Scales of Inquiry

Located in the Larry Wayne Richards Gallery + East Vestibule at 1 Spadina Crescent, the 2025 Architectural Studies (BAAS) 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.

End of Year Show 2024/2025

A Daniels Faculty tradition encompassing a wide range of projects, this exhibition showcases student work from across the Faculty’s degree programs in Architecture, Forestry, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Visual Studies. The models, drawings, graphics and videos displayed in the Third Floor Studio at 1 Spadina Crescent, demonstrate our students’ design approaches to the objects and environments they imagine, create, and nurture.

Curated by Office In Search Of (OISO), an interdisciplinary design practice founded by Daniels Faculty lecturers Brandon Bergem and Jeffrey Garcia.

Closes June 9, 2025

MVS Studio Program Graduating Exhibition

The Art Museum at Hart House, in partnership with the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, is pleased to exhibit the graduating projects of the 2025 Master of Visual Studies graduate students Justyna Janik, Lauren Warrington, and Lina Wu.

This exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS Studio degree in Visual Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto.

Closes July 26, 2025

The 2024 Prix de Rome for Emerging Architects has been awarded to Daniels alumnus Daniel Wong. His win marks the second time in two years that the prestigious prize has gone to a graduate of the Faculty.

Every year, the Prix de Rome for Emerging Architects is awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts to a recent graduate from a Canadian architectural school who demonstrates exceptional potential in architectural design. 

With the prize, “the recipient may visit architectural buildings and carry out an internship at an international architectural firm.”

Wong, who acquired his Master of Architecture (MARC) degree last year and is currently an intern architect at AAmp Studio in Toronto, has been pursuing internships in Paris and Rotterdam, in addition to a research residency in New York. 

His Prix de Rome proposal builds on his award-winning thesis project, {In}visible Maintenance, which investigates the cultural and material practices of maintenance, cleaning and repair. 

As part of this research, Wong plans to visit buildings, sites and industries across Japan, London and Belgium to explore and document different cultural mindsets around architectural maintenance. 

“This incredible opportunity,” he says, “will allow me to expand my research into how we might adopt a culture of maintenance, cleaning and repair—one that could suggest alternative sustainable practices and offer a path forward for retaining and revitalizing our built environment."

“Through this research," he adds, "I hope to show how maintenance is not merely a remedial task, but an essential, proactive component of architecture.”

In 2022, the Prix de Rome also went to a Daniels architecture graduate: Yiyao Ivee Wang, one of three recipients that year. (The other two were Julia Nakanishi of Toronto and Paulette Cameron of Halifax. No prizes had been awarded in 2020 or 2021 because of the pandemic.)

Having acquired her MARC degree in 2021, Wang (pictured below) focused her research on exploring and expanding the design potential of future-facing and adaptive residential architecture.

Her stated goals upon winning the Prix de Rome included the investigation of relevant projects and practices in Canada, the U.K., France and China, exploring creative design processes and solutions that transform obsolescence into metamorphosis.

Wang portrait by Melanie Lo

How does one fabricate a biological architecture? What are the conditions of stewardship? What are the strategies to instigate this at scale, regionally and globally? 

These questions are the foundation of inquiry for Living Room Collective’s exhibition Picoplanktonics, presented by the Canada Council for the Arts as part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, on view in the Canada Pavillion from May 10 until November 23, 2025.  

The Living Room Collective (featured below) is a group of architects, scientists, artists and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication technologies—led by Canadian architect and biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, a lecturer and the Director of Applied Technologies at the Daniels Faculty, Vincent Hui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, and Clayton Lee, a curator, producer and performance artist.   

Amidst the ongoing global climate crisis, Picoplanktonics showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Comprised of 3D printed structures that contain live cyanobacteria capable of carbon sequestration, the exhibition is an exploration of our potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that remediate the planet rather than exploit it. By leveraging ancient biological processes alongside emergent technologies, Picoplanktonics proposes designing environments under an ecology-first ethos. 

“The interdisciplinary research at the core of Picoplanktonics, led by Andrea (Shin Ling) and the team from ETH Zurich, is exactly the type of forward-thinking collaboration we encourage among faculty and students across our fields at the Daniels Faculty,” says Robert Levit, Acting Dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. “I’m thrilled by the exhibition and the work of Nicholas and Living Room Collective, and can't wait to see what it inspires beyond its life in Venice.”

When visitors enter the Canada Pavilion, they will encounter 3D printed structures that were originally fabricated in an ETH Zürich laboratory. These are the largest living material structures produced using a first-of-its-kind biofabrication platform capable of printing living structures at an architectural scale.  

The unique Picoplanktonics experience stems from adapting the Canada Pavilion to provide enough light, moisture, and warmth for the living cyanobacteria within the structures to grow, thrive and change. For the duration of the exhibition, caretakers will be onsite tending to the structures, emphasizing care and stewardship as essential elements of the design.  

As global carbon emissions continue to rise to untenable levels, Picoplanktonics presents a vision of how a regenerative system of construction could operate. It is an ongoing experiment centered on leveraging the reciprocal relationship between living structures, the built environment, and humans. In this way, the Living Room Collective is rethinking building principles and prioritizing ecological resilience beyond human species survival. 

“Through the lens of architecture, this year’s Canadian exhibition brings technological innovation and ecological stewardship together,” says Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts. “It is a unique exhibition, sure to inspire global audiences and to ignite important conversations, about how our built environment might better house and use natural systems for a more sustainable future.” 

Commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, the selection committee was comprised of: Aziza Chaouni (architect, principal, Aziza Chaouni Projects and associate professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto); David Garneau (Métis, painter, curator, critical art writer and professor, Visual Arts Department, University of Regina); Daniel Pearl (archi-tect, principal, L’OEUF Architectes and professor, School of Architecture, Université de Montréal); Siamak Hariri (architect, founding partner, Hariri Pontarini Architects); and Sepake Angiama (curator, educator, and artistic director, Institute for International Visual Art).  

Learn more on the Picoplanktonics website: picoplanktonics.com

Read the full media release via Canada Council for the Arts: canadacouncil.ca/initiatives/venice-biennale/2025  

Visit the Venice Biennale website for more information: labiennale.org/en/architecture/2025  

Photo credits: Living Room Collective.  

James Bird, a PhD candidate in Architecture, Landscape, and Design, has been awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal in recognition of his contributions to Crown-Indigenous relations and his role as Chapel Royal Tobacco Keeper at Massey College. 

The Honorable Edith Dumont, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, presented Bird with the medal on May 6, 2025, during a ceremony at Queen’s Park. Created to commemorate the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III in 2023, the Coronation Medal is the first Canadian commemorative medal to mark a royal coronation. 

At Massey College, Bird is one of three Tobacco Keepers for the Chapel Royal—formally designated by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 and known in Anishinaabemowin as Gi-Chi Twaa Gimaa Kwe Mississauga Anishinaabek AName Amik (The Queen’s Anishinaabek Sacred Place). A tobacco garden outside the chapel reflects the sacred role of the plant in Indigenous ceremonial life and its enduring significance in Crown-Indigenous diplomacy. 

In his doctoral research, Bird explores the intersection of Dënesųłiné linguistics and shape forming. His work examines how language can serve as an entry point into understanding diverse built forms and architectural strategies. A key premise of his research is the creation of alternative viewpoints that assign agency to the metaphysical elements embedded within Indigenous languages and cultures. By investigating the ontological relationships within language morphemes, Bird seeks to uncover how these linguistic structures inform and inspire Indigenous design practices. 

Through academic research, knowledge keeping and ceremony, Bird continues to deepen understandings of Indigenous sovereignty, language, and the evolving relationship between Indigenous nations and the Crown. 

Ever wondered what's inside 1 Spadina Crescent? Curious about the history of the revitalized neo-Gothic building at its centre? Whether you have always wanted to wander the halls or simply haven’t visited in a while, there is something for everyone to discover during Doors Open Toronto 2025. 

Each May, Doors Open Toronto invites the public to explore the city’s most-loved buildings and sites, and the Daniels Building will welcome visitors for tours May 24-25 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Plus, join us for a free special lecture by the Toronto Society of Architects on Sunday, May 25 at 2:00 p.m.

Don't miss the End of Year Show 2024/2025 showcasing a wide range of projects produced in our architecture, landscape architecture, forestry, urban design and visual studies programs. The drawings, graphics, models and videos displayed throughout the Daniels Building demonstrate an exuberance for innovative digital and physical approaches to the objects and environments we imagine, create, and nurture.

Originally built as a prospect to the lake, the historic structure at 1 Spadina Crescent was the first site of Knox College in 1875, a military hospital during the First World War and the place where Connaught Laboratories manufactured insulin in the 1940s. Today, it’s home to the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.

A striking contemporary addition, designed by NADAAA and completed in 2018, combines the Knox College structure with cutting-edge facilities, from versatile new studios to a digital fabrication lab. In addition to taking in the architectural splendours and storied history of the revitalized 1 Spadina hub, visitors during Doors Open Toronto 2025 will have plenty of current work to take in as well.

Admission to the Daniels Building and to all Doors Open venues is free. A dedicated brochure with map of the Daniels Building will be available for visitors.

Visit the Doors Open Toronto website for a full list of participating sites.

In the summer of 2021, when pandemic restrictions had most people working and studying remotely, Professor Pina Petricone began experimenting with a new model of experiential learning, putting together an intensive internship for 12 undergraduate students that departed from the traditional internship model.

Taking full advantage of the multidisciplinary nature of the Faculty’s BAAS program, her format replaced the usual pursuit of “practical experience” in a design office with one that encouraged students to contribute to and advance design research initiatives in everyday practice. 

One year later, this pilot course led to the official launch of the Design Research Internship Program (DRIP) in May of 2022, when Petricone invited 13 partnering practitioners to select one or two interns to undertake a defined design-research project over six weeks. 

Last summer, the program saw its biggest cohort to date, with some 30 internships offered by a host of top Canadian design firms. 

As DRIP 2025, which was available to all undergraduate Architectural Studies and Visual Studies students who had completed one credit of ARC courses at the 300 level, prepares to kick off, Petricone reflected on the first three years of the unique initiative, including the recipe for DRIP’s rapid success and also what comes next.

You have often talked about how the unique shape of DRIP is only possible within the rigorous context of Daniels’ BA in Architectural Studies program. What sets the Faculty’s DRIP program apart from other internships?

Unique across Canada, the pedagogical positioning of our BAAS program, which is firmly rooted in the liberal arts milieu, is what allows DRIP to define models of design research that advance lessons from design studios and course work into multivalent and sometimes interdisciplinary design research problems. 

Combined with the opportunity afforded by the concentration of some of the country’s most recognized design practitioners at the University of Toronto’s doorstep, DRIP finds itself in a new category within the long history of design internships. 

As an academic internship, DRIP moves freely beyond the mandate of “practical experience” or “readiness for the profession” of most architecture internships. At once unburdened by pre-professional obligations, DRIP exposes Daniels undergraduate students to architectural design as a form of research and in turn exposes the rich community of professional design practitioners to the unique talents of our students.

Left: ERA Architects DRIP intern Thea Freer analyzed and documented the historical, present-day and future attributes of Allan Gardens in Toronto. Middle: WZMH DRIP intern Alyssa Tao created a resource for the firm’s approach to building with timber. Right: Denegri Bessai DRIP intern Kaede Sato developed model-making techniques that tested spatial arrangements in ongoing residential projects.

DRIP understands that design research is an integral part of professional practice. Student interns tap into this activity and contribute to advancing applied research projects defined by their host firms. What range of research and findings have emerged in these first years of DRIP delivery?

It has been super-interesting to trace the patterns of research projects undertaken by DRIP interns in these first three years. Each internship relies on a practitioner-defined design-research project, born from exigencies of firm-specific past, present and/or future professional projects. The list of partnering firms is curated for diversity of practice models and value-driven enterprise, and no two projects are alike.

Both prospective interns and partnering practitioners declare their DRIP areas of practice, such as Urbanism, Landscape, Building Tectonics, Building Details, Public Space, Infrastructure, Digital Fabrication, Heritage, Energy Performance, Interdisciplinary, Housing, Public Policy, Community Engagement, Exhibition, Publication, etc., as well as their DRIP research methods, such as Conceptual Drawing, Mapping, Model Making, Technical Drawing, Archival Research, Historical Research, Photo Documentation, Rendering, Computation, Diagramming, Fieldwork or Spatial Analysis.

Common areas of focus, however, still lead to a wide range of research questions and outcomes.

Using various research methods in a number of practice areas, some of the prevalent design research that has emerged in DRIP’s first three years includes Typological Diagramming, Archival Documentation, Envelope Performance, Site Analysis, Critical Cataloguing, Proof of Concept by Modeling, Historical Tracing, Iterative Tracing by Rendering and Testing Tools such as comparing AI Platforms to advance digital practices in the design and documentation phases.

Left: Hariri Pontarini Architects DRIP intern Luca Patrick created a comparative archive that explores the unifying function of the exploded axonometric across several building types. Middle: ERA Architects DRIP intern Camilla Hoang traced lost heritage of seven 19th-century Black churches in Toronto via an interactive site model. Right: ZAS Architects DRIP intern John Wu created a catalogue of effective learning spaces for the firm’s innovative educational projects.  

Your ambitions to evolve and refine DRIP as a far-reaching experiential learning model are already underway. Now that it’s entering its fourth year, what do you imagine for DRIP’s future?

I believe one of the greatest assets of DRIP is how the program embraces the opportunity to educate senior BAAS students not only with academic and technical skills but also with an understanding of the broader societal impact of their work. Our students and partnering practitioners are passionate about doing meaningful work and we are making strides to build-in a diversity of practice best matched with a diversity of students in all streams of our undergraduate program.

A big part of this is slowly but surely increase engagement of interdisciplinary design practitioners and active agencies to partner with us and expand our roster to in turn invite their own collaborators to inform not only the DRIP experience but also the research project. Critical to this growth is directed feedback each year from both students and partnering practitioners, which has proved invaluable to the development of DRIP as a more far-reaching program and we’re working on two specific fronts. 

We are now exploring DRIP grouped initiatives where the strengths and interests of graduating students are assembled to work with a partnering practitioner that invites a collaborator(s) to amplify the six-week project. This is a great opportunity for out-of-province or out-of-country practitioners to engage in DRIP without the impairing logistics of students having to travel. 

At the same time, we are investigating how we might engage international partnering practitioners via our international (and national) students that might be already relocating for the summer. I’m excited by the possibilities!

This year’s DRIP begins on May 5 and runs until June 16.

Banner image: Collage of work produced by DRIP students during each of the program’s first three years. 

Homepage image: Collage of DRIP pilot work led by Pina Petricone at her design practice, Giannone Petricone Architects, with 12 BAAS students in 2021.

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. 

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:

The second iteration of the Solar Biennale, a roving biannual that focuses on design’s engagement with the sun, kicked off last month in Switzerland. Among the projects on view in its central exhibition, called Soleil-s, are two by members of the Daniels Faculty.

Have a Nice Day, a synthetic solar canopy that’s animated by motion sensors (pictured above), was designed by Common Accounts, the Toronto- and Madrid-based studio co-led by Assistant Professor Miles Gertler with Igor Bragado. 

“The installation considers the sun as a cosmic battery whose rays can increasingly be replicated and directed toward myriad purposes,” explains Gertler, citing cellular rehabilitation, anti-aging and enhanced fertility among them.

Adds Bragado: “The project troubles the psycho-social associations with the sun in the age of climate change and channels them into sensible, energetic encounters in the space of the gallery.” 

The museum staging Soleil-s, Lausanne’s Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliqués (mudac), has acquired Have a Nice Day (the assembly of which is pictured below) for its permanent collection. The piece was fabricated in Portugal by ArtWorks.

The creation of the installation was supported by research assistants Marie-Ellen Houde-Hostland, Emilie Tamtik and Elizaveta Grishina. Houde-Hostland is currently a student in the Faculty’s Master of Architecture (MARC) program, while Tamtik graduated from the program in 2024.

According to Gertler, “the piece is part of a larger body of research from my studio that focuses on self-design’s capacity to manage the body’s relation to the planetary.” In addition, it “furthers research presented in the film program of Shaping Atmospheres,” an exhibition staged last fall in the Faculty’s Architecture + Design Gallery. 

Shaping Atmospheres was curated by Ala Roushan and Associate Professor Charles Stankievech, who also have work on view at mudac.

A Shroud Woven of Solar Threads, their film invoking ancient Persian history for an alternative way of engaging with the sun (a still is pictured below), asks probing questions about mankind’s apparent desire to control the environment, reflecting “our hubris or, worse, our inab­il­ity to conceive of a harmo­ni­ous coex­ist­ence with other living beings.”

“In seek­ing to master the sun,” the artists posit, “are we jeop­ard­izing subtle ecolo­gical balances that we barely under­stand?”

Through the ancient figure of Mithra, they suggest, the Persians “viewed celes­tial phenom­ena as forces to engage in dialogue, rather than manip­u­late. Thus, the film poses an essen­tial ques­tion: In the face of current climate crises, could human­ity not recon­nect with former, more sens­it­ive ways of under­stand­ing?”

Soleil-s, the show in which both Have a Nice Day and A Shroud Woven of Solar Threads appear, was curated by Scott Longfellow and Rafael Santianez. It runs at mudac until September 21. 

The Solar Bien­nale, which was launched in the Netherlands in 2022, will also take place on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, “with events, parties and activ­it­ies to explore the many facets of the sun, a univer­sal symbol and source of life.”

Project installation image: ©Bruno Lança—ArtWorks