The Daniels Faculty is honouring Black History and Black Futures Month with a series of initiatives and events aimed at uplifting the ongoing movement for racial justice and celebrating the achievements and contributions of Black individuals. This year’s theme in Canada is “Ours to Tell,” emphasizing the importance of sharing stories of success, sacrifice and triumph in the Black community to inspire a more equitable society. 

As noted in the University Commitment in the Scarborough Charter, the work of Black flourishing and thriving should “be informed, shaped and co-created by communities” to be effective. The Daniels Faculty is committed to this principle, starting with the Designing Black Spaces with Community Accountability event on February 1, featuring Tura Cousins Wilson of SOCA, Jessica Kirk of the Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, and Jessica Hines of Black Urbanism Toronto. The event will focus on accountability in design and Black community engagement. 

Other events in the series include the student-led Black Flourishing through Design gathering — part of the Daniels Faculty mentorship program Building Black Success through Design — on February 15. This event will provide young and upcoming designers with feedback on their projects and opportunities for dialogue on themes such as community, Black spaces and Black excellence. The design work is rooted in the shaping of the built environment, and the reviewers will include the Faculty’s Otto Ojo, Joshua Kirk, Bomani Khemet and Camille Michelle. It is bring coordinated by Jewel Amoah and Clara James. Stay tuned for further details. 

Toward the end of the month, the Community for Belonging Reading Group: Black Futures will take place on February 28, bringing together faculty, staff and students from Daniels and across the University of Toronto to discuss works by authors Sekou Cooke and Tina M. Campt. 

The month-long celebration concludes with the Blackness in Architectural Pedagogy and Practice workshop on March 1, aimed at designers and educators. 

For more information on Black History and Black Futures Month events at the Daniels Faculty, visit the events page here. Updates will be provided regularly. 

Community for Belonging, a new reading initiative “intended to raise awareness of the broad spectrum of identities within the Daniels Faculty community and provide a platform for engagement, interaction and discussion,” officially launches this week.

Over the coming calendar year, at least four individual Community for Belonging Reading Groups will meet to discuss titles that represent non-traditional and underrepresented perspectives in written work about architecture, design and the built and natural worlds.  

The first two meetings will take place during the Winter semester (on February 28 and March 28), with two more planned for the Fall term. There may also be a fifth meeting in June, depending on community interest. 

During each of the meetings, which are open only to faculty, staff, students and alumni from the Daniels Faculty and U of T communities, two titles will be discussed. 

While each of the texts on the reading list will be by, about or for communities that have been historically underrepresented in architecture, design, visual studies and forestry, they are not intended to reflect definitive resources on including or expanding voice. Rather, the titles chosen are meant to serve as springboards for intentional conversations about inclusion and belonging.  

Those who have signed up for the meetings will be asked to come prepared to discuss at least one of the two texts proposed for that meeting. Participants will be given a hard copy of the designated book(s) in advance, with digital versions provided if the hard copies run out.  

The four meetings scheduled will be held in person in the Reading Room of the Eberhard Zeidler Library, which will be transformed into a conversation space for the events. 

The two titles selected for the February 28 meeting — the theme of which is Black Futures Month — are Sekou Cooke’s 2021 anti-elitism manifesto Hip-Hop Architecture and Tina M. Campt’s survey from the same year of Black contemporary artists, A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See.

The theme of the March 28 discussion, meanwhile, is International Women’s Month and Transgender Identities; the titles selected for that meeting are Lucas Crawford’s Transgender Architectonics: The Shape of Change in Modernist Space (2020) and Jan Cigliano Hartman’s The Women Who Changed Architecture (2022).

Each of these two meetings will take place between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. Members of the Daniels Faculty community who have neither ordered nor read the selected books may also attend the discussions.

The Community for Belonging reading-group project, which is being supported by Manulife and TD Insurance, will culminate on International Human Rights Day in December, reflecting its goals of building community, raising awareness of human rights, and celebrating identity. The University of Toronto has long-standing affinity relationships with Manulife and TD Insurance. These partnerships allow the University to provide beneficial, value-added financial and insurance products to alumni and students. See all affinity products.

To sign up for the first group discussion on February 28, click here.

Please refer any questions to:

Jewel Amoah
Assistant Dean, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
jewel.amoah@daniels.utoronto.ca

Cathryn Copper
Head Librarian
cathryn.copper@daniels.utoronto.ca.

Two members of the Daniels Faculty community, Behnaz Assadi and Wei-Han Vivian Lee, will be among those weighing in on the future of design this week at Toronto’s Interior Design Show.

Taking place in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s South Building from January 19 to 22, IDS Toronto is the country’s biggest design extravaganza, encompassing lectures, seminars, commercial product showcases and conceptual installations. 

Assistant Professor Assadi, a landscape designer and one of the co-founders of Ja Architecture Studio, will take part in a panel discussion on the subject of women in the design field. Called The Power of Women in Design and Construction, the talk takes place at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 19.

Assistant Professor Lee, meanwhile, will be among the panelists discussing the decolonization of design. Her event, called Decolonizing the Design Industry: How to Authentically Diversify Student Bodies and Workforces, will take place at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, January 20. Lee directs the Master of Architecture program at the Daniels Faculty and is a co-founder of the studio LAMAS.

Both events, part of the IDS seminar series, have has been submitted for OAA and IDCEC accreditation. Each costs $45 to attend, although attendees who have registered as Trade Day participants get 20 percent discounts. For more information on each and the show as a whole, visit the IDS website.

Marshall Brown, the Princeton-based architect, urbanist, artist and scholar, is scheduled to speak at the Daniels Faculty on Wednesday, January 18. 

Brown’s presentation, called ENGAGEMENTS, will take place in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building at 12:30 p.m., part of the Exploring Design Practices undergraduate course being taught by Richard Sommer. 

As in previous years, the lunchtime lecture and dialogue is open to other students and faculty and to the public at large. Registration is not required.

An associate professor with tenure at the Princeton University School of Architecture, where he directs the Princeton Urban Imagination Center, Brown represented the United States at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale and has work (examples of which are shown at top) in the collections of several major museums, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Reflecting his belief that the architect’s role is to test and expand the boundaries of reality, he constructs “visions of urban worlds yet to come” through such media as collage, architectural drawings on drafting vellum, sketches on tracing paper, video, models, objects and built projects.

Wednesday’s talk by Brown is the first of several slated for the Exploring Design Practices series this term. Anticipated future speakers include Michael Murphy, Peter Clewes, Amy Whitesides and Justin Garrett Moore. More details will be forthcoming.

Banner images from left: Vanderbilt Tower (collage on inkjet print, 51 x 40 inches), 2009; Prisons of Invention 4: The Well (collage on archival paper, 44 3/4 x 35 3/4 inches), 2021.

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is excited to present its Winter 2023 Public Program.  

Through a series of exhibitions, lectures, book talks, panel discussions and symposia, we aim to foster dialogue and knowledge exchange among our local and international communities on important social, political and environmental challenges confronting our disciplines and the world today.  

Our Public Program this semester addresses a range of pertinent issues concerning the natural and built environments, including design and social justice, urbanization and housing, art and media, and ecology and landscape resilience. 

All events are free and open to the public. All lectures will be held in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building unless otherwise stated. Register in advance and check the calendar for up-to-date details at daniels.utoronto.ca/events.  

January 26, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Housing Multitudes Lecture: Freedom Schools for Accountable Architecture 
Featuring Jae Shin and Damon Rich (HECTOR) 
Moderated by Richard Sommer (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 
 
February 1, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Designing Black Spaces with Community Accountability  
Featuring Tura Cousins Wilson (Studio of Contemporary Architecture), Jessica Kirk (Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism) and Jessica Hines (Black Urbanism Toronto) 
Moderated by Anne-Marie Armstrong (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 
 
February 7, 12:30 p.m. ET  
Understanding and Predicting the Changing Environment in the Coming Decades 
Featuring Brian Leung (Department of Biology, McGill University)  
Moderated by Patrick James (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

February 9, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Book Launch—Innate Terrain: Canadian Landscape Architecture  
By Alissa North (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

February 14, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Exhibition Opening—Recent Work by Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA)  
Curated by Marina Tabassum, 2022-2023 Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

February 16, 6:30 p.m. ET 
George Baird Lecture: Becoming Frank Gehry  
Featuring Jean-Louis Cohen (The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) 
Moderated by Jason Nguyen (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto)  

March 2, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Michael Hough/OALA Visiting Critic in Landscape Architecture Lecture: What Would Cornelia Do? 
Featuring Julie Bargmann (School of Architecture, University of Virginia) 
Moderated by Elise Shelley (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

March 7, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Phyllis Lambert: Observation Is a Constant That Underlies All Approaches 
Featuring Phyllis Lambert (Canadian Centre for Architecture) 
Moderated by Juan Du (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

March 14, 12:30 p.m. ET 
Civic Urbanism Without Borders 
Featuring Jeffery Hou (College of Built Environments, University of Washington)  
In collaboration with the Global Taiwan Studies Initiative at the Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto 

March 16, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Exhibition Opening—Resolutions for the Antarctic: International Stations & the Antarctic Data Space
Curated by UNLESS and featuring works by International Collaborators  

March 30, 6:30 p.m. ET 
Ruinophilia 
Featuring Lyndon Neri (Neri&Hu Design and Research Office) 
Moderated by Juan Du (Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto) 

Located in the heart of Canada’s biggest city, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto offers graduate programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, forestry and visual studies, as well as unique undergraduate programs that use architectural studies and visual studies as a lens through which students may pursue a broad, liberal arts-based education. Take a virtual look at everything we have to offer.
 

A tree planting and additions to Forestry’s commemorative Woodwall were on the program when the Daniels Faculty community gathered at the Earth Sciences Centre on November 24 to celebrate past and present forestry achievements. 

The ironwood tree (Ostrya virginiana) was planted in the Carolinian Forest Courtyard in honour of former professor Erik Jorgensen, who founded the University of Toronto’s Shade Tree Research Laboratory in the 1960s and is considered the father of urban forestry, a previously unexplored branch of forestry studies that he largely defined and promoted. 

Born in Denmark in 1921, Jorgensen and his colleagues at the Shade Tree Lab were especially instrumental in the study and control of Dutch Elm Disease (DED). Jorgensen passed away in 2012. 

Others honourees on the 24th included a dozen new additions to Forestry’s commemorative Woodwall, located inside the Earth Sciences Centre. Initiated in 2007, when Forestry at U of T celebrated its 100th birthday, the Woodwall recognizes illustrious alumni, faculty and staff on an artfully hung array of individual square wood plaques. 

The installation of the 12 new plaques — an initiative supported by Forestry’s Class of 1966 and led by alumnus Derek Coleman, who acquired his Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry that year — completes the current display.  

“Our increasing awareness that forestry reserves are key to mitigating climate change,” says Dean Juan Du, who attended both events and addressed attendees afterward, “makes forestry knowledge more important than ever. The research and instruction done in forestry at the University of Toronto has been vital in contributing to regional and national practices and policies. Now that our various forestry programs share a home with our programs in architecture, landscape architecture, visual studies and urban design, we have an opportunity to refine our educational and research approaches with a more comprehensive understanding of one environment, the natural alongside the built.” 

This perspective resonated with many in attendance, says Forestry Director Sandy Smith, who describes attendees as “a very receptive crowd of urban foresters who have been waiting for this opportunity to build on the beginnings of urban forestry at U o T.” 

“It was great to get together in person and to celebrate past achievements in urban forestry,” she adds. “Everyone who participated was excited by the new vision for forestry at Daniels shared by the Dean.” 

Among those on hand for the planting in the Carolinian Forest Courtyard, a studiously maintained space studded with native trees and shrubs, was Erik Jorgensen’s granddaughter, Stoney Baker.  

The names completing the Woodwall include Dr. Smith, Dr. Coleman, Dr. Shashi Kant, Dr. Sally Krigstin, Dr. Jay Malcolm, Deborah Paes, Fred Pinto, Dr. Danijela Puric-Mladenovic, Dr. Mohini Sain, Dr. Sean Thomas, Tony Ung and Amalia Veneziano. 

Image slideshow: 1. Attendees gather in the Earth Sciences Centre after the November 24 tree planting honouring former professor Erik Jorgensen, a pioneer of urban forestry. 2. Forestry Director Sandy Smith and alumnus Derek Coleman (Class of ’66) unveil the newest honourees on Forestry’s Woodwall, which recognizes illustrious alumni, faculty and staff both past and present. 3. Daniels Faculty Dean Juan Du addresses the gathering after both ceremonies. (Photos by Evan Donohue and George Wang)

Banner image: Erik Jorgensen’s granddaughter, Stoney Baker (holding shovel), joined Dean Du (third from right), Forestry Director Smith (second from right) and others for the tree planting ceremony in honour of her grandfather. Jorgensen founded the Shade Tree Research Laboratory at U of T in the 1960s. (Photo by Evan Donohue)

Monday, December 5 to Tuesday, December 20
Daniels Faculty Building,
1 Spadina Crescent, Toronto, Ontario 

Throughout December, students in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, visual studies and forestry will present final projects to their instructors. Students of the Daniels Faculty will also present to guest critics from both academia and the professional community in attendance. 

Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations is strongly encouraged, and UCheck continues to be available for uploading proof of vaccination. Please see the latest University of Toronto COVID-19 FAQS. 

Follow the Daniels Faculty @UofTDaniels on Instagram, and join the conversation using the hashtag #DanielsReviews22.
 

Monday, December 5 | Graduate

Design Studio I
LAN1011Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Behnaz Assadi (Coordinator), Pete North, Elnaz Sanati
Rooms: 230, 330

Tuesday, December 6 | Graduate

Design Studio I
ARC1011Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Vivian Lee (Coordinator), Fiona Lim Tung, Miles Gertler, Chris Cornecelli, Julia DiCastri, Carol Moukheiber, Tom Ngo
Rooms: 230, 330, Main Hall (170)

Wednesday, December 7 | Graduate

Intergraded Urbanism Studio
ARC2013Y, LAN2013Y, URD1011Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Roberto Damiani (Coordinator), Fadi Masoud (Coordinator), Michael Piper (Coordinator), Christos Marcopoulos, Aziza Chaouni, Laurence Holland, Drew Adams, George Baird, Lisa Rapoport, Jon Cummings, Natalia Echeverri, Rob Wright
Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Marina Tabassum
Room: 340

Thursday, December 8 | Graduate

Intergraded Urbanism Studio
ARC2013Y, LAN2013Y, URD1011Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Roberto Damiani (Coordinator), Fadi Masoud (Coordinator), Michael Piper (Coordinator), Christos Marcopoulos, Aziza Chaouni, Laurence Holland, Drew Adams, George Baird, Lisa Rapoport, Jon Cummings, Natalia Echeverri, Rob Wright
Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330

Friday, December 9 | Graduate

Design Studio Options
LAN3016Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Ivan Valin
Room: 230

Design Studio Options
LAN3016Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Liz Wreford, Rob Wright
Rooms: 330

Tuesday, December 13 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Jeannie Kim
Rooms: 230

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Zachary Mollica
Rooms: 330

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Brian Boigon
Rooms: 240

Architecture Studio III
ARC361Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Petros Babasikas (Coordinator), Shane Williamson, Carol Moukheiber
Rooms: Main Hall (170), 215

Capstone Project in Forest Conservation
FOR3008H
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Catherine Edwards
Rooms: 200

Wednesday, December 14 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Petros Babasikas
Rooms: 330

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Shane Williamson
Rooms: 230

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Laura Miller
Rooms: 315, 340

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: John Shnier
Rooms: 1^st Floor Hallway

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Lukas Pauer
Rooms: 240

Architectural Design Studio 7:  Thesis
ARC4018Y
9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET

Instructors: Michael Piper, Miles Gertler, Reza Nik
Rooms: 209, 242

Landscape Architecture Studio III
ARC363Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Behnaz Assadi
Room: 215

Technology Studio III
ARC380Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Nicholas Hoban (Coordinator), Nathan Bishop
Rooms: Main Hall (170)

Capstone Project in Forest Conservation
FOR3008H
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Catherine Edwards
Rooms: 200

Thursday, December 15 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Architectural Design Studio:  Research 1
ARC3020Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Marc McQuade
Rooms: Graduate Studio

Drawing and Representation I
ARC100H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: James Macgillivray (Coordinator), Brandon Bergem, Saarinen Balagengatharadilak, Sonia Ramundi, Si Fei Mo, Danielle Whitley, Monifa Charles-Dedier, Jeffrey Garcia, Anamarija Korolj, Quan Thai, Ji Hee Kim, Anne Ma, Angela Cho, Kara Verbeek, Andrea Rodriguez Fos, Nicholas Barrette
Rooms: Principal Hall (170), 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, 340

Friday, December 16 | Graduate & Undergraduate 

Thesis 1
ALA4021Y
9 a.m.–12 p.m. ET

Instructor: Mason White
Rooms: 242

Urban Design Studio Options: Density
URD2013YF
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Angus Laurie, Lorne Cappe, Mariana Leguia
Rooms: 209

Drawing and Representation II
ARC200H1
9 a.m.–2 p.m. ET

Instructors: Roberto Damiani (Coordinator), Phat Le, Michael Piper, Rez Nik, Matthew DeSantis, Sam Dufaux, David Verbeek, Katy Chey, Simon Rabyniuk, Nova Tayona, Noheir Elgendy, Kara Verbeek
Rooms: Main Hall (170), 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, 340
 

Monday, December 19 | Undergraduate

Design Studio II
ARC201H1
9 a.m.–2 p.m. ET

Instructors: Miles Gertler (Coordinator), Brian Boigon, Jennifer Kudlats, Jamie Lipson, Jeffrey Garcia
Rooms: 170C, 209, 215, 240, 242

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Research)
ARC456H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk
Room: 230

Senior Seminar in Design (Research)
ARC461H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Laura Miller
Room: 330

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research)
ARC486H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Nicholas Hoban
Rooms: Main Hall (170)

Tuesday, December 20 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Research)
ARC456H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk
Rooms: 230

Senior Seminar in Design (Research)
ARC461H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Laura Miller
Rooms: 330

Senior Seminar in Technology (Research)
ARC486H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Nicholas Hoban
Rooms: Main Hall (170)
 

Banner photo courtesy of GALDSU

The Daniels Faculty’s Ted Kesik, Professor of Building Science, has been made a Fellow of the California-based Facade Tectonics Institute.

He was inducted into the FTI’s College of Fellows during the organization’s World Congress last month in Los Angeles.

Based at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, the FTI was established in 2015 with “the mission of carrying out progressive and broad-based research in building facade technology.”

In addition to its research activities, the Institute conducts a biennial World Congress and an annual series of Regional Forums. It also publishes the Facade Tectonics Journal and produces various publications ranging from technical guides and research reports to books addressing diverse areas of building facade technology.

According to the Institute, Professor Kesik’s induction “acknowledges over three decades of leadership in professional practice and building science education for the advancement of building enclosure design.”

Professor Kesik first became involved in the construction industry in 1974, and he continues to practice as a consulting engineer for leading architectural offices, forward-thinking enterprises and progressive government agencies. Among his numerous areas of research are building resilience and sustainability, high-performance buildings, life cycle assessment and building performance simulation.

In the early 1980s, when the University of Toronto’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture was struggling with space and budget constraints and even faced the possibility of closure, many voices came to its defence, both within and outside U of T. Among them was Diamond Schmitt Architects co-founder Jack Diamond, who had directed the Master of Architecture program at the school from 1964 to 1969 and was a firm believer that effective city building required a strong instructional foundation. 

“If Toronto loses the school of architecture,” he told The Globe and Mail in 1983, “it loses much more than a museum or art gallery. The university’s pitch [for closure] is like saying painting and music aren’t important to society. [The school] must be part of the environment, as well as aspiring to scholarship.” 

In the end, of course, the school wasn’t closed, it was reconstituted a Faculty in the 1990s, and it grew in size and reputation to become the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. At the same time, the surrounding city of Toronto also grew, with Diamond playing an important role in its development as well.  

Among his legacies as an architect in the city are some pioneering examples of infill and social housing, dexterous incorporations of heritage structures into new projects, and the most glamorous of Toronto’s performing arts venues. 

Diamond, who died on October 30 at the age of 89, just one week short of his 90th birthday, co-established his now-venerable firm with partner Donald Schmitt after leaving U of T. The fact that the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on University Avenue should be among his best-known projects is appropriate: In addition to architecture, he was passionate about music, and exemplary stage and concert venues became a specialty. 

Besides the Four Seasons Centre (pictured below), Diamond Schmitt also oversaw the design of La Maison Symphonique in Montreal and the Mariinsky II Concert Hall in Saint Petersburg, Russia. All have been acclaimed for their acoustical properties. 

Born Abel Joseph Diamond in the South African town of Piet Retief, the graduate of the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford left his home country for good during the apartheid era. After a brief stint in the Philadelphia office of modernist legend Louis Kahn, he was lured to Toronto by the job at U of T. Canada’s largest city would from then on be his home. 

“He came to Toronto in 1964 and worked for the next 58 years to make it a better place,” his family says in a notice it released. 

The same could be said about his mark on the Daniels Faculty. In addition to his defence of the architecture school at a time when it was imperilled, his firm’s support of the Diamond Schmitt Ontario Graduate Student Scholarship, which recognizes academic excellence among students in the Master of Architecture program, continues to create a living legacy of scholars within the Faculty and beyond. 

According to Diamond’s family, two achievements of which the onetime college rugby star “was extremely proud were scoring the winning try for Oxford University against Australia, and being made an Officer of the Order of Canada.” Diamond was also a Member of the Order of Ontario and a recipient of the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. 

Among his survivors are his wife Gillian (whom he met at Oxford), his sister Stella, his children Andrew and Suki, five grandsons, and Andrew’s two stepsons.  

At his family’s request, anyone wishing to honour Diamond’s memory is encouraged to do so by donating to the Diamond Schmitt Ontario Graduate Student Scholarship. (To make a donation, click here. For more information, contact Stacey Charles at 416-978-4340 or stacey.charles@daniels.utoronto.ca.)  

A celebration of Diamond’s life will take place on Saturday, November 19, between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m., at the Four Seasons Centre.