The 4th Annual Gladstone Grow Op takes place this weekend. (Don’t miss the opening reception this Friday, April 22!) Among the "must-see home farming prototypes” to take in (according to Canadian Architect) is Cricket Reactor by alumnus Jakob Dzamba (MArch 2011) of Third Millennium Farming.

Writes Christine Leu in Canadian Architect:

Cricket Reactor by Third Millennium Farming is an alternative approach to urban agriculture where city bio-wastes are used to farm algae and fungi, which are in turn fed to insects. In turn, the crickets are processed into an edible flour—a low carbon footprint form of protein.

…

The architectural language of the Reactor could be described as “antfarm-Modernist.” A large, clear, central atrium with detachable clear pods at the sides to accommodate a variety of programmes, or in this case, different bio-wastes. The density of the insects per square inch is evocative of urban living, and reminiscent of maximizing return on investment for repeating condominium units in the sky.

On Sunday, Dzamba the Cricket Reactor moves to the AGO for the Terrior Hospitality Symposium, which will include a number of “art installations that look beyond food production and preparation to draw from the wider ecology that informs these systems and open up new ways of thinking about the anthropocene, locality and place.”

Installations at the symposium will include Soil is the Mother by Victoria Taylor (MLA 2008) and Hypha by NomadicVisionStudio (founded by Daniels Faculty masters students Claire Kurtin, Nadia Pulez, and Ramin Yamin).

Related:

• Fungi and mold inspire NomadicVisionStudio's installation at the 4th Annual Gladstone Grow Op: April 21-24
• Daniels alum Jakub Dzamba interviewed on CBC radio stations across Canada
• M.Arch alum Jakub Dzamba featured speaker at upcoming Future Food Salon II

Pin-ups have been un-pinned, exams have been written and students are undoubtedly catching up on some much needed sleep. Before shifting into summer mode, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on the past academic year. Here are the six most read news stories of the last 8 months.

6. Architectural Studies graduate Omar Gandhi "one of Canada's most exciting emerging designers," says the Globe and Mail

January 18, 2016

5. View the competition entries and have your say in the redesign of U of T's St. George Campus

October 5, 2015

View the winning design by KPMB Architects, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) and Urban Strategies.

4. #ReadingList: 3 books to read over the holidays

December 15, 2015

3. Photographs by Peter MacCallum document the transformation of One Spadina

June 4, 2014 (updated regularly)

View all One Spadina photos on the Daniels Faculty's Flickr page

2. Multigenerational housing: Daniels faculty and alumni rethink the family home

February 25, 2016

1. 12 things every grad student presenting their thesis should know

March 25, 2015

This year's Jane's Walks — a series of free, citizen-led walking tours held in nearly 200 cities around the world — take place this weekend. Inspired by writer and activist Jane Jacobs, the event gives participants the opportunity to explore neighbourhoods through the eyes of local residents.

With over 175 walks to choose from in Toronto alone, deciding which walks to attend can be overwhelming. Here is a list of 9 Jane's Walks being led by Daniels Faculty alumni and faculty May 6-8.

1. Why Socks Are Not Enough: Social Justice on the Danforth
Walk leader: Denise Pinto (MLA 2011) and Lois Didyk
May 6, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours
May 8, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours

2. East Danforth East - A Culinary Walking Tour
Walk leader: Phil Pothen (MLA 2006), Elise Aymer, Danning Liao, and Janet Masching
May 6, 2016, 11:00 AM, 2 Hours
May 8, 2016, 1:00 PM, 2 Hours
 

3. King and Spadina: One of The Two Kings
Walk leaders: Margie Zeidler (BArch 1987) and Paul Bedford (U of T Adjunct Professor)
May 7, 2016, 10:00 AM, 2.5 Hours

4. Walking around Gerrard Square
Walk leaders: Todd Irvine (Co-Instructor, Urban Ecology Field Course) and Dylan Reid
May 7, 2016, 10:00 AM, 2 Hours

5. Listening to the Language of Plants
Walk leaders: Yi Zhou (MLA 2013), Jasmeen Bains (MLA 2013), and Tyler Bradt (MLA 2013)
May 7, 2016, 11:00 AM, 1 Hour

6. Summerhill Summerdale
Walk leader: John van Nostrand (BArch 1972)
May 7, 2016, 2:00 PM, 2 Hours

7. Little Free Libraries: An Impromptu Reading Walk With Neighbours
Walk leader: Denise Pinto (MLA 2011)
May 7, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours

8. Walk the Green Line: Infrastructures of Park Space
Walk leader: Netami Stuart (MLA 2004)
May 8, 2016, 10:00 AM, 1 Hour

9. Walk with us Woodbridge!
Walk leaders: Gail Shillingford (BLA 1995) and Moira Wilson (MLA 2006)
May 8, 2016, 2:00 PM, 1 Hour

Did you know?

• Jane's Walk originated in Toronto, and Master of Landscape Architecture alumna Denise Pinto (MLA 2011) is the Global Director of the festival. Read our Q&A with Pinto, published last year.
• Jane Jacobs, who lived in Toronto from 1968 until her death in 2006, would have celebrated her 100th birthday this year on May 4. In honour of her centenary, a number of events are planned throughout Toronto (and beyond), including an exhibition at Urbanspace Gallery, Jane at Home, curated by Jim Jacobs and Margie Zeidler (BArch 1987).

The Daniels Faculty would like to congratulate Ja Architecture Studio — the office of Daniels Faculty alumni Nima Javidi (MUD 2005), Behnaz Assadi (MLA 2008), and Hanieh Rezaei (MUD 2004) — on receiving an Award of Merit from Canadian Architect for its project “111”. The project team included Master of Architecture students Kyle O'Brien and Zhou Tang.

111 is an urban infill project — three 3-storey residential units — set atop a commercial podium in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood. The Studio describes the project as “an exercise in architectural massing and typology,” which “aims to create change in this sensitive historic context without falling into either extremes of aggressive development or low-rise domestic conformity.”

Canadian Architect's Awards of Excellence is an annual awards program open to all architects registered in Canada and Canadian architectural graduates with buildings in the design stage. It is one of only two national award programs devoted exclusively to architecture.

This year's jury included Maxime Alexis Frappier, principal and lead designer at ACDF Architecture in Montreal; Pat Hanson, founding partner of gh3 in Toronto; and Johanna Hurme, cofounder of 5468796 Architecture in Winnipeg.

Canadian Architect will provide exclusive coverage of the award winners in it’s December 2015 issue. For more information, visit: www.canadianarchitect.com

What is the future of furniture design? This was the question posed by the organizers of the 2015 VMODERM Furniture Design Competition presented by eVolo magazine.

Daniels Faculty alumni Indrit Alushani (MArch 2015) and Kostika Lala (MArch 2015) considered the trend of small living spaces and the growing need for rooms to serve multiple purposes (such as a bedroom and living room and office). Their solution involved designing furniture that can easily transform from an empty hardwood floor to a table, bed frame, or chair — all made out of the integrated panels that pattern the floor. The duo’s entry, titled Floor to Furniture was awarded an honorable mention out of 233 entries from 34 countries.

Write Alushani and Lala in their competition entry:

By employing a series of highly resistant and durable carbon fiber joints, levers and tracks the floor panels can elevate to a height of 700mm which is equivalent to the height of a traditional desk. Moreover the system is motorized which can be controlled from a main unit where the location for where the panels to be raised are indicated as well as the height and any angle adjustments (mainly for seating purposes).

For more information on the competition and Alushani and Lala’s entry, visit the VMODERN Furniture Design Competition website.

Daniels alumnus Craig Newsome (BArch 1986) of MMC Architects was selected by the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) as a recipient of a 2015 Merit Award for his work on the rehabilitation and restoration of an 1860s early Victorian cottage in Brantford, Ontario.

The cottage is located within the Brant Avenue Conservation District. "The rehabilitation approach to this project was based on pretecting its heritage value while adapting the property for contemporary residential use," writes CAHP in its announcement of the award.

For the full list of Heritage Award winners, visit Canadian Architect magazine's website.

Omar Gandhi, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Honours, Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program, has been profiled as “one of Canada’s most exciting emerging designers" in the Globe and Mail.

The 36-year-old Halifax-based architect is a featured speaker at Interior Design Show in Toronto on January 23, and is planning to open a satellite office in Canada’s largest city.

Gandhi is a tribute to the success of the Daniels Faculty’s undergraduate program. In 2014, he was awarded the Prix de Rome and named among the world’s top 20 young architects by Wallpaper magazine.

Writes the Globe and Mail’s Design Editor Danny Sinopoli:

Gandhi joins the steadily growing ranks of elite Atlantic Canadian architects who are boldly contemporizing East Coast building forms, redefining the region’s design aesthetics in the process. “My work certainly isn’t unique, nor does it aspire to be,” Gandhi says with some of that inherited Maritime modesty, citing others, such as Halifax master Brian MacKay-Lyons, Newfoundland-born Todd Saunders and New Brunswick’s Acre Architects as those who have produced “incredible regionally inspired work” before and alongside him. There is, however, one significant difference between Gandhi and many of his East Coast colleagues: Having been born in Toronto and raised in Brampton, he is essentially an outsider who learned and subsequently mastered the regional vernacular, then reinterpreted it. Such sensitivity to setting isn’t commonplace. And it will serve Gandhi well as he expands his practice to other parts of Canada and beyond.

The full article is available on the Globe and Mail’s website.

Tonight marks the opening of the Future of Suburbia — an exhibition hosted by the MIT Centre for Advanced Urbanism. A number of Daniels Faculty alumni and professors were involved in the curation, design and construction of the exhibit including Fadi Masoud (MLA 2010), Matthew Spremulli (MArch 2011), and Assistant Professor Liat Margolis, who participated in a 2-day workshop in March 2015 as part of the Future of Suburbia Biennial.

The work showcased in the exhibition aims to expose the nuance and complexity of the suburban condition and visually document suburbanization around the world. Four design frameworks for future suburban conditions were produced to describe a future of suburbia that is heterogeneous, experimental, autonomous, and productive.

The exhibition centers on a dynamic physical model of a future polynodal suburb, which is complemented by contextual research displayed in text and graphics, and aerial videos of existing global suburbs.

Fadi Masoud — a Lecturer of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at MIT, who also previously taught at the Daniels Faculty — was co-chair of the workshop and is on the exhibition team.

Matthew Spremulli — a Research Associate at the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism, and previous Instructor at the Daniels Faculty — is the lead exhibition designer. 

The Daniels Faculty is one of the the academic sponsors of the event.

For more information visit the MIT Centre for Advanced Urbanism website.

Related:

• Liat Margolis participates in Future of Suburbia design charrette at MIT's Center for Advanced Urbanism
• Drew Adams (MArch 4), Fadi Masoud (MLA 2010) published in Design for Flooding
• Fadi Masoud / Magda Dobranowski / Carla Pareja project selected for Saint Étienne International Design Bienniale
• Matthew Spremulli awarded 2010-11 Howarth-Wright Fellowship
• U of T's Mason White and Lateral Office at Venice Biennale

Fast Company recently celebrated design work by Associate Professor Steven Fong and alumnus Lorne Gertner (BArch 1982) for Tokyo Smoke Found, a shop that specializes in coffee, clothing, and cannabis, located in Toronto's West End.

“The architecture of Tokyo Smoke's Toronto outpost reinforces the narrative of a gritty product having its Pretty Woman moment,” writes Diana Budds for Fast Company. “Like Julia Roberts's Vivian emerging from a Beverly Hills boutique prim, polished, and 'respectable,' the industrial-meets-modern interiors—designed with architect Steven Fong—speak to the power of packaging and branding to sway the pendulum of perception.”

Tokyo Smoke was founded by Alan Gertner and his father Lorne, who is also a member of the Daniels Faculty's campaign cabinet, a committed group of alumni and friends of the Faculty whose vision, passion, and expertiese are helping support the Faculty's ambition to relocate and expand the school at One Spadina Crescent — a site of deep historical significance in Toronto.

The Architectural League of New York has named Architectural Studies graduate Omar Gandhi one of the up and coming “voices” of 2016.

The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices Award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design “voices” that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind, and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape, and the built environment. Other recipients of this year's award include:

• Alex Anmahian and Nick Winton, Principals and Co-Founders, Anmahian Winton Architects, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Cesar Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza, Carlos Flores, and Maria Sevilla, Partners, S-AR, Monterrey, Mexico
• Frank Jacobus and Marc Manack, Principals, SILO AR+D, Cleveland and Fayetteville, Arkansas
• Jon Lott, Principal, PARA Project and Co-Founding Member, Collective-LOK, New York City
• E.B. Min and Jeffrey L. Day, Principals, Min | Day, San Francisco and Omaha
• Rozana Montiel, Founder, Rozana Montiel | Estudio de Arquitectura, Mexico City
• Heather Roberge, Principal, Heather Roberge | Murmur, Los Angeles

Omar Gandhi is among several Daniels Faculty alumni to be given the prestigious award. Past recipients include Williamson Chong (2014), Carol Moukheiber and Christos Marcopoulos (2012), Mason White (2011), An Te Liu (2007), and Brigitte Shim (1995).

The practice of Omar Gandhi has been receiving significant media attention lately; he was recently profiled as “one of Canada’s most exciting emerging designers" in the Globe and Mail, and was named among the world’s top 20 young architects by Wallpaper magazine.