Tuesday, April 8 – Wednesday, April 30
Daniels Building
1 Spadina Crescent

Whether you're a future student, an alum or a member of the public with an interest in architecture, landscape architecture or urban design—you're invited to join the Daniels Faculty for Winter 2025 Reviews taking place April 9-30.  

Throughout the month, 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 for updates and join the conversation using the hashtags #danielsreviews and #danielsreviews25. 

Please note that times and dates are subject to change. 

Tuesday, April 8 | Undergraduate 

Design + Engineering I (ARC112) 
Instructors: Jennifer Davis (Coordinator), Natalia Semenova, Mohammed Soroor 
Room: 200 

Wednesday, April 9 | Undergraduate 

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
Drawing and Representation II (ARC200) 
Instructors: Michael Piper (Coordinator), Samantha Eby, Aziza Chaouni 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Design Studio I (JAV101) 
Instructors: Jeffrey Garcia (Coordinator), Phat Le, Francesco Valente-Gorjup, Mahsa Malek, Marcin Kedzior, Youssef el Helou, Scott Sorli, Mariano Martellacci, Harry Wei, Onah Jung, Danielle Whitley, Kara Verbeek 
Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330, 340, PM: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Thursday, April 10 | Graduate 

Landscape Design Studio 2 (LAN1012) 
Instructors: Liat Margolis (Coordinator), Terence Radford, Agata Mrozowski 
Rooms: 230, 330 

Urban Design Studio 2 (URD1012) 
Instructors: Carol Moukheiber, Kanwal Aftab 
Room: Main Hall (170B) 

Friday, April 11 | Undergraduate and Graduate 

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
Design Studio II (ARC201) 
Instructors: Fiona Lim Tung (Coordinator), Anne Ma, Katy Chey, Maria Denegri, David Verbeek, Daniel Briker, Jennifer Kudlats, Lara Hassani, Kara Verbeek, Francesco Martire 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B, 170C), 215, 230, 240, 242, 315, 340 

Landscape Design Studio 4 (LAN2014) 
Instructors: Robert Wright (Coordinator), Todd Douglas 
Room: 330 

Monday, April 14 | Graduate 

Design Studio 2 (ARC1012) 
Instructors: Behnaz Assadi (Coordinator), Fiona Lim Tung, John Shnier, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Vivian Lee, Francesco Martire
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B, 170C), 230, 330 

Tuesday, April 15 | Graduate 

MLA Design Studio Thesis (LAN3017) 
Advisors: Elise Shelley (Coordinator), Fadi Masoud, Alissa North, Peter North, Liat Margolis, Francesco Martire, Robert Wright 
Room: 209, 215, 230, 240, 242, 330 

Wednesday, April 16 | Graduate 

MLA Design Studio Thesis (LAN3017) 
Advisors: Elise Shelley (Coordinator), Fadi Masoud, Alissa North, Peter North, Liat Margolis, Francesco Martire, Robert Wright 
Room: 209, 215, 230, 240, 242, 330 

MUD Urban Design Studio Thesis (URD2015) 
Advisors: Mason White (Coordinator), Michael Piper, Zahra Ebrahim 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B) 

Thursday, April 17 | Undergraduate and Graduate 

9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 
Post-Professional Thesis (ALA4022) 
Advisors: Mason White (Coordinator), Christos Marcopolous, Carol Moukheiber, Miles Gertler, Noheir Elgendy 
Room: 209, 242, Second-Floor Hallway 

10:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. 
Comprehensive Studio III (ARC369) 
Instructors: Daniel Briker (Coordinator), Mauricio Quiros-Pachecho, Fiona Lim Tung 
Room: 230, 330 

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. 
Landscape Architecture Studio IV (ARC364) 
Instructor: Peter North 
Room: 240 

Monday, April 21 | Graduate 

Architectural Design Studio 4 (ARC2014) 
Instructors: Sam Dufaux (Coordinator), Brigitte Shim, Jon Cummings, Daniel Chung 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B), 230, 330 

Tuesday, April 22 | Graduate 

Architectural Design Studio 4 (ARC2014) 
Instructors: Sam Dufaux (Coordinator), James Macgillivray, Maria Denegri, Christopher Cornecelli 
Room: Main Hall (170A, 170B), 230 

Wednesday, April 23 | Undergraduate 

Architecture Studio IV (ARC362) 
Instructors: Shane Williamson (Coordinator), Chloe Town, Mariana Leguia Alegria  
Room: Main Hall (170B), 230, 330 

Thursday, April 24 | Undergraduate 

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
Design and Community-Engagement Capstone Project (ARC490) 
Instructor: Michael Piper 
Room: Main Hall (170C)  

Architecture Studio IV (ARC381) 
Instructors: Paul Howard Harrison, Suzan Ibrahim 
Room: 230 

Undergraduate Thesis 

• Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis) (ARC457) 
  Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk 
  Room: Main Hall (170A) 
   

• Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis) (ARC462) 
  Instructor: Jeannie Kim  
  Room: Main Hall (170B/C) 
   

• Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis) (ARC487) 
  Instructor: Nicholas Hoban  
  Room: 330 

Friday, April 25 | Undergraduate 

Undergraduate Thesis 

• Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis) (ARC457) 
  Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk 
  Room: Main Hall (170A) 
   

• Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis) (ARC462) 
  Instructor: Jeannie Kim  
  Room: AM: 230, Main Hall (170B/170C)
   

• Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis) (ARC487) 
  Instructor: Nicholas Hoban  
  Room: 330 

Monday, April 28 | Graduate 

MARC Thesis – Architectural Design Studio (ARC3021) 

• Making with Machines 
  Advisor: Maria Yablonina 
  Room: Main Hall (170A)  
   

• LUNAR HABITAT: Design for Extreme Environments as a Driver of Architectural Innovation 
  Advisor: Brady Peters 
  Room: Main Hall (170B)  
   

• Architecture and the Right to Housing: The Practical Case for Radicalism  
  Advisor: Karen Kubey 
  Room: Main Hall (170C), 209 
   

• Architecture and Health Equity in an Imperiled World 
  Advisor: Stephen Verderber 
  Room: 230 
   

• String Figures 
  Advisor: Jeannie Kim 
  Room: 330, Library, AM: First-Floor Hallway, Commons near East Entrance 

Tuesday, April 29 | Graduate 

MARC Thesis – Architectural Design Studio (ARC3021) 

• LOBSTER TALES and Other Architectures Between Land and Sea 
  Advisor: Richard Sommer 
  Room: Main Hall (170A), 242 (PM) 
   

• Rehearsing the Parade: Ephemeral Architectures and Persuasion on the Move  
  Advisor: Miles Gertler 
  Rooms: AM: Main Hall (170B), 209, 230, PM: 209, 240, 315 
   

• Politics Policy and Architecture 
  Advisor: Michael Piper 
  Room: Main Hall (170C) 
   

• The Certainty of Uncertain Forms, or in search of anexact typologies / The Stone Edition Advisor: Carol Moukheiber 
  Room: 242 (AM), 330 

Wednesday, April 30 | Undergraduate 

10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
Advanced Topics in Architecture: Tools for Close Observation (ARC465)
Instructor: Zac Mollica 
Room: 230 

2:00-6:00 p.m. 
Advanced Topics in the Technology of Architecture: Attributes of Aliveness: Human-Computer Interaction in Design (ARC480)
Instructor: Humbi Song 
Room: 209, 230, 242

The annual Thesis Booklets showcasing the final projects of graduate and undergraduate students at the Daniels Faculty are now available online. 

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

Thesis Booklets are a Daniels Faculty tradition, printed for and distributed to students, as well as thesis advisors, external reviewers and guests during the final reviews period.

Flip through the latest booklets below or download PDF versions (Graduate, Undergraduate).

Graduate Thesis Booklet:

Undergraduate Thesis Booklet:

Three exhibitions coming up this spring at the Daniels Faculty will highlight the diverse academic and artistic research that students across our graduate and undergraduate programs have undertaken this year. 

Sixty-four students from the undergraduate thesis cohorts in Visual Studies (BAVS) and Architectural Studies (BAAS) will present their work in Studio, Critical Practices, Design, History and Theory, and Technology in two exhibitions: As the Archive Dreams on view at Foy House (92 Isabella St.) from April 17 to April 19, and Scales of Inquiry on view in the Daniels Building from May 22 to June 27.

The BAVS exhibition, As the Archive Dreams, posits the archive as a living network—an assemblage of memories and stories and objects that transcends time. It tends to the roots of the archive not as a static repository, but as a dynamic apparatus of preservation and transformation. The works within the exhibition draw upon personal histories, cultural narratives, communal knowledges, and proverbial legacies to reinterpret processes of remembrance and renewal. Visitors are invited to engage in the archival process, witnessing and contributing to ever-evolving temporal narratives that situate the archive as both a keeper of the past and an active participant in the present and the future. Here, as the archive dreams, it stands as testimonial to action, transformation, and the enduring power of memory; it is imbued with life. Mark your calendar for the exhibition opening on Thursday, April 17, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. 

The BAAS exhibition, Scales of Inquiry, meditates on the foundational concept of scale within design disciplines. It questions why, despite this foundation, the idea of scale itself seems to fall to the background, often reemerging only in discussions of representation and scope. Drawn to the immediate legibility afforded by a scalar logic, this exhibition organizes itself around a diverse range of design and research projects, sidestepping the simplicity of unilateral sorting by considering diverging conceptualizations of scale and scalability. Working between ideas from Charles and Ray Eames’s iconic Powers of Ten and Anna Tsing’s meditations on nonscalability and real world frictions, Scales of Inquiry moves beyond normative notions of scale, aiming to reflect the confluence of existing rational systems while challenging those same systems through subtle deviation and strategic disruption. 

In tandem, these exhibitions ponder memory, mutability, and friction as they manifest in time and space. The presented works themselves embody these concepts, not only through their conceptual and technical focuses, but in their prescription as thesis projects that simultaneously cumulate the past and hold future potential. Collectively, the 2025 undergraduate thesis cohort presents an assortment of works that survey what exists and speculates on what could be, inviting and intuiting worlds beyond the one we inhabit. 

The End of Year Show 2024/2025 (May 23–June 27, 2025) showcases a broad spectrum of student work from across the degree programs at the Daniels Faculty throughout the past academic year. Organized by Office In Search Of (OISO), an interdisciplinary design practice founded by Daniels Faculty lecturers Brandon Bergem and Jeffrey Garcia, this exhibition celebrates the creative accomplishments of our students and their commitment to reshaping the future. Current students interested in submitting their work from the Fall 2024 and Winter 2025 terms can do so via the online form by May 4. 

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

A community-focused exhibition that documents and celebrates the experiences, spaces and places that have significance to Black Torontonians will open in the Faculty’s Architecture + Design Gallery on Tuesday, March 11.

Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto is an interactive exhibition and geolocated digital archive featuring over 500 stories and 12 commissioned short films created by more than 150 Black Torontonians. 

Facilitated by afrOURban Inc. and the Museum of Toronto, it will run in the Daniels Building until April 14.

The multifaceted project exemplifies how oral narratives, filmmaking and exhibitions can be both archival and aspirational—archival in celebrating the diversity of Black life and communities in Canada’s largest city and aspirational in articulating the hopes and dreams that manifest within the built environment.

In 2024, architect and academic Kholisile Dhliwayo discussed the tenets and methodology behind Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto (as well as a Naarm-Melbourne version) as part of the Faculty’s annual Public Program series.

Dhliwayo is a founding member of afrOURban Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and celebrating the spaces that have meaning to Black communities worldwide.

Since 2017, the organization has, in addition to Toronto and Melbourne, hosted exhibits and screenings in Manahatta-New York City, Tiohtià:ke-Montreal and Warrane-Sydney. The Black Diasporas project was started by afrOURban in 2020.

Located on the lower level of the Daniels Building, the Architecture + Design Gallery is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

To watch Dhliwayo’s 2024 lecture at Daniels, visit the Faculty’s YouTube channel by clicking here.

Image by Bonn Creative from the exhibition Black Diasporas Naarm-Melbourne.

The Integrated Urbanism Studio (ARC2013/LAN2013/URD1011) serves as a core component of the architecture, landscape architecture and urban design programs at the Daniels Faculty, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to address the complex challenges of 21st-century urbanism. 

During the Fall 2024 term, the graduate studio focused on the decommissioned Downsview Airfield in Toronto—a transformative project with the potential to house over 80,000 residents. This ambitious undertaking positions Downsview as one of North America's most significant urban redevelopments, offering a unique platform for students to explore and address critical urban planning and design issues.  

Students developed transformative schemes from creating a new agricultural food hub and an integrated water management system, to reevaluating systems of home ownership and reconsidering the site as a regenerative landscape. Read on to learn more about the diverse array of group projects.

Block-by-Block 

Students: Jason Chen, Riling Chen, Shixun (Peter) Wang, Zixuan (Kathy) Zhou 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Chloe Town 
Website: rescaling-downsview.cargo.site

"Downsview Airport, located in the northern part of Toronto, is a site shaped by its aviation history. Following its decommissioning, the linear runway remains vacant, resembling a gash in the landscape and surrounded by isolated neighborhoods that function like archipelagos. The unused land has become the subject of intense speculation, particularly for condominium developments. However, these large-scale, top-down plans often result in homogeneous ownership models and architectural typologies, which deter social diversity. 

Our scheme, Block-by-Block, explores the question: How can we build incrementally? At the urban scale, we re-evaluate the rectilinear property lines that define much of Toronto’s fabric and systems of ownership. These alternative ownership models facilitate smaller scale building typologies, fostering more intimate and interconnected communities. At the individual scale, each unit is designed to be flexible, equipped with essential plumbing and electrical infrastructure but left unfinished, allowing residents to customize their spaces according to their needs and preferences." 

Terrain Bound 

Students: Kiana Rezvani Baghae, Benjamin Dunn, Patrick Minardi, Orly Sacke 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: terrainbound.cargo.site

"Terrain Bound challenges the convention of boundary-making in city-building processes, arguing that large scale developments should be planned holistically, in connection with adjacent communities and with respect to existing ecologies. Downsview’s history as an airport has been defined by the assertion of rigid boundaries. While the airport’s function has ceased, its legacy persists in the surrounding neighbourhood. Our project identifies key boundary conditions and reimagines them as opportunities to bridge, buffer, and rebalance Downsview’s insular condition."

Reimagining Urbanism Through Integrated Agriculture 

Students: Abby MacEwen, Amanda Nightingale, Denise Akman, Noel Sampson 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Mauricio Quirós Pacheco  
Website: nadasuperstufinal.cargo.site

"Toronto has lost 62.5% of its agricultural land, and with a growing population and the climate crisis, this project puts food security at the forefront of its development. This project transforms an industrial site into a new urban food hub, integrating agriculture across community, public, industrial, and institutional scales (S-M-L-XL). Through vertical farming retrofits to hangar buildings, banded field/greenhouse conditions, a new food terminal, and strategic connectivity, the site evolves as population and food needs grow. It envisions a self-sustaining urbanism, where housing and food production coexist, creating resilient systems that redefine city living—balancing density, sustainability, and food security as an essential urban infrastructure." 

Diverse and Connected 

Students: Zahra (Asal) Cheraghi, Neha Haider, Pablo Vasquez Segura 
Program: MUD 
Instructor: Roberto Damiani 

"The project restores connectivity by integrating the site into the city fabric through three public connectors linked to the ecological network. An east-west green connector and extended street networks strengthen ties to the urban context, while the former runway becomes a vibrant pedestrian strip. Four distinct districts emerge, featuring diverse building typologies that balance density, porosity, and privacy. Green fingers activate Downsview Park, and existing structures are adaptively reused as amenities, unifying the overall vision." 

Embracing Afterlife 

Students: Angela Jang, Claire Leverton, Georgia Posno, Lauren Tran 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud
Website: embracingafterlife.cargo.site

"Embracing Afterlife explores the evolving narrative of Downsview Park, where the past, present, and future coexist. The park’s ecological memory, shaped by history, climate, and industrialization, leaves traces in its soil and plant communities. Our guiding quote, 'every environment bears a palimpsest of its past. Every woodland is a memoir made of leaves and microbes that catalog its 'ecological memory,' helped encourage us to think beyond the site as it presently exists. 

Our project honors this afterlife by integrating the site’s history, particularly the runway’s past into its future design. By repurposing materials like old concrete, fallen trees and stone, we created an integrated circulation plan that reflect the potentiality of the site as a highly regenerative landscape. Interwoven through these repurposed materials is a robust planting plan that aims to remediate the site’s soil from chemicals and create a multi-seasonal space that entirely leads with landscape."

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once 

Students: Ardy Chang, Nathan Shakura, Sharon Lam, Siena Buzzelli 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Christos Marcopoulos 
Website: integrated-urbanism.cargo.site

"Key terms that we examine throughout our project are: ultimate mixed use, fine grain, weaving, democratic planning, community life.  The overarching concept for our proposed plan of Downsview Park involves the homogenous redistribution of the Framework Plan to weave together land use patterns of Toronto.  We are critiquing the Framework plan which proposes an urban 'island', neglecting its surrounding neighbourhoods.  Our project considers what mixed use means at the scale of the community and the city.  We approach mixed use design by splitting up and rearranging the Framework’s land use plan evenly throughout Downsview Park. The Framework Plan is developer driven and we are challenging it with a radically democratic, fine grain, community-driven project." 

Runways to Waterways 

Students: Andy Lee, Ryan Grover, Olivier Beaudoin, Ram Espino 
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: runwaystowaterways.cargo.site 

"Runways to Waterways transforms Downsview’s former airfield into an integrated water management and urban ecology system. Positioned at the ridge of Toronto’s watersheds, it captures, stores, and filters water, mitigating lowland flooding while creating biodiverse public spaces. Repurposed runways form basins that direct stormwater through cloudburst roads, detention streets, and green corridors back into the Humber and Don Rivers. These interventions not only slow water, but establish dynamic spaces for recreation, education, and ecological restoration." 

GREEN THREADS: Weaving Nature Through Urban Hyperdensity 

Students: Jack Ahn, Casper Li, Suet Wing (Sylvia) Lo  
Program: MLA 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud 
Website: highdens.cargo.site

"GREEN THREADS: Weaving Nature Through Urban Hyperdensity is a visionary response to Toronto’s rapid growth and escalating urban sprawl. This high-density experiment challenges conventional development by seamlessly integrating nature and city life, creating a compact, efficient, and vibrant urban fabric. Drawing from global precedents, it weaves together a transit-oriented nucleus, mixed-use towers, and dynamic public spaces—maximizing vertical and horizontal potential to cultivate a resilient, livable, and ecologically adaptive future." 

The Strip

Students: Nour Fahmy, Timothy Soribello, Ming Yin 
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Samantha Eby 
Website: downsviewthestrip.cargo.site   

"The Strip explores the role of open spaces in urban settings, questioning what draws people to gather and how design can foster connectivity, inclusivity, and a sense of community. Through a carefully designed framework of the strips, each with distinct functions and typologies, we have created a dynamic and adaptable environment that encourages diverse social, cultural, and economic activities. This approach not only accommodates the growing needs of the population but also strengthens the collective identity of Downsview, making it a vibrant and welcoming destination for all." 

Downsview in Reciprocity 

Students: Olivia Chan, Susan Xi, Ariel Zhang   
Program: MARC 
Instructor: Mariana Leguia Alegria 

"The proposal for Downsview reimagines Toronto living as a community-centric and regenerative urban model of local food production, affordable housing, and sustainable infrastructure. Strategies of adaptive reuse and flexible planning are prioritized while providing design agency for residents. In reciprocity, community members become stewards of the land and actively participate in culture sharing and learning through nature as they engage with the social amenities within the central park and its green-fingers that weave the site back into the surrounding context." 

Production City

Students: Huzaifa Chughtai, Jacob Majak, Oliver Parsons
Program: MARC
Instructor: David Verbeek

"Downsview, with its vast expanses of underutilized land, presents a unique opportunity to address farmland loss caused by urban sprawl. Production City utilizes Downsview to develop a prototype for harmonious relationships between food production, the city, nature, and people. By employing the Westland greenhouse model, we aim to boost food production through urban agriculture. This method utilizes UV lights for year-round plant growth, allowing us to ultimately feed nearly 80,000 people, about 75% of our revised Downsview population."

Whether you want to explore Berlin through film, design an agrarian prototype in Costa Rica, get hands-on experience with AI tools and robotic fabrication or intern at one of Toronto's top design firms, there is plenty for Daniels Faculty students to choose from this summer. 

Watch the Summer 2025 Info Sessions on YouTube and read the full Course Descriptions to learn more. 

Interested current students must submit the online application form by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, February 26.

Studies Abroad

Learn more about the Faculty’s two global studios this summer:

Berlin, a City in Film
Instructor: Peter Sealy

Costa Rica: No Artificial Ingredients
Instructor: Mauricio Quirós Pacheco

These courses are available to undergraduate Architectural Studies and Visual Studies students in all streams who have completed 1.0 credit of ARC courses at the 200-level before Summer 2025 (including fourth-year students graduating this June). MARC, MLA and MUD students are also invited to apply. 

Design Build

Design Build offers a hands-on approach to course material:

Robot Made
Instructors: Nicholas Steven Hoban, Aryan Rezaei Rad (U of T Engineering), AnnaLisa Meyboom (UBC SALA)

social/technological
Instructor: Humbi Song

These courses are available to undergraduate Architectural Studies students in all streams who have completed ARC200H1 and ARC201H1 before Summer 2025 (including fourth-year students graduating this June). MARC, MLA and MUD students are also invited to apply. 

Design Research Internship Program (DRIP)

The Design Research Internship Program places third- and fourth-year Architectural Studies students with leading Toronto design practices for a period of six weeks during the May-June summer period. Check out @drip_daniels.uoft for testimonials and examples of student work.

The graduate seminar Land Practices/Prácticas de la tierra (ARC3313) taught by Rafico Ruiz (Canadian Centre for Architecture) seeks to situate a range of ‘land practices’ to document how the land holds memories, marks and modes of orientation across subject positions that include humans, but also exceed our capacity to articulate relationships to land. 

Designers, artists and researchers from Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other communities in Colombia will contribute to the seminar discussions.

Daniels students, faculty and staff are invited to tune in virtually on Mondays from 6-7:30 p.m.

February 10
Josefina Klinger Zúñiga with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente

Colombian environmentalist and community activist Josefina Klinger Zúñiga and Pedro Aparicio-Llorente, architect and founding principal of APLO, will discuss:

• Afro-Colombian land rights and knowledges
• Environmental activism and education in Nuqui, Chocó
• Pacific coast as Afro-Colombian homelands
• Building youth-based environmental knowledges  

Join online.

March 10
Gilma Mosquera with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente

Gilma Mosquera is an architect, teacher and researcher with a wide trajectory on the habitat of the Colombian Pacific and Afro-Colombian ways of creating domestic and urban spaces.   

Topics covered 

• Afro-Colombian-defined architecture on the Pacific Coast
• Community-based methods
• Afro-Colombian spatial knowledges
• Cultural memory and design 

Join online.

March 17
José de la Cruz with Pedro Aparicio-Llorente 

José de la Cruz is a community leader in Bojayá, Colombia. 

Topics covered 

• Bojayá as a site of violence and memory work
• Afro-Colombian commemoration and activism
• Land as a place of healing and repair
• Afro-Colombian land reparations  

Join online.

Images: 1) Mangrove, Jurubira. Courtesy of Pedro Aparicio 2) Payao, engraved drawing. Courtesy of Pedro Aparicio.

The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce that Associate Professor Brady Peters has been appointed Associate Dean, Academic (ADA). His three-year term began on January 1. 

Dr. Peters, who joined the Faculty in 2013, succeeds Associate Professor Jeannie Kim, who had served as ADA since January 1, 2022.  

Over his time at Daniels, Dr. Peters “has developed a growing understanding of many areas of our Faculty and an increasing appreciation for the complexities of our interdisciplinarity,” says Acting Dean Robert Levit. “His research, moreover, spans both artistic practice and scientific exploration, giving him a sensitivity to the requirements of managing our wide range of programs.”

Prior to joining the Faculty, Dr. Peters was an Associate Partner at Foster + Partners, where he helped lead the office’s Specialist Modelling Group (SMG), its internal research and development consultancy. 

He was also a Director, from 2013 to 2024, of Smartgeometry, an international, not-for-profit organization that promoted innovation and new technology in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. 

Before acquiring his PhD in Architecture from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in 2015, Dr. Peters graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree (1999) and a Master of Architecture degree (2001). 

He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree (1997) from the University of Victoria.

Since arriving at Daniels, Dr. Peters has secured funding from a variety of sources, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Data Sciences Institute (DSI), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Mass Timber Institute.

Among his areas of research are digital fabrication and material investigation, computation and simulation.

Peters portrait by Richard Ashman

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is excited to present its Winter 2025 Public Program. 

This semester’s program highlights the work of leading global thinkers and practitioners who are shaping the future of our built and natural environments. Through a dynamic series of lectures, book talks, discussions and more, they’ll explore such themes as extractivism, scarcity, landscape heritage and mosques as sites of contemporary architectural innovation, examining the role of our disciplines in addressing urgent challenges at home and across the globe.  

From the evolving relationship between the built world and the natural one to the ways in which architecture can foster social and environmental innovation, the Daniels Faculty’s Winter 2025 Public Program aims to provoke dialogue across timelines and geographies. 

All events in the series are free and open to the public. Register in advance and consult the calendar for up-to-date details here. Many events will be live-streamed and available on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube channel. 

Register

January 23, 6:30 p.m.  
The Dominion of Flowers: North American Book Launch 
Featuring Mark Laird (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) in conversation with Therese O’Malley 

January 30, 6:30 p.m. 
The Legacy of Claude Cormier: Film Screening & Panel Discussion 
This event is being held as part of DesignTO Festival 2025 and in partnership with the Toronto Society of Architects, The Cultural Landscape Foundation and the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. 

February 6, 6:30 p.m.  
An Alternative Urbanism: The Culture of Self-organising Systems 
Featuring Tosin Oshinowo (Studio Oshinowo) 

February 7, 6:00 p.m. 
Lewerentz Divine Darkness: Film Screening 
Featuring Sven Blume, Director 

February 11, 6:30 p.m.  
Common Mud and Flooded Pits 
MVS Proseminar Artist Talk
Featuring Cooking Sections 

February 13-14 
Mosque Architecture Now: Public Spaces for Social, Technical & Environmental Innovation 
Organized by Aziza Chaouni (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) and Ruba Kana’an (University of Toronto)
This event has been cancelled. 

March 6, 6:30 p.m.  
‘One clover, and a bee’ 
Featuring Shirley Blumberg (KPMB Architects) 

March 13, 6:30 p.m. 
NEW EVENT It is about time
Featuring Stefano Pujatti (ELASTICOFarm)

Jeffrey Cook Memorial Lecture: A Measure of Architecture
Featuring Amin Taha (GROUPWORK), Pierre Bidaud (The Stonemasonry Company) and Steve Webb (Webb Yates) 
This event has been postponed until Fall 2025.

March 20, 6:30 p.m. 
Placeknowing
Featuring Theodore Jojola (University of New Mexico)