The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto presents its Fall 2026 Public Program, Understories.

“It's just a matter of waiting for the wild things to emerge out of the understory.” – Richard Powers

In complex forests, specialist plant-life has evolved over millennia within the specific conditions of the understory, between the tree canopy and above the forest floor, offering cover and forage for diverse species. 

For the Fall 2026 public program, Understories collects thinkers, makers, readers, and observers of that which lies beneath us, that protects and nourishes us—stories of overlap between the disciplines of architecture, art, forestry, landscape architecture, and urbanism that comprise the foundations for Daniels. 

Understories brings together practitioners, artists, and scholars responding to the interconnected challenges of climate change, urban development, public health, housing, and cultural transformation.

All events in the series are free and open to the public. Register in advance and consult this listing for up-to-date details. Many events will be livestreamed or recorded and made available on the Daniels YouTube channel.

Register

Lectures

September 17, 6:30pm 
The Buried River: Restoring Nature, Rebuilding Community
Anne Whiston Spirn (MIT)
The Michael Hough/OALA Visiting Critic in Landscape Architecture Lecture

September 24, 6:30pm
Why Trees and Which Trees? Perspectives from Two Tree People.
Lecture and discussion with Arthur (Jo) Bradwell (Owner and Director of Norbury Park and Forestry Commissioner, UK) and Geraint Richards (Head Forester to His Majesty King Charles III).

October 1, Opening Event 5:15pm ET / Keynote 6:30pm ET 
Leading with Landscape: Keynote & Opening Event
Symposium keynote discussion with Ken Greenberg (Greenberg Consultants) Charles Waldheim (Harvard GSD) and Julia Czerniak (University at Buffalo). Organized by Fadi Masoud (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto).

October 8, 6:30pm 
Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa
Martino Stierli (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Co-sponsored by U of T's African Studies Centre

October 15, 6:30pm 
Healthcare Design that Makes a Difference: Insights from Foster + Partners
Chris West (Foster + Partners)
The Zeidler-Evans Lecture

October 22, 6:30pm 
Miscellaneous Tactics 
Jonathan Tate (Office of Jonathan Tate)
The George Baird Lecture

November 5, 6:30pm 
Ideas Made Material
Featuring Pat Hanson (gh3*)

November 19, 6:30pm 
The Ecology of Colour: An Artistic Journey Through the Spectrum of Light, Across Human and Insect Vision
Adrien Lucca (Studio Adrien Lucca)
In collaboration with the 2026/2027 Visual Studies Public Lecture Series

All lectures are held at the Daniels Building, Main Hall DA170, 1 Spadina Crescent.

Symposium

October 1-3, 2026
Leading with Landscape: Toronto’s Waterfront Transformation  
Organized by Fadi Masoud (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto).

Daniels Building, Main Hall DA170, 1 Spadina Crescent and Biidaasige Park 242 Cherry Street.

Exhibitions

May 23 – September 16, 2026
Existing Futures: Teaching Experiments in Maintenance, Media, and Urban Occupation
Yusuke Obuchi (2025/26 Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design)

September 25 – November 10, 2026
Leading with Landscape: Toronto’s Waterfront Transformation
Larry Wayne Richards Gallery
Opening Event – October 1, 5:15pm ET / 6:30pm ET Keynote Discussion

Gallery Location and Hours of Operation
Larry Wayne Richards Gallery
Daniels Building, DA196
1 Spadina Crescent

Monday-Friday: 9:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: Closed

Screenings

October 5, 6:30pm ET / October 6, 7:00pm ET
Aurand / Beavers: Architecture and Dwelling
Film screening program featuring Ute Aurand and Robert Beavers. Organized by James Macgillivray. Presented jointly by the Daniels Faculty, the Cinema Studies Institute, the Centre for Culture and Technology, and Innis College at the University of Toronto.

Screenings held at the University of Toronto, Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue.

By bringing together architecture, forestry, landscape architecture, urban design, contemporary art and curatorial practice within a shared academic community, you can experience firsthand the interdisciplinary strengths of Canada’s leading public research university.

At the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, you will learn from leading scholars and industry practitioners who are experts in a wide range of specializations. Connect with diverse cultural and professional networks within and beyond one of the world’s most multicultural cities, Toronto. At Daniels, everyday city life becomes your testing ground for the pursuit of new knowledge and forms of practice. 

Join program directors for one of our upcoming information sessions (September 2027 admission). 

PhD in Architecture, Landscape & Design

Wednesday, October 7
View previously recorded video

Master of Forest Conservation

Tuesday, October 13
View previously recorded video

Master of Forest Conservation

In person: Thursday, November 5
5:00 – 6:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Forestry Master's (MScF) and PhD

Tuesday, November 10
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Master of Architecture

Thursday, October 22
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. (EDT) 

Register

Monday, November 16
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (EST) 

Register

Master of Visual Studies (Curatorial and Studio Art)

Wednesday, November 4
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Master of Landscape Architecture

Monday, November 9
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Thursday, November 12
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. (EST)

Register

Master of Urban Design and Post-Professional (MArch and MLA)

Wednesday, November 18
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Graduate Open House

Join us to learn more about our graduate programs, plus how to prepare for the application process and information on funding, financial aid and awards.

In person: Saturday, November 28
11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

We offer two unique bachelor's degrees – Honours Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Studies (BAAS) and Honours Bachelor of Arts, Visual Studies (BAVS) – at Canada's #1 public research university. 

Both programs focus on practice. You will experiment with materials, digital fabrication, collaborative making, field projects and more. Develop technical skills and your creative confidence. Your degree from Daniels will open doors to many career paths.

Join us online for one of our Undergraduate Information Sessions to learn more about applying (September 2027 admission). 

Architectural Studies & Visual Studies Information Session

Wednesday, September 16: Watch the recording

Architectural Studies Information Session

Thursday, October 15: Watch the recording

Architectural Studies Information Session

Wednesday, November 18
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (EST) 

Register

Visual Studies Information Session

Wednesday, November 25 
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Architectural Studies Information Session

Tuesday, December 8 
5:00 – 6:00 p.m. (EST)

Register

Yeo-Jin Katerina Bong, a PhD candidate in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, has been recognized with the 2026 Carter Manny Writing Award given by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

The award supports emerging scholars completing exceptional doctoral dissertations on architecture and its role in the arts, culture and society, recognizing research with the potential to make a significant impact on the field. The Writing Award supports doctoral candidates in the dissertation-writing stage of their studies.

Bong's dissertation – Tracing Layers: Building Beneath the Surface in the Italian Apennines, 1527–1650 – argues that the unstable material and environmental conditions of the ground shaped the production of architectural knowledge in early modern Italy, focusing on the Papal cities of Orvieto, Ferrara and Rome. Her research draws attention to often overlooked aspects of the ground as an active agent in architectural practice, from its material properties, including soil, stone and aquifers, to structural elements such as plinths, pilings and footings. Through this work, Bong reconsiders the disciplinary relationships between architecture, geology and environment.

“Congratulations to Katerina on this prestigious recognition of her scholarship,” said Professor Claire Zimmerman, director of the PhD program at Daniels. “It is especially gratifying to see Daniels doctoral research recognized by the Graham Foundation for a second consecutive year. The Carter Manny program presents just two awards annually, and Katerina's selection for the Writing Award speaks to the significance of her contributions to architectural scholarship.”

Bong's doctoral supervisor is Professor Christy Anderson, an architectural historian at the Department of Art History in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is cross-appointed to Daniels. Bong's committee members include Daniels Assistant Professor Jason Nguyen and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream Peter Sealy, and Edward Jones-Imhotep, a professor and director of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology in the Faculty of Arts & Science.  

The Carter Manny Award program is named for architect Carter H. Manny (1918–2017) in recognition of his contributions to the Graham Foundation as founding trustee in 1956, director from 1971–93, and director emeritus. Since 1996, the program has granted 49 awards and 153 citations representing over $1 million in support of this important student work.

Supplied photos from Oct. 2 volume 3 launch event courtesy of Scaffold*

Scaffold* Journal, a design publication directed by Daniels students, is excited to present its third edition.  

Following volumes 1 and 2, which examined the design practice of process and drafting respectively, this volume reframes the practice of the review, revealing its weak links and introducing alternative methods of conducting it. While conventional reviews have long served to evaluate design presentation, this volume develops all else a review can do: challenge assumptions, suggest new inquiries and create space for critical conversation.  

Opening with a question regarding the faculty itself: “What do you notice, attend to, or find meaningful?”, the volume documents a discursive roundtable between faculty members "reviewing" One Spadina Crescent. The conversation considers how the design of the building is deeply entangled with the faculty’s pedagogical practices, student experience, history and relationship with its environment. In response, former Dean Richard Sommer chronicles the building’s renovation and how it came to be.  

The volume’s subsequent contributions are inspired by a dialogue between Adrian Phiffer and former editorial director Claire Allen, previously published in volume 2. Contributors were invited to write about a recent project knowing that their work would be reviewed by another contributor. Organized as a sequential chain, the volume moves from author to author, with written and visual reviews placed between contributions. Together, these exchanges foreground contributors’ individual practices while exploring new disciplines and perspectives.  

The Scaffold* team launched volume 3 on Friday, October 2, inviting students, faculty, practitioners, contributors and the broader public to celebrate the journal and the works within. Accompanying the celebration were screenings of three films featured in the journal, Potemkin Coastline by Clara Rummer and Helen Andres, My Year of Magical Thinking by Kara Tsenov and The Hall by field-0.  

Volume 3 is available for purchase at Café 059 (Daniels Building), Issues Magazine Shop or Art Metropole in Toronto, as well as Katherine Small Gallery in Boston, MA. You can also have it delivered through the Scaffold* website. 

Amin Taha (centre) of GROUPWORK with collaborators Pierre Bidaud of The Stonemasonry Company (left) and Steve Webb of Webb Yates Engineers (right).

Architect, educator, and GROUPWORK chairperson Amin Taha joins Daniels as the 2026/27 Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design, bringing an internationally recognized practice and a commitment to socially and environmentally responsible design. 

Founded in 2000 through transformative donor support and named in honour of renowned Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry (1929-2025; Hon. LLD 1998), Daniels will mark 25 years of bringing leading architects to U of T next year.

Educated at the University of Edinburgh under professors Isi Metzstein and Fiona McLachlan, Taha began his career working with leading architectural practices Rick Mather Architects and ZHA (Zaha Hadid) before establishing his own studio a decade later. 

His professional work is informed by a longstanding interest in architecture's social and environmental responsibilities, themes that continue to shape both his practice and teaching. Through GROUPWORK's employee-owned structure, architects, landscape architects and engineers work as equal partners, advancing new approaches to conservation, ethical design and low-carbon construction. The studio has been shortlisted three times for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize, the UK's highest architectural honour, and has gained international recognition for projects that challenge conventional approaches to construction, conservation and sustainability. 

Alongside his professional practice, Taha has built a distinguished academic career. He currently teaches at the Royal College of Art in London and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (GSD) and University College London (UCL). In 2025/26, he served as the Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture. Taha also acts as a trustee of the Sir John Soane's Museum, chair of its annual Soane Medal and sits on sustainable development advisory boards of two property funds.

Across his teaching and research, Taha encourages students to challenge conventional architectural paradigms by fostering an understanding of traditional building techniques and their relevance to modern sustainable design. He is known for inspiring a generation of architects through his critically engaged teaching style, which emphasizes the importance of understanding architecture as a cultural and social act, which aligns with his professional ethos, advocating for architecture that is sustainable, authentic and deeply connected to its context. At Daniels, he will co-teach the Option Studio, Stone, Timber and the Carbon-Negative Building. 

photo below by David Lee / University of Toronto

A leading voice in advancing low-carbon building technologies

GROUPWORK has received support from government and industry-backed research initiatives to develop practical alternatives to carbon-intensive construction methods, with several forthcoming publications focused on stone, timber and other low-carbon structural systems. 

Reflecting these interests, Taha is part of the curatorial team for The New Stone Age: Towards an Ethical Architecture, alongside Steve Webb of Webb Yates Engineers and Pierre Bidaud of The Stonemasonry Company. The exhibition, held at Daniels from January to April 2026, showcased the strength and versatility of stone and its potential as a defining building material of the 21st century. A major exterior installation for this exhibit, The Long Reach: Carbon Balance (2026), is now on view until spring 2027. 

Join Taha and fellow curators Webb and Bidaud for a special lunchtime talk:

Wednesday, October 21
1:00 to 2:00 p.m. 
Daniels Building, 1 Spadina Crescent (south side)
Paul Oberman Belvedere

Register

Supplied photo on home page by Sven Arnstein

Supplied photo

In an age of artificial intelligence, educators across the University of Toronto are encouraging students to work with the technology – not to obtain easy answers, but to teach themselves how to ask better questions.

U of T students are expected to complete assignments without outside assistance unless instructed otherwise. However, several professors say certain AI tools can have a role in enhancing learning by acting as round-the-clock personal tutor, a sounding board for half-baked ideas or a patient conversation partner for language learners.

The tools can prompt questions, provide feedback and help students puzzle through problems, sharpening their thinking rather than supplanting it. The harder part is training students to assess what comes back. In other words, the real test is whether students can hone the skill that sets them apart: their judgment.

U of T News spoke to four professors, including Associate Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee, director of the master of architecture program at Daniels, about how they’re tackling the technology this school year.

Learning how to look

Lee knows that AI can produce more images in minutes than architects can draw by hand in a week. But in her view, more options don’t necessarily mean better ideas.

“I’m trying to warn students about what it means for there to be an abundance of imagery coming at you and a scarcity of judgment to match it,” says Lee.

Students in any of her courses are welcome to use AI as a study partner to clarify a concept, troubleshoot software or talk through ideas. But first-year students aren’t allowed to submit work created by AI since they don’t yet have the skills to see its distortions – and how that shapes what gets built.

“All drawings are loaded,” Lee says. It takes time and training to scrutinize what images emphasize, what they erase and whose interests they serve.

Once students have that grounding, the rules shift. With Lee’s approval, third-years can use AI in their design process, but they must account for why and own the result.

In her upper-year studio, Lee has her students act as editors, sifting through dozens of AI‑generated visualizations to pick out the ideas worth salvaging while discarding the rest.

Lee expects her students will be using AI for the rest of their careers. But she worries the technology is accelerating a trend: glossy renderings that show a sunlit building but not what it’s trying to do. Her goal is to equip students with a critical eye to tell the difference.

“The most precious thing they have is their judgment,” she says. “Even when AI is a tool, the student is the decision maker.”

Story by Adina Bresge republished from U of T News

What has changed for women in Canadian architecture – and what work remains?

A new article in Canadian Architect reflects on Taking Stock: Voices of Women in Architecture Across Canada, a SSHRC-funded symposium, Mar. 6 & 7, that brought together more than 200 architects, educators, students, researchers, and advocates from across Canada to examine equity, recognition, labour, leadership, and belonging within the profession.

Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream Anne-Marie Armstrong was a co-investigator and organizer of the symposium and moderated the session “Women in Academia,” which explored how architectural knowledge is produced, preserved, and challenged – and whose contributions have historically been overlooked.

Read more at Canadian Architect – Report: Taking Stock

photos by David Lee / University of Toronto

September 9—Spring 2027
Paul Oberman Belvedere, South Side of the Daniels Building
1 Spadina Crescent (Map) 

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design announces the opening of The Long Reach: Carbon Balance (2026) a major exterior installation on the Paul Oberman Belvedere at 1 Spadina Crescent.

Part of the ongoing exhibition project The New Stone Age: Towards an Ethical Architecture curated by UK-based architects GROUPWORK (led by Amin Taha), Webb Yates Engineers (led by Steve Webb), and The Stonemasonry Company (led by Pierre Bidaud), the project demonstrates the strength and versatility of stone and underscores its potential as a defining building material of the 21st century.

From the curators: 

"The structure asks to be read twice.

From the path it reads as a sculpture — a post-tensioned stone beam reaching out across the plaza, apparently weightless, held in check by nothing more than a rough boulder at its tail. Mass answering mass, the oldest arrangement there is. Look up and the puzzle resolves into a building: post-tensioned stone columns and beams, braced by three raw timber posts, a complete structural frame at the scale, span and cost of the steel or concrete it displaces.

The arithmetic is the point. Timber banks roughly –1,000 kgCO₂ per cubic metre; stone spends around +36 kgCO₂ per cubic metre to quarry and cut. Put the two together and the frame stores more carbon than it costs.

Not a reduction, not an offset, but a negative number in the column.

Construction is currently responsible for around 40% of annual emissions. Built this way it becomes the opposite: a sequestering industry, a carbon sink at urban scale, with the boulder standing in for the load-bearing logic that made this possible long before it made this necessary."

Amin Taha of GROUPWORK joins Daniels as the 2026/27 Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design. 

Join Taha and fellow curators Webb and Bidaud for a special lunchtime talk:

Wednesday, October 21
1:00 to 2:00 p.m. 
Daniels Building, 1 Spadina Crescent (south side)
Paul Oberman Belvedere

Register

Daniels and the curators thank PICCO Engineering for their generous financial and in-kind support for the installation of this exhibit. PICCO Engineering is an award-winning structural engineering and consulting firm known worldwide for its expertise in natural stone façades, masonry, and anchoring systems design.

photo by Ed Ackerman

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is pleased to welcome Rhayne Vermette as its 2026 Filmmaker-in-Residence.

Primarily self-taught, Vermette’s multidisciplinary practice explores the interference of image through collage, photography and analog filmmaking. Her work considers themes of place, time and rhythm through layers of fiction, animation, reenactment and divine interruption. Deeply rooted in Manitoba, Vermette frequently enlists the talents of her loved ones and community in the making of her films.

Vermette’s first feature narrative, Ste. Anne (2021), drew on her own family history and featured members of her family from Ste. Anne, Manitoba. The film received critical acclaim and was awarded the Best Canadian Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

More recently, Vermette’s film Levers received the Best International Film Award at Cinéma du Réel in 2026, further establishing her distinctive approach to filmmaking and contemporary image-making. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious prizes for contemporary visual artists.

Her practice will also be featured in Infinite Expansions, a major survey exhibition exploring collage, assemblage and montage, opening at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon in November 2026.

Rhéanne (Rhayne) Vermette was born in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba, to Jacqueline Deroche and Roger Vermette. Her family history is deeply connected to Manitoba’s Métis and French-Canadian communities. Through her filmmaking, Vermette draws on these histories of place, family and community, transforming personal and collective memory into richly layered cinematic worlds. Her work offers an expansive understanding of how images can construct, disrupt and reimagine relationships to place and time.

During her residency, Vermette will engage with students, faculty and the broader Daniels community through programming that will provide opportunities to explore her approach to filmmaking, collage and image-making, as well as the intersections between cinema, architecture and place.

As part of her residency, Vermette will give a public lecture on Tuesday, October 13 at 6:30 p.m. The lecture will offer an opportunity for students, faculty and the wider community to hear Vermette discuss her artistic practice, filmmaking process and ongoing explorations of image, memory, place and time.