Professor Mason White, Sessional Lecturer Kearon Roy Taylor and Assistant Professor Karen Kubey have been recognized by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) with 2024 Architectural Education Awards. The trio won for two separate projects in the category of Faculty Design. The Faculty Design Awards acknowledge work that advances the reflective nature of practice and teaching through creative design and design investigation and by promoting work that expands the boundaries of design. 

Colleagues at the Toronto-based practice Lateral Office, co-founder White (pictured above at right) and associate Taylor won for “Contested Circumpolar: Domestic Territories,” an installation that examines domestic life in eight Arctic nations by situating it within broader sociocultural, economic and geopolitical contexts. Their partners on the winning team include Lateral Office co-founder Lola Sheppard of the University of Waterloo and Matthew Jull and Leena Cho of the University of Virginia. 

Exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021, “Contested Circumpolar: Domestic Territories” presents eight narratives of inhabitation from each of the countries that lay claim to the Arctic—Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S.—to reveal deep and complex connections between domestic space and the larger territory.  

A series of rooms within eight houses juxtaposes the distinct artifacts and architectures of everyday life in the Arctic with territorial narratives that expose the interlinked far-flung contexts shaping the domestic scenes. 

In the process it addresses issues of transnational politics, Indigenous self-determination and radical socio-environmental adaptation in one of the 21st century’s most complex and contested regions.  

The installation “Contested Circumpolar: Domestic Territories” was exhibited as part of the Across Borders series at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. Models were arranged as a roundtable assembly representing different regional challenges. Photos by Giorgio Lazzaro

An urbanist specializing in housing design and social justice, Kubey (pictured at left in the banner) won her ACSA Award, along with Neeraj Bhatia of the California College of the Arts and Ignacio González Galán of Barnard College, for “Aging Against the Machine,” a research project that looks at aging not as a problem to be solved but as a life stage facing a range of barriers—physical, social, financial and cultural—that make it difficult to grow older with dignity and in community. 

Part of a 2022 Center for Architecture exhibition entitled Reset: Towards a New Commons, the project builds on past and ongoing work in the California community of West Oakland, a culturally diverse and historically activist neighbourhood where older residents nonetheless face precarious living conditions, insufficient public amenities and limited caregiving options.  

It was developed by examining, connecting and expanding on existing initiatives there and by consulting with and amplifying the voices of its residents, who contributed through a series of roundtables and conversations. 

“Aging Against the Machine,” a commissioned research project overseen by the Daniels Faculty’s Karen Kubey and others, was part of a 2022 Center for Architecture exhibition entitled Reset: Towards a New Commons. Photos by Asya Gorovitz and Miguel de Guzman

Among the project results were proposals in a range of scales, from interior home renovations to collective land-ownership models and intergenerational housing projects. In particular, diverse spaces for commoning and networks of care at the scale of the building and the neighbourhood are integrated with public social programs and mutual aid initiatives, ultimately contributing to an intersectional, community-based approach to aging. 

According to ACSA, award winners are selected for their ability to inspire and challenge students, to expand the architectural profession’s knowledge base and to extend their work beyond academia into practice and the public sector. 

Winners of the Faculty Design Award are chosen in particular for how their work expands the boundaries of design through formal investigations, innovative design processes, addressing justice, working with communities, advancing sustainable practices, fostering resilience and/or centering the human experience. 

For a full list of 2024 ACSA Award winners, click here. 

Integrated Urbanism Studio (ARC2013Y, LAN2013Y, URD1011Y) brings together architecture, landscape architecture and urban design students to work on the same assignments throughout the semester. 

The focus area for the Fall 2023 studio, coordinated by Mauricio Quirós Pacheco, Rob Wright and Roberto Damiani, was the decommissioned airfield lands at Downsview in Toronto—currently one of the most significant urban transformation opportunities in North America.     

From proposals that address ecological connectivity and food scarcity to residential typologies and aforestation techniques, following are a selection of group projects from the MARC, MLA and MUD programs. 

The Spot 

Students: Mo Bayati, Valerie Hope Haddad, Julia Dronsejko 
Program: Master of Architecture 
Instructor: Mauricio Quirós Pacheco 

“Our Downsview proposal represents a comprehensive approach to urbanism grounded in an understanding of the site’s historical evolution, current conditions and the needs of both the local community and Toronto at large. The project synthesizes four critical issues facing the city. Firstly, it addresses the imperative of retaining and expanding industrial space, acknowledging the escalating demand in Toronto.

The introduction of a central node for entertainment and events aims to create a vibrant and engaging atmosphere, enriching the cultural fabric of the area. To confront Toronto’s healthcare challenges, our proposal strategically proposes a new hospital at Downsview. Additionally, the initiative tackles food scarcity by implementing urban agriculture, utilizing advanced techniques such as hydroponics. The design encompasses industrial zones, event space, health and wellness districts, and agricultural areas.” 

Process Based Landscapes 

Students: Rebecca Martin, Zhuanghyi Peng, María Alonso Novo 
Program: Master of Landscape Architecture 
Instructors: Rob Wright, Megan Esopenko 

“Process Based Landscapes questions what public open spaces could look like if they were positioned as key nodes of social, economic and civic life. These close-up plans translate large-scale concepts into site-specific strategies through an agricultural field, an ecological corridor and a residential neighbourhood. Within each context, design strategies were aimed to create engaging landscapes that invite residents into the processes taking place on the site.” 

Social Urbanism 

Students: Shivangi Chauhan, Rajvi Modi
Program: Master of Urban Design 
Instructor: Roberto Damiani 

“Social Urbanism: A paradigm of public space justice is an urban design project situated within the environs of Downsview neighbourhood in the city of Toronto. The conceptual framework embodies a holistic ethos in urban development, prioritizing the welfare of communities through nuanced responsiveness and enhancement of the site, local context and public realm. The term ‘Social’ within this context manifests a dual significance in the realm of urban development. On one facet, it connotes notions of communal cohesion and active engagement, while on the other it conveys an engagement with fundamental societal requisites like, housing, immigration and awareness centres, etc.” 

Change of Plan: STADIA City 

Students: Nezar Alkujok, Negar Mashoof, Yegor Konechnyy
Program: Master of Architecture 
Instructor: Aziza Chaouni

“In the evolving landscape of Downsview, Change of Plan: STADIA City, inspired by the Smithsons’ 1957 Hauptstadt entry, involves a habitable bridge complex. Drawing from 1960s megastructures, the proposal unites major sectors—YorkU Village, Sheppard Avenue West, Northwood Park, Yorkdale Mall and Sobeys Stadium—via interconnected elements, including a main stadium and multi-use stadia, strategically positioned as nodes within the sky bridge. This approach reimagines the site, transforming local and national events into an ever-growing, evolutive series of spaces, both at and above ground.”

Events, Ecology, Ephemera 

Students: Matt Arnott, Anh Luu, Seth Ramesra 
Program: Master of Landscape Architecture 
Instructors: Rob Wright, Megan Esopenko 

“Through the process of exploring the site’s history, what stood out to us was the longstanding pattern of strange events and massive crowds. The site’s history of sporadic occupation has been absorbed into its identity, creating a program defined by flux. Simultaneously, ecological presence and diversity have dwindled over time as people have come to occupy the site, rendering natural cycles invisible in favour of roads and runways. This project seeks to bring inhabitants of the site closer to the natural happenings that often go overlooked, foregrounding an urbanism rooted in ecological events.” 

The Urban Rooms 

Students: Anurag Panda, Pallavi Patil, Sakshi Thorat, Wenqian Han 
Program: Master of Urban Design 
Instructor: Roberto Damiani 

“The proposed development plan aims to turn Downsview into a growth centre with public corridors and mixed-use development. The current land-use segregation only focuses on residential or employment, lacking an equitable distribution of mixed-use development. The plan includes the concept of ‘urban rooms,’ grouping houses around open spaces to create a square. The green spaces will be better connected via a green spine and a series of intimate ‘outdoor’ rooms. Mixed-use corridors of higher densities are allocated along the exterior edge, and more intimate institutional areas are kept near Downsview Park. A central amenity transforms into a sport-focused room in the proposed layout.” 

Patchwork City: Reimagining Downsview as Urban Tapestry 

Students: Lily Lu, Owen Miu, Yunjung Park, Ghazal Elmizadeh
Program: Master of Architecture  
Instructor: David Verbeek

“Patchwork City is an urban strategy that challenges conventional urban planning in Toronto. It presents an alternate approach by introducing a dynamic interplay of urban composition on the Downsview Airport site, through extracting and overlapping different urban fabrics. From bungalows to skyscrapers, these fabrics span across countries, cities and centuries, both generic and specific, built and unbuilt. Rather than playing a numbers game, Patchwork City focuses on the creation of distinct morphologies and new urban experiences that celebrate the vibrancy of Downsview and Toronto.” 

Leading with Landscape  

Students: Evlyn Sun, Georgia Sa, Tracy Ngan  
Program: Master of Landscape Architecture 
Instructors: Rob Wright, Megan Esopenko

“As the benefits of greenspaces are now increasingly evident, this project investigates what it means to design a new Downsview community by putting landscape first. The proposed plan prioritizes ecological connectivity by concentrating density around transit stations and providing pedestrian-oriented circulation throughout an extensive network of greenspaces. Rather than continuing a history of urban development fragmenting the landscape, this plan recognizes that resilient landscapes are integral to support community and urban infrastructure.” 

Aboretropolis: Re-Centering the Forest 

Students: Khadija Waheed, Richard Schutte, Lhanzi Gyaltsan 
Program: Master of Architecture 
Instructor: Christos Marcopolus 

“Before Downsview Airport—and before Toronto’s urban monoculture was constructed—there was a native maple-beech forest that thrived for thousands of years. This project proposes a hybrid Miyawake-poplar afforestation technique to partially return Downsview to its pre-settlement forest state. Responding to Toronto’s desperate needs of both housing and natural forest area, a new urban form is envisioned merging a diverse ecosystem of building typologies with non-invasive branching road networks that allow the forest to grow into urban spaces. Transit-rich building clusters maximize walkability and provide access to the amenities of the 15-minute city, compressed into a five-minute urban forest.” 

Dirty Downsview 

Students: Nicole Hekl, Linjuan Dai, Bracha Stettin 
Program: Master of Landscape Architecture 
Instructors: Rob Wright, Megan Esopenko 

“This project aims to create an urban development where the toxic legacy of Downsview’s industrial past serves as a starting point for imagining a sustainable and regenerative site for urban living and industry. The contamination of a post-industrial airfield became the impetus for creating a site-wide plan for soil remediation, green industry development and thriving urban conditions. Through careful phasing, thoughtful layering and connecting to existing ecological conditions, our plan creates waste treatment centres, housing and jobs for 60,000 people. Remediate the past, anticipate the future.” 

Reimaging the Green Spine 

Students: Yanyu Feng, Nan Liang; Diane (Doehyun) Kim, KIM, Sylph (Peizi) Yu
Program: Master of Urban Design 
Instructor: Roberto Damiani 

“The green spine is proposed to one side of the site and a secondary, pedestrian-only network within the built-form area. This allows for green connectivity through and outside of the site and [for] superblocks that are pedestrian-oriented and create flexible building opportunities for developers. The organic block pattern has allowed us to explore high-density buildings, while maintaining the green and picturesque appeal of suburban neighbourhoods.” 

Reconnecting Downsview: an argument for patchwork urbanism  

Students: Avondale Nixon, Declan Roberts, Nikki Basford 
Program: Master of Architecture 
Instructor: Jon Cummings 
 

“Reconnecting Downsview aims to integrate the neighbourhood into Toronto’s urban fabric by weaving together the once severed gridded street network. A matrix of street types was devised, placing users and circulation type on one axis, and street sizes and characteristics on the other. The resultant eight street types were distributed across the site, creating a highly connective and fine-grained urbanism. At the block scale, this interest in the human-scale spaces manifests in atypically small parcel size that encourages micro-development and a rich patchwork urbanism.” 

Auntie Urbanism 

Students: Daniel Lam, Michelle Choi, Jared Leslie 
Program: Master of Architecture 
Instructor: Karen Kubey 

“Auntie Urbanism proposes a vibrant, just future for Downsview Park in Toronto. Inspired by Vietnamese Aunties, and supporting local immigrant families, the framework centers the often-overlooked roles that women and diverse cultures play in Toronto communities. The proposal promotes economic, social, and relational exchanges that build on an existing informal network of Aunties who cook and sell international cuisines. The design explores how the site can be activated during the day and night, featuring lanterns and a night market, to stimulate the Auntie side hustle economy. By implementing variations on the Vietnamese “tube home” – a tall, narrow, intergenerational rowhouse typology with a retail ground floor – the design bridges the gap between work and personal life. We seek to cultivate not only placemaking, but place keeping.” 

Geographies of Production

Students: Gladys Lee, Aastha Saihgal, Cameron Hendey, Rubin de Jonge
Program: Master of Architecture
Instructor: Mariana Leguía Alegría

“Our proposal looks at reestablishing connections of people, agriculture, and nature within a new model of self-sustained and community living, in conjunction with revisiting accessibility and affordability on site through a lens of equity. By introducing “hub” neighborhoods that address different modes of living, our proposal presents various geographies of production at different scales, encouraging spaces to co-live, co-work, and co-exist with the site and the broader context of Toronto.” 

The national theme for Black History Month 2024 is Black Excellence: A Heritage to Celebrate, a Future to Build. 

This month is an opportunity to celebrate the contributions that Black individuals and communities have made to Canadian society, history and heritage—and for the Daniels Faculty to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to inclusion.  

The Faculty is marking Black History/Black Futures Month with public lectures that explore Black identity and the built environment, and by highlighting ongoing initiatives such as the Faculty’s Building Black Success through Design program, a curated book display in the Eberhard Zeidler Library, and an art installation that reflects interpretations of Black Flourishing.

Mark your calendar for public lectures

The Daniels Faculty’s Winter 2024 Public Program continues on February 1 with “I heard you were looking for me,” a lecture by architect and academic Germane Barnes (pictured above) exploring themes of community-oriented design, the expansion of architectural representation and alternative design authorship.  

Barnes’s award-winning research and design practice, Studio Barnes, investigates the connection between architecture and identity by examining architecture’s social and political agency through historical research and design speculation. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity.  

Two weeks later, on February 15, architect Kholisile Dhliwayo of afrOURban Inc. will be at the Faculty to present “Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto.” Dhliwayo (pictured above) leads the afrOURban project Black Diasporas, a community-led, geolocated oral-narrative mapping initiative that examines the experiences, spaces and places having meaning to Black people.

This lecture will outline how oral narrative, filmmaking and exhibition are both archival and aspirational—archival in their celebration of the spaces and places created by Black communities in Toronto and aspirational in the articulation of hopes and dreams and how these manifest in the built environment. 

Dhliwayo is a founding member of afrOURban Inc., an Adrian Cheng Fellow at the Social Innovation Change Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School and a 2023 resident at the Center for Architecture Lab in New York City.

Visit an installation of student artwork 

Head to the Historic Stairwell between the second and third floors of the Daniels Building to view Black Flourishing: Six Student Artworks, a temporary installation that reflects diverse interpretations of Black flourishing and Blackness in design and community. 

In response to an open call by the Daniels Art Directive and the Daniels Faculty during the Winter 2023 term, the six artists represented offer their creative expression of Black traditions and futures of excellence. In alignment with the broad objectives of the University of Toronto’s Anti-Black Racism Report (2021) and the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Higher Education: Principles, Actions and Accountabilities (2021), this installation celebrates and promotes Black art and representation in university spaces. 

Check out a curated display in the Library

Stop by the Eberhard Zeidler Library all monthlong to check out a display of books about Black architects who made history, like Norma Sklarek and Paul R. Williams, and those who are making history today, like Afaina de Jong and Tosin Oshinowo.

Curated by Master of Architecture students Jessica Chan and Justina Yang, the recommendations are grouped into books on the general history of Black architects and books about specific Black architects. 

Learn more about Building Black Success in Design 

Since 2021, the Faculty has taken a proactive approach to addressing the lack of diversity in the design industry through its Building Black Success through Design (BBSD) program: a 12-week mentorship program for Black high school students interested in architecture and design.

BBSD partners high school students with current Black students or alumni from the University of Toronto serving as mentors. The current cohort includes 36 high-school-aged mentees and 13 mentors. Participants hone their skills across various mediums and software, while also delving into topics that resonate with their experiences and identity. At the end of the program, mentees will take away practical technical design skills, be able to research and use community feedback to inform their designs, and confidently present their ideas to their peers and mentors.

Now in its third year, the program was originally founded by three Black undergraduate students, Clara James, Renee Powell-Hines and Rayah Flash, while in the Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program together. James continues to lead the program as the Faculty's Public Programming and Outreach Coordinator, while Powell-Hines is now a second-year Master of Architecture student and Flash is slated to graduate this year.

Follow along @bbsd.daniels and keep an eye on Daniels News & Events for future updates on the program.  

Visitors to the Bentway Skate Trail in downtown Toronto have had added incentive to strap on their ice skates besides the thrill of gliding across frozen water this winter: A colourful procession of “woven” light arches, known as The Gateway, has illuminated the popular winter amenity since mid-December, bringing a facsimile of the northern lights to the underbelly of the Gardiner Expressway.

Chosen after a nationwide call for project submissions, the vibrant addition to the 220-metre-long, figure-eight-shaped Trail is the brainchild of two Daniels Faculty alumni: the multidisciplinary designers Yi Zhou (MLA 2013) and Carlos Portillo (MLA 2018).

Now based in San Francisco, Zhou (pictured below at left) is an associate landscape architect at Surfacedesign, Inc. and was previously a landscape architect at CCxA in Montreal. Portillo (pictured below at right) joined CCxA in 2018 and has worked on such projects as The Ring in Montreal and Love Park in Toronto.

The design partners were on hand when The Gateway’s lights—an interweaving of green, blue, violet and magenta—were first switched on on December 16. The nightly illumination will continue until February 19, when the Skate Trail closes for the season.

“…The Expressway’s large columns come alive as visitors move beneath them, the ethereal colours mixing, mingling and dancing overhead,” says the duo’s artistic statement.

“The Gateway evokes the movement and magic of the northern lights across the sky, which are most vibrant during the dark winter months. The many strands of [interlacing] jewel-toned cords…pay tribute to the diversity of vibrant cultures and peoples that make up Toronto.”

Like several of their previous artistic projects—Zhou’s immersive Language of Plants installation has toured several locations throughout Toronto and Portillo’s award-winning work Entwine was on display at the prestigious Jardins de Métis International Garden Festival from 2019 to 2021—The Gateway fuses “art, natural phenomena, the built environment and community encounters.”

Inspired by the installation, The Bentway Studio also hosted a pair of free public workshops in January—one on weaving and the other on astronomy and the northern lights.

In addition to the designers, members of the project team included the structural engineering firm Blackwell and the fabrication studio Steel & Oak Designs.

For more information on the Bentway Skate Trail, including hours of operation and equipment-rental prices, click here.

Banner image by Brandon Ferguson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

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

EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW

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

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

RSVP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whether you're a future student, an alum, or a member of the public with an interest in architecture, forestry, landscape architecture or urban design—you're invited to join the Daniels Faculty for Fall 2023 Reviews. Throughout December, students from across our graduate and undergraduate programs will present final projects to their instructors and guest critics from academia and the professional community.

All reviews will take place in the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (unless otherwise stated). Follow @UofTDaniels on social media and join the conversation using the hashtags #DanielsReviews and #DanielsReviews23.

Please note that times and dates are subject to change.

Monday, December 4 | Graduate 

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

Tuesday, December 5 | Graduate 

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

Wednesday, December 6 | Graduate 

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

Thursday, December 7 | Graduate  

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

Friday, December 8 | Graduate  

Design Studio Options 
LAN3016Y

The Hart House Farm
Instructor: Liat Margolis 
Room: 330 

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

Monday, December 11 | Undergraduate  

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

Tuesday, December 12 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

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

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

Wednesday, December 13 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1 
ARC3020Y

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

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

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

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

Thursday, December 14 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1 
ARC3020Y

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

Counterhegemonic Architecture
Instructor: Lukas Pauer 
Rooms: 215, 240 

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

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

Design Studio Options 
LAN3016Y

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

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

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

Friday, December 15 | Graduate 

Architectural Design Studio: Research 1
ARC3020Y

Swarm / Counterarchive
Instructor: Jeannie Kim 
Room: 330 

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

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

USING TREES
Instructor: Zachary Mollica 
Room: 240 

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

Monday, December 18 | Undergraduate & Graduate

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, December 19 | Undergraduate 

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

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

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