

"These words have power, but they must be followed by action," Wright adds. "I'm glad to share that we are now in the final stages of hiring our first-ever director of equity, diversity, and inclusion. This position will have a mandate to advance our equity goals. In addition to that, we're continuing to work with faculty, staff, and students on efforts to decolonize our curriculum."

“We are honoured to support this message, and the Black creatives who contributed,” says Michelle Ng, a founder of the Daniels Art Directive. “We were pleased when Tolu and Ashita’s design won the community vote, as it is crucial that we — as students and members of society — listen to and amplify Black voices in design. Through community consultation on this project, we learned and unlearned our own biases. While this mural is temporary, we hope to continue creating, sharing and supporting more platforms for Black voices in order to inspire change in design.”

To view the mural in person, visit the north side of Spadina Crescent. The best viewing angle is directly behind the Daniels Building, on the sidewalk. (Visitors are advised not to stand in the street.)

The mural was created with the assistance of lead sponsor Vistaprint.

For more information on the mural project, or for a closer look at the pixel art, visit the Support Black Designers website.

Photograph by Guershom Kitsa.

Louisa Kennett, a third-year student in the Daniels Faculty's Master of Landscape Architecture program, has been named the 2020 recipient of the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation University of Toronto Scholarship, a $1,000 award that recognizes students who exemplify landscape architecture scholarship.

The award was endowed in 2017, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects. Candidates are selected by Daniels Faculty instructors and approved the LACF.

In a letter announcing the award, the LACF praised Louisa for her "excellence in communication and demonstrated strength in leadership, character, and participation."

For Louisa, receiving the LACF scholarship was a pleasant surprise. "I'm very grateful for the support of the MLA faculty," she says. "This award really encourages me to continue developing my skills and knowledge in this exciting field."

Before coming to the Daniels Faculty, Louisa graduated from Queen's University with a Bachelor of Science in biology. She had no previous background in design. "Landscape architecture excited me because it's able to address both social and environmental issues," she says. "One of the great things about this field is that it draws people from so many different backgrounds."

After overcoming some early difficulties with acclimating to design software and design culture, Louisa began to distinguish herself in the MLA program. For the past year, she has worked as a research assistant to assistant professor Fadi Masoud, director of the Centre for Landscape Research. Her work at the CLR has focused on developing revitalization strategies for Toronto's suburban green spaces.

"Louisa is a stellar student who demonstrates extraordinary capacity for design as well as history and theory," says Liat Margolis, director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Landscape Architecture program. "I congratulate her on this well-deserved national recognition."

A rendering from moveTO.

Her recent coursework includes "moveTO," an imaginative design for an extension of the West Toronto Railpath. The project, which Kennett co-created with fellow student Allison Smith, employs a long, continuous tube of steel called "the spine," which twists into various useful shapes — like benches and basketball hoops — as it traverses the Railpath corridor.

For more information on the LACF University of Toronto scholarship, visit the LACF website.

Daniels Radio logo design by Mark Bennett.

The Daniels Faculty's students are known for their command of visual and architectural design, but now some of them are entering new territory: audio. A group of undergraduates and professors has released the first episode of Daniels Radio, a podcast about the student experience at the Faculty.

The inaugural episode is embedded below, and can also be downloaded right here.

The podcast's production is being organized by two faculty members, assistant professor Peter Sealy and assistant professor Jay Pooley. But they don't appear on the podcast itself: all of talking, editing, music, and art direction is being handled by Daniels students. (Faculty members may make contributions to future episodes, but the project will continue to be student-focused.) "We're not speaking for the school, but allowing the school to speak," Pooley says.

The first episode, titled "Black Lives Matter," focuses on the Black experience, both within the Daniels Faculty and in the broader world.

The episode is split into two segments. The first is a conversation between Renée Powell-Hines, Elvin Kaunda, and Doryne Nduka, three Black undergraduate students. The second part of the episode is a conversation between Guershom Kitsa, an African-Canadian student who also serves as the episode's host and editor, and Foli, a Chinese-Canadian student who was one of the episode's musical directors.

"Something that came up constantly throughout Black Lives Matter was a lot of people asking: 'Hey, how can we be allies?' And that’s a very important question to ask, because that’s also a question I needed to ask," Kitsa says. "Allyship is listening."

The podcast will continue to be produced on an irregular basis, by Pooley, Sealy, and a rotating crew of student contributors. The next episode will be about the experiences of women in design fields.

Episode 1: Black Lives Matter

Featuring:
Guershom Kitsa, host and editor
Renée Powell-Hines, segment writer
Elvin Kaunda, segment writer
Doryne Nduka, segment writer
Foli, co-musical director
Mark Bennett, art director and co-musical director

Click here to download a full transcript.