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
8:00 – 9:00 a.m. (EDT)

Register

Master of Forest Conservation

Tuesday, October 13
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (EDT)

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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)

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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)

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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
8:00 – 9:00 a.m. (EDT)

Register

Architectural Studies Information Session

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

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Visual Studies Information Session

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

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Architectural Studies Information Session

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

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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

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

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.

Supplied photo courtesy of Katy Chey
 

Women in Housing Design History (Routledge, 2026) by Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream Katy Chey examines the women whose contributions significantly shaped housing management, policy and design. The Society of Architectural Historians selected the book for its September 2026 Booklist and Reader’s Advisory (PDF).

In this Q&A, Chey shares what inspired her latest book and reflects on the women's stories it highlights.

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

A: It started with my first book, Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day. While researching the London tenement chapter, I came across Octavia Hill, an English social reformer who developed housing for London’s working poor. I was fascinated by her work ethic and accomplishments, but since my book was focused on housing typologies, I kept her story brief. Then, I came across Jane Addams in a historical non-fiction book, and once again, I realized I had never heard of her either. She was a social reformer who established Hull-House in Chicago, the first settlement house in the United States. Discovering these two remarkable women who shaped housing and knowing that I had never learned of them through my architecture education, professional work, or research, made me wonder how many other women like them I had never heard of, and that’s what sparked my search.

Q: Why do you think so many of these women's contributions have been overlooked in traditional housing and design histories?

A: It is easy to say that history and representation are biased, and these women’s contributions were overlooked simply because they were women. However, I think the story is more complicated than that. Historically, housing, architecture and design histories, often focused on and celebrate the architects and buildings, leaving out the people who helped shape the project through social reform, research, management and policy. Almost all the women in my book worked in these areas for housing and many were not fully recognized for their efforts and achievements in their lifetimes. Yet they all developed important ideas about how housing could build community, cultivate civic responsibility, and create a more equitable society. That is why I think it is important to look at housing history through a broader, more interdisciplinary lens. Then we can start to see just how significant the contributions of others were – in this case, women – and how much of our history has yet to be uncovered and captured.

Q: What are some of the common themes or values among the women profiled?

A: The most common characteristics among the women in my book is that they were all curious, determined and willing to challenge the expectations of their time. Most of them lived in a period when women were expected to be reserved, marry well, and focus primarily on their families and households. Many of them did marry and care for their families, but they also had interests and ambitions that extended beyond their home. In their own ways, all the women in my book defied the social norms of their time and all led changes that made for better housing development, management, design and policy.

Q: Was there a story or discovery that particularly surprised you during your research?

A: My research revealed a few stories that really intrigued me. Today, we often assume a person’s professional life reflects their personal life, yet the women I studied proved the opposite. Catharine Beecher, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, Christine Frederick and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky each devoted their careers to improving the domestic realm, yet none lived according to the ideas they endorsed. Beecher educated women to stay home, raise their children and beautify their homes, yet she never married, had no children and did not maintain a home of her own. Gilbreth design an efficiency-focused kitchen to free up a woman’s time to pursue other activities, yet she had hired help in her own kitchen. Frederick developed and published standards for household efficiency, yet she frequently travelled away from her home to promote them. And Schütte-Lihotzky, became famous for designing the mass-produced Frankfurt Kitchen, yet later admitted that she had never cooked and knew nothing about cooking.

Q: What do you hope students, scholars, and practitioners will take away from the book, and what conversations do you hope it will inspire among readers?

A: I hope the book expands how we understand housing history. I hope readers come away with learning how some of the less visible contributions in housing history was formed. The women in my book approached housing from many different perspectives, as social reformers, advocates, policy makers, and architects, and their work shows that good housing is about much more than designing buildings. It is also about creating community, supporting civic life, and contributing to a more equitable society. I also hope the book encourages readers to look more critically at the histories we have inherited and ask whose contributions may be missing from those narratives. For practitioners today, I hope it inspires conversations about how we can bring some of these ideas and values into our work and, ultimately, encourage a more interdisciplinary discussion about housing and whose ideas, perspectives and contributions shape the places we live.

Receive 20%* off with the promote code 26AFLY3 when you purchase direct from the publisher (cost in USD).

*This discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer discount and only applies to books purchased directly from www.routledge.com. This code expires on 31 December 2026.

Assistant Professor Aleksandr Bierig has received a 2025-26 Connaught New Researcher Award for his project, Surplus Energies: Coal and the Production of Space in Britain, 1700–1850.

In total, the University of Toronto recognized 52 faculty members across its three campuses.

The annual awards support early-stage researchers in the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, physical sciences, engineering and other fields – and aim to enhance their competitiveness for external awards. They are part of the Connaught Fund, Canada’s largest internal university research funding program.

“The Connaught New Researcher Awards provide critical support to early-career researchers as they develop innovative research programs and pursue bold new ideas,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “I am inspired by the breadth of work being undertaken by this year’s recipients, spanning topics such as maternal mental health, AI energy modeling, migration outcomes and the recycling of electronic waste materials.”

Read Aleksandr Bierig awarded fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study

Republished from U of T Celebrates