How can development, transition and growth in a city still accommodate urban memory and a connection to the past? How does the visual bias present in an image refer to the biases of the general public? How can closely reading the history of ownership, materiality and economic deployment of a site and its material history reveal the forces that have shaped the city?  

These are just a few of the questions posed by 2022-2023 thesis students in the Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies (BAAS) program. A new website serves as an online exhibition showcasing a sampling of the richly diverse creative work of students in the program’s three Specialist Streams: Design, Technology, and History and Theory.

View the 2022-2023 BAAS Thesis website here.

Thesis is a year-long endeavor at the Daniels Faculty. At the end of the third year in the undergraduate program, students in the Specialist Streams are eligible to apply for thesis, which takes place during the fourth and final year of the program. Once selected, all BAAS thesis students take a Senior Research Seminar led by one of three Daniels Faculty members who continue as advisors throughout the year.  

For the 2022-2023 academic year, the themes were: 

• The Digital, Nicholas Hoban, Technology Stream 
• On Generosity, Laura Miller, Design Stream 
• Visualizing Planetarity, Simon Rabyniuk, History and Theory Stream; Design Stream 

During the fall term, students work to develop individual thesis proposals—pursuing their research through reading, writing, design, fabrication and case study analysis as well as discussion and debate. Then in the winter term’s Senior Thesis Design Studio, students further develop their research, extending into design projects. Final Thesis Reviews, the culmination of a year’s work, are held at the end of April. 

View the thesis projects online and learn more about the BAAS program. 

Student work featured in banner image:

1) The Architecture of Impermanence: Rebuilding in Post-Disaster Japan
Student: Hanna Kamehiro, Design Stream
Advisor: Simon Rabyniuk

2) In Defense of Urban Play
Student: Adela Hua, Design Stream
Advisor: Laura Miller

3) Machine-Knitted Structures and Material Variability in Textile Construction Automation
Student: Habiba Elezaby, Technology Stream
Advisor: Nicholas Hoban

4) Unprompting: Text-to-Image Software’s ‘Understanding’ of Non-Western Contexts
Student: Raymelene Apil, Technology Stream
Advisor: Nicholas Hoban

5) Pulling and Pushing the Envelope: Reimagining Toronto’s Failing Glass Towers
Student: Massimo Giannone, Design Stream
Advisor: Laura Miller

6) Planetary Voids and Architectural Solids
Student: Marly Ibrahim, Design Stream
Advisor: Simon Rabyniuk