“Places of Production: Forest and Factory” is a new publication from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, in collaboration with the Canadian Wood Council and the woodSMART Program.

The title comes from the research studio of the same name, led by Professor Robert Wright and Professor Brigitte Shim, that explored the intersection between the disciplines of forestry, architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism.

The studio was an opportunity for Daniels students to explore the critical and relatively untapped relationship between forestry and design. Working with Element5, and using their factory expansion plans as impetus, students reimagined the traditionally insular factory building and explored how it could be combined with new and innovative programs to ensure a vital future for places of production in the life of local communities.

“The forest and the factory are both examples of the continuum from nature to constructed landscapes that speak to our contemporary attitudes towards environmental conservation and production," share Wright and Shim in their introduction. "Each studio group provided an integrated design response to the studio brief, considering the role of the landscape and built form to develop a bold design solution that explored the role of forestry and design simultaneously.” 

Now the publication — available for free through the Canadian Wood Council’s woodSMART Program — provides a platform for further knowledge with accompanying essays from academic and industry experts, as well as the output of the student’s collaborative semester-long research.

Image caption: BC Passive House Factory by Hemsworth Architecture; Forwarder and crane cutting and harvesting logs in Haliburton Forest.

“’Places of Production: Forest to Factory’ presented a valuable opportunity to engage the future architects of our built environment,” said Kevin McKinley, president and CEO of the Canada Wood Council, in his introduction to the publication. “The studio challenged students to harness the strength and sustainability of wood to reimagine what a factory could be in a low-carbon future."

"The five schemes developed in it exemplify CWC’s vision to be a passionate champion of wood construction for an advanced and sustainable wood culture. We applaud the incredible efforts of the studio and encourage these emerging and innovative designers to be our future voices and advocates of wood construction across Canada, and around the world.”

Visit the woodSMART website to download "Places of Production: Forest and Factory."

Image caption: Model of adaptive wetland and ecosystem and services structural model by a student team including Dylan Johnston, Caroline Kasiuk, Michael MacNeill, and Niko McGlashan.

Header image by Craig Heinrich: White River Forest Products is a community-operated sawmill in White River, Ontario. The local forest pictured is processed into lumber, some of which is transported to Element5's CLT factory in St. Thomas, Ontario.
 

The design for the revitalized University College Library on U of T’s St. George Campus has been recognized with the Ontario Library Association’s 2021 Library Architectural and Design Transformation Award. The 24,000 square foot renovation project was completed by Kohn Shnier + ERA Architects in association. One of the project’s leaders was John Shnier, a principal with Kohn Shnier Architects, as well as an Associate Professor in the Master of Architecture program at Daniels.

The revitalization project is deeply important for University College – returning the Library space to its original location within the existing building, modernizing the library’s function with the ability to support new programming, updating building infrastructure while renewing other areas for students and faculty, and providing new measures for barrier-free accessibility.

Even before the award, the refreshed library spaces were notable within the context of the campus for their integration within University College, a beloved neo-gothic campus building. Linear black and white contemporary structures and detailing within the refreshed spaces stand in contrast against the building’s existing stained-glass windows and wood panelling, creating a memorable juxtaposition. The overall project also includes a new elevator tower, clad in scaled copper to reflect the aesthetic of the surrounding campus.

“Our approach to this project was driven from the outset by a significant respect for the historic building and a reverence for the spaces within. University College is a significant building within the legacy of U of T, but also an exceptional piece of Ontario’s history and the history of higher education in Canada,” said Kohn Shnier architects in a written statement.

“Every effort was made to touch the existing fabric lightly, yet aspects of the programme, the mandate to create barrier-free accessibility and improve technology and infrastructure, required a deft hand to ensure these requirements did not overwhelm or compromise the qualities of the building that we and the stakeholders held dear. Every new element was carefully considered in its relationship to the historic fabric, but also in how it could service the technical requirements of the project both now and mindful of future requirements.”

The Library Architectural and Design Transformation Award is given in recognition of exemplary renovation, restoration, or conversion projects. In a comment from the jury for the award, the University College revitalization project was described as “a beautiful and skilled renovation of a significant heritage building. The new elements of the library are considerately designed to draw on and respect their context in the fabric of the carefully restored existing building.”

The University College revitalization is one of three projects being recognized with the award, given at a digital ceremony earlier in July. The project is the second OLA-awarded library that Kohn Shnier Architects has designed for the University of Toronto. In 2004, their design of the beloved EJ Pratt Library at Victoria College was recognized with an Award of Excellence by the OLA (that project was designed in association with Shore Tilbe Irwin Partners).

Images courtesy of Kohn Shnier (University of Toronto – University College, Kohn Shnier + ERA Architects in Association).

Three recent Daniels Faculty graduates from the Class of 2021 sat down with us to remember their time at university and share advice for new and current students. From memorable courses and favourite spots on campus, to critical first-year skills and advice for maintaining balance – read on for their responses.

Sheetza McGarry – Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Studies

What is your favourite memory at U of T and the Daniels Faculty?   

I don't think I can pick just one. However, I would say the community in general. The friendships made at this faculty become your teammates, support network, and family away from home. The relationships formed with faculty members are so supportive and really opened my eyes to the possibilities of architecture and design beyond this academic stage.  

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when starting your program?   

Self-care and socializing are just as important as school. You need to find a balance. It's 10x harder to do your best work alone and when you're not taking care of yourself.  

What skills do you think first-year students should focus on developing?   

Getting used to synthesizing large readings will definitely help with the first-year reading requirements. It also never hurts to get a leg up on the Adobe Suite (specifically Illustrator and Photoshop), Rhino, and AutoCAD. However, most importantly I'd just say keep creating, find what gets you excited and explore it.  

What was your favourite course that you took at Daniels?  

Any of the design studios of course. I also loved Artist's Writings. It was a great way to read pieces from creatives that we learn about in theory classes. From reading their works and having critical discussions about them in class, I discovered a lot about my own practice and places I grappled with my identity within the art and architecture field. The projects that came out of this class are some that I hold closest to my heart, and have gone on to inform the way I approach my artistic practice whether that be visual arts, writing, or architecture and design.  

How do you maintain a good work/life balance?   

It's a constant process of reminding myself to take breaks and step back. Without it, it can get a bit too easy to lose perspective on your work and academics in general. Don't forget to be excited about things outside of school: a meal you're really interested in trying to cook, a park you want to read in, or a new cycling route. Also, surrounding yourself with people you mesh well with will make work/life balance seamless as you'll support one another and remind each other to have fun!  

What is your favourite spot on campus?  

​The Bamboo Garden in the Terrence Donnelly Centre! Brightens any rainy or snowy day.  

What tips for success do you have for first-year students at Daniels? 

Find people you work well with and have fun with and hold on to them. With so much change going on at this stage in life, you'll grow more than you can ever expect. Having a community to do that with is the best feeling as you enter adulthood! Your community will become your collaborators, critics, and of course friends. Finally, remember to take care of yourself and have fun - it'll go by quick so make the most of it!  

Juliette Cook – Master of Architecture

What is your favourite memory at U of T and the Daniels Faculty?   

There are a few, but one of my favourite memory at Daniels comes from first year, when two of the people in my studio and I agreed we would never stay past 10pm. Fast forward to the weekend before the first deadline, we were in studio figuring out how to unroll surfaces and glue our models together, and stayed until about 2am. While we were tired and disappointed we didn’t abide by our ‘rule’, we sort of chuckled about it, and since we all lived in the East end, Ubered home together when we were done. Those two people have remained two of my closest friends throughout the program. You definitely bond during those late nights in studio! 

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when starting your program?   

It is never worth skipping a meal – always take that time away from your computer to nourish yourself and give your brain a break. 

  What skills do you think first-year students should focus on developing?   

I think it is important to ask for support in developing skills to design with climate change in mind; in other words, thinking about embodied and operational carbon. This may take the form of learning software skills (daylighting, energy intensity, carbon accounting, etc.) to learning about societal and environmental strategies for environmental management. One course that I think should be incorporated into first-year learning is Doug Anderson’s ‘Indigenous Perspectives on Landscapes.’

I also think it would be beneficial to have some small group exercises in studio, for example for doing precedent analysis, or even site analysis. Group work is an integral part of being in the field and practicing those skills in school will translate well to any workplace where you would work alongside a team (i.e. most workplaces!) Finally, students should be open-minded to experimenting with different techniques to find what helps to make their work legible and accessible to others. 

  What was your favourite course that you took at Daniels?  

Barring studio courses, my favourite is a toss up between Peter Sealy’s Berlin in Film summer course, and Tei Carpenter’s By Other Means seminar. From the content to the format of the class, I felt very inspired and motivated by these two. 

  How do you maintain a good work/life balance?   

I worked throughout my degree, outside of school as well as a TA in 2nd and 3rd year. While shuffling around the city commuting and also having to work made my schedule quite tight, both of these activities were a welcome break from thinking about schoolwork. It allowed me to take some space from studio and come back refreshed. I also would not compromise on working out / stretching, and even kept a lacrosse ball in my desk drawer to roll out my tired feet. Reserving time for a partner, friends, and family was key – though I wasn’t physically seeing many of these people over the course of the 3-year degree, regular calls during studio breaks or commutes home were good reminders that life goes on after school. 

 What is your favourite spot on campus?  

The PIT! Great spot to have lunch / take a break with a group of friends. I am not sure if everyone calls it the pit, but it is the auditorium space leading up to the grad studio. With COVID, Daniels Gathertown Edition was also a great place to be!   

  What tips for success do you have for first-year students at Daniels?   

My main tip would be figuring out a workflow that allows you to be efficient, while staying excited about what you are working on. If I felt like working on a perspective collage in Photoshop, even without having more technical drawings completed yet, I rolled with that feeling so that I had a rendered vision of my project that would keep me inspired. Starting tests on representation techniques early helped to confirm whether or not what I imagined in my brain would work out on paper! 

Rida Khan – Master of Urban Design

What is your favourite memory at U of T and the Daniels Faculty?   

It has to be during my online thesis presentation when so many of my past and current teachers all took time out to see my final work. I couldn’t stop smiling. I owe my growth as a designer to their guidance and patience and I am grateful to have created those relationships at Daniels. 

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when starting your program?   

Speak up and ask for help, you are not supposed to know everything.  

What skills do you think first-year students should focus on developing?  

Build your communication skills, understand your strengths, and acknowledge weaknesses you can build on. There are students and faculty who can help you inside and outside the classroom to build you up if you learn how to communicate well. 

What was your favourite course that you took at Daniels?  

Superstudio (the joint course between graduate students in Urban Design, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture). It was memorable. Good memories, bad memories. I felt hopeful and powerless at the same time – it was something!  

How do you maintain a good work/life balance?   

During my time at Daniels I had to constantly remind myself that I am in school to learn and not to prove something at the cost of my physical and mental health- we are intending to become designers not participate in Fear Factor. I made a rule for myself to not do all-nighters (I ended up doing a couple) and focus on the quality not quantity of the ideas I brought forward.  

What is your favourite spot on campus?  

The Daniels building is majestic, and I love to point out to friends that I am associated with it. The Graduate Studio where all the Urban Design, Architecture and Landscape Architecture students worked together is a space of student solidarity and potential. I also love that the Multifaith Centre is just steps away for those moments when you just needed to get away, reflect, or pray.  

What tips for success do you have for first-year students at Daniels?   

Soak in where you are: a top design school in one of North America’s fastest-growing cities surrounded by the best teachers. I encourage students to learn from their instructors and proactively engage in opportunities to uplift your colleagues and communities outside of coursework. 

James Bird holds many titles: he is a knowledge keeper from the Nehiyawak nation and Dene Nation, a Master of Architecture student at the Daniels Faculty, a member of U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission steering committee, as well as other national honours and awards, and a residential school survivor.

As we reflect on Indigenous History Month, Bird kindly shared snapshots from events with the Lieutenant Governor's Office, as well as film and exhibition recommendations to inspire further learning — not just during one month of the year, but for continued commitment moving forward.

Sunrise Ceremony with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office 

Tune in to TVO on July 1 to see Bird give the Opening Prayer during a Sunrise Ceremony with the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.  

“[A Sunrise Ceremony] is a time to welcome goodness into the world and move our collective intentions to kindness,” said Bird. “In the light of each new day brings a new beginning for the time in the sky for that day, and beyond.” Considering the TRC, and as a residential school survivor, Bird said: “As we move into these difficult times, let us all remember our collective humanity and move gently on Mother Earth.”

Chapel Royal Tobacco Gardens on National Indigenous Peoples Day 

In recognition of National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21, Bird co-hosted a luncheon and tour with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office at The Chapel Royal Tobacco Gardens. The Chapel Royal Tobacco Gardens are part of U of T Massey College where Bird is a junior fellow.  

“We [Indigenous Peoples of Canada] have a direct connection to the Crown through Treaty — it is with the use of sacred tobacco that this relationship is reinforced,” said Bird, who is also the Keeper of the Chapel Royal Gardens as approved by Chief and Council.

In Anishinaabek, The Chapel Royal at Massey College is called Gi-Chi-Twaa Gimaa Kwe Mississauga Anishinaabek AName Amik (The Queen’s Anishinaabek Sacred Place). Three of the Chapels Royal located outside the United Kingdom are located in Ontario. Notably, each of these Canadian chapels is distinguished by an Indigenous affiliation, which demonstrates the direct connection between Indigenous nations and the Crown. Learn more about The Chapel Royal at Massey College here.

Watch From Earth to Sky, a documentary film that profiles the lives of Indigenous architects 

From Earth to Sky, a new TVO Original documentary from director Ron Chapman, profiles the lives and work of accomplished Indigenous architects from across Turtle Island.  Each architect defines their individuality through artistry, and bond in their philosophy of how to protect the planet — including Douglas Cardinal, the 2020-2021 Gehry Chair, and Alfred Waugh, a featured speaker in the Daniels 2021 lecture series, as well as architects Brian Porter, Patrick Stewart, Tammy Eagle Bull, Wanda Dalla Costa, and Daniel Glenn.  

The film culminates as they travel to the Venice Biennale of Architecture to present, for the first time, Indigenous Architecture from North America in a spectacular installation (in which Bird participated).  From Earth to Sky is available to stream for free on TVO.org and the TVO YouTube channel. 

Learn about the history of treaty-making in the “Canada By Treaty” exhibition 

In 2017, Bird partnered with Heidi Bohaker and Laurie Bertram, a pair of U of T history professors, to create "Canada by Treaty: Negotiating Histories," a travelling exhibition that explains Canada's history of treaty-making with Indigenous peoples. The exhibition explains some of the ways Canada has historically failed to live up to the spirit of its treaty obligations — particularly through its residential school policy. 

"On the one hand, the government was signing treaties, but at the same time it was apprehending children and putting them into residential schools," James says. "We have this history of two stories being told: one of agreeing to land settlements, and the other of taking away Indigenous language and culture. It's a story of giving with one hand and taking with the other." 

When pandemic restrictions closed the exhibition early, the Daniels Faculty helped transform the display panels into a website. View the exhibition here: canadabytreaty.cargo.site. 

Photography for the Sunrise Ceremony and Tobacco Gardens events courtesy the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (Joe Segal).

On the occasion of winning the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Gold Medal with her partner, Howard Sutcliffe, Professor Brigitte Shim took the time for a virtual interview to reflect on her 33 years of teaching at the Daniels Faculty.

You have been teaching at the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto since 1988. Why is teaching so important to you?

Educating the next generation of architects is essential to fostering design excellence in Canada and to helping to guide the future of our world. I see teaching as a form of design advocacy: part of permeating, contributing and being deeply invested in what really matters.

The Daniels Faculty fosters an environment of tremendous reciprocity: The Faculty is comprised of esteemed colleagues who feel equally serious about this commitment to the future of the profession and students who draw on diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives. Together we all invest a tremendous amount of our time, energy and optimism into our undergraduate and graduate students sharing our knowledge and experiences with them.

How do you determine the topics of your studios?

My studios always addressed pressing themes, and are often taught in collaboration with other architects, landscape architects, urban planners, artists, and academics to cultivate rich, cross-disciplinary perspectives. With each new studio, I try to seek out themes that are not just exercises, but rather opportunities to explore and test issues that are fundamentally shaping the future of cities and the broader environment.

We aim to empower our students to not only discover these themes, but to develop a different reading of the city and to think about how they can shape better futures. Take for example: advancing the intensification of Toronto laneways, building for northern climates, rethinking community-based healthcare, interrogating the challenge of contested and sacred sites, and more recently, the role of places of production linking our forests to factories – to name just a few.

How would you encourage new students to approach experimentation and invention in the design process?

The work that my students undertake while in architecture school must push the boundaries and rethink the possibilities of design to reshape the built environment. Through collaboration, exploration, and experimentation there will be invention and discovery.

Are there particular lessons from your time in university that have proven resonant as you have moved through your career?

As a young architecture student, seeing built work in person enabled me to experience different kinds of spaces and to understand the importance of landscape and context. The many field trips to visit buildings while in architecture school at the University of Waterloo had a huge impact on my understanding of architecture’s potential.

Subsequently, as a faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, I led many field trips to give Daniels students the same opportunities to see buildings and their landscapes. These travels have helped my students to develop a deep respect for, and understanding of, the physicality of architecture, landscape, and to understand the importance of site and context.

Brigitte Shim and a group of students visit Robert Smithson's earthwork "Spiral Jetty" (1970) during a reading week trip to Utah in 2017. 

Your studio, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects Inc. is recognized for uniting architecture and landscape; and for its experimentations — of materiality, craft and light. What do you think a student should understand about these themes?

Howard and I regard our practice as a part of a broader conversation about making, feeling, learning, expressing, and cultivating responsible stewardship. Each project, regardless of its scale or budget, is part of this continuum. The process is as important as the outcome. Clients and craftspeople are also friends and teachers, helping us to find great pleasure in making things. We see through drawing and model-making. There’s irrational intent behind the movement of the pencil. Drawing allows us to see and explore possibilities – it literally enables us to see.

Building buildings is a physical act. To realize architecture, we are reliant on materiality, craft, and light. Our designs develop from ideas that are rooted in materials and the landscape. We assemble materials such as brick, steel, glass, wood, and concrete and ask them to speak eloquently about who we are and what we value. This notion of connecting ideas, craft, production, materials, architecture, landscape, and the participation of clients and craftspeople is important for creating meaningful places.

And finally, do you have any other advice for current students before they enter their professional life?

I believe that the perceived boundaries between the disciplines of architecture, landscape and urban design, visual art and forestry are false. The best thing about being a student at the Daniels Faculty is that you are under one big roof with engaged students in all these disciplines. Each student must take advantage of this opportunity to discover the disciplines and the very interesting territories in-between.

As we celebrate the Class of 2021, the Daniels Faculty invites you to explore the inaugural (virtual) End-of-Year Show. The End-of-Year Show represents a multi-disciplinary collection of student work in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.

Graduate students, as well as undergraduate students who completed thesis projects, were invited to upload their work and craft their own project pages. Search the show by student name and program, or see a rotating selection of all projects through the home page.

Take me to the End-of-Year Show

The banner image features work from (L-R): 
Jiazhi (Jake) Yin, Landscape Architecture, Advisor: Fadi Masoud
Rishi Tailor, Architecture, Advisor: Adrian Phiffer
Vanessa Wang, Architecture, Advisor: John Shnier
Kurtis Chen, Architecture, Advisors: Mariana Leguia, Angus Laurie
Zainab Wakil, Architectural Studies, Advisor: Jeannie Kim

Originally published June 9, 2021, as Honorary degree recipient Ken Greenberg chose Toronto as his home, then helped shape its development via U of T News by Scott Anderson. Ken Greenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1970.

For more than 40 years, Ken Greenberg has helped make cities better places to live. As an architect and urban designer, he has focused on rejuvenating downtowns and on creating vibrant public spaces.

Although he has worked in many urban settings across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, he chose Toronto as his home; he has lived here for more than half a century – and has played an important role in shaping the city’s development.

Today, for his “outstanding service for the public good as a tireless advocate for restoring the vitality, relevance and sustainability of the public realm in urban life,” Greenberg received a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the University of Toronto – his alma mater.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944, Greenberg lived with his family in many cities across the U.S. and Europe before coming to Canada in 1968.  He arrived in Toronto the same year as Jane Jacobs, a fellow New Yorker whose views on urbanism would have a big impact on the city – and on Greenberg himself. He would later count her as a friend, colleague and mentor.

“My arrival at the University of Toronto coincided with my arrival in Toronto as a new immigrant,” Greenberg recalled in his speech to graduating students. “My classmates and my professors were extraordinarily welcoming.

“The university opened the door to a rich and diverse community of interest.”

Greenberg saw enormous potential in Toronto. Unlike many American cities, Toronto hadn’t given in to expressways and its residents hadn’t abandoned the downtown core. “I had this tremendous sense of a second chance,” he told Torontoist in 2011. “There was a lot of new consciousness about the city and the value of the old neighbourhoods.” Shortly after his arrival, the city killed plans for the Spadina Expressway (largely due to public opposition) and began reconsidering the idea – prevalent across North America – that cities should be designed for cars.

This spirit of renewal and possibility made the late 1960s an interesting time to be an architecture student at U of T.  Greenberg was learning the skills he would need for work, but also reflecting on the values he would carry into his career as an urban designer.

Take a tour of downtown Toronto today, and you will see evidence of one of these values in particular: the importance of creating places available to everyone. Greenberg, who earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from U of T in 1970 and later served as the city’s director of urban design and architecture, was involved with the creation of the Martin Goodman Trail, an advocate for the redevelopment of Regent Park as a mixed-income community and had a role in revitalizing the St. Lawrence district.

More recently, he played a leading role in the development of the Bentway, a previously derelict space under the Gardiner Expressway that is now an urban park. And he was a member of a team that has won multiple awards for its plan to reconstruct the mouth of the Don River. In 2019, he was named a member of the Order of Canada “for leading large-scale projects in various cities across Canada as an urban designer, teacher, writer and environmental advocate.”

As Spacing magazine noted in a review of Greenberg’s book, Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder, Greenberg prefers urban designers to show restraint, and to allow for neighbourhoods to evolve. “Less is often more,” he writes, noting that Kensington Market is a great example of a place that has been allowed to change organically over time.  “I began to grasp that building places where people lived was … a matter of creating ‘platforms,’ – open-ended frameworks that people could build upon as they wished, with the underlying design as enabler or inhibitor,” he says.

Of course, urban planning, like everything else, has changed over the decades. Greenberg describes the current era as an “extraordinary period of transition” away from unsustainable city-building practices that assumed unlimited supplies of cheap energy and a heavy reliance on automobiles. In recent years, urban design has become much more about “fundamental problem-solving” around topics such as mobility, energy conservation and waste management, he told U of T News.

Lately, Greenberg has been concerned about the effects of rising income inequality – and of what he describes as “attacks” on the public realm. Over the past several decades, Toronto has cultivated a reputation for integrating people from all over the world into a thriving social fabric. The city is one of the most diverse in the world and arguably the best at being diverse. But this “great experiment,” says Greenberg, is based on a vision of Toronto being a city for all. “If you make it difficult for people to have housing, health care and quality [public] education, then you’re pushing in the opposite direction,” he told an interviewer at the Toronto Public Library in 2019 while discussing his latest book, Toronto Reborn: Design Successes and Challenges. “I had to sound the alarm.”

Greenberg has operated his own consultancy since 2005 and writes frequently for newspapers and magazines. He currently serves as a strategic adviser to the city of Brampton, Ont., and volunteers for several Toronto-based city-building initiatives, such as Ontario Place for All. Over the years, he says, he has continued to “go back to the well” at U of T, collaborating with faculty members, working with the School of Cities and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design – and describes teaching during the pandemic as “an inter-generational sharing of ideas and perspectives with 11 students across the globe, all in different time zones.”

The Daniels Faculty is partnering with EON Reality, a global leader in augmented and virtual reality-based knowledge and skills transfer for industry and education, to incorporate immersive technology in the classroom. The use of EON-XR solutions for architecture students showcases the platform’s abilities to blend academic learning and real-world practical career training.

“With access comes possibility, and we are thrilled to imagine the possibilities that this new partnership brings to our Daniels Faculty community. Students will now have the ability to develop critical augmented and virtual reality (AVR) skills and apply them creatively to their architectural studies,” says interim dean Robert Wright.

The Daniels Faculty will first implement EON-XR solutions in Design + Engineering I – a multidisciplinary studio at the University of Toronto led by assistant professor Jay Pooley in collaboration with the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. “Bringing architecture off the page means exploring new modes of composing three-dimensional information in the classroom,” says Pooley. “Augmented and virtual reality helps to close the gap in design thinking while elevating the equity of instruction for a broader spectrum of learning types.”

Image Caption: Student work example from Design Engineering I by Michaela Tsvetkova, Maria Chen Liang, Selina Al Madanat, Boyao Zhang, Janishan Jeyarajah, and Gabrielle Flavien (Instructor: Jennifer Davis).

In Design + Engineering I, student teams composed of architecture and engineering students work together on a semester-long design project for a real-world client. Introducing EON-XR solutions in this studio will allow students to present and review models in AVR, survey architectural sites virtually, and much more. “In terms of course delivery, AVR means utilizing a new kind of inclusive textbook while simultaneously launching a new generation of immersive sketchbooks,” added Pooley.

EON-XR solutions will provide a new depth of opportunity for students and teachers to incorporate immersive technology into their daily education routine, while also learning more about developing and creating content as a part of the rapidly growing industry. The partnership will also provide local businesses and entrepreneurs an opportunity to learn about the platform and see how it’s affecting the next generation of workers.

“Although EON-XR has long been a popular solution throughout Canada, it is great to add a renowned university like University of Toronto to our list of partners in the country,” says Dan Lejerskar, Founder of EON Reality. “There are few academic institutions in the world with the history and significance of the University of Toronto, and we are privileged to be able to work with them on making their future as great as their past. I believe this has the potential to be a lengthy and powerful partnership for everyone involved, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.”

Header Image: Screenshot of the EON-XR platform.

Architecture school isn't all drawings and models. This winter, graduate students in assistant professor Jason Nguyen's course, "Sites of Exchange: Architecture and Capital Flows," spent a semester studying the way architecture influences, and is influenced by, the global flows of capital that undergird modern civilization.

Over the course of 10 weeks of reading and discussion, Nguyen's students studied physical locations that have enabled global trade and capitalism over the past four centuries — places like plantations, ports, cargo ships, markets, and stock exchanges. Then they each produced a final project in which they picked one "site of exchange" to examine in detail in a scholarly essay.

"The classical Marxist way of studying capitalism is to focus on labour and production," Nguyen says. "I wanted to think beyond that framework to consider capitalism as a process of trade and exchange — a system of political and economic operations that generates different forms of value on a global scale. This understanding of capitalism allows us to better assess the systemic impacts of capitalism in architecture and society, including those tied to race, climate change, and the political economy of nation states."

Students were asked to consider not only the way architecture affects capital — for example, by providing a physical space where goods or securities can be exchanged — but also the way capital shapes architecture.

For instance, one student, Chaya Bhardwaj, chose to study the Aalsmeer Flower Auction, a sprawling auction site in the Netherlands with hundreds of thousands of square metres of storage space.

Bhardwaj traces the architectural origins of the auction site to the dawn of financial capitalism, in the 17th century, when Dutch tulip bulbs became the basis for the first modern asset bubble — a period of frenzied financial speculation now famously known as "tulip mania." The Dutch dominance of the flower market established during that time, Bhardwhaj argues, led to Aalsmeer becoming a physical locus of the flower trade in the 21st century.

Diagrams showing the layout of the Aalsmeer Flower Auction and flows of capital in and out of the Netherlands. Images by Chaya Bhardwaj. Click to see larger versions.

Even the internal structure of the auction site's storage spaces, she argues, were shaped by the demands of international commerce. "At the building scale, this site coordinates a highly choreographed sequence of events across 518,000 square metres of warehouse space," Bhardwaj writes. "Flowers arrive at loading platforms along the perimeter of the warehouse and then are transferred to cooling chambers where they are tagged, measured, and sorted. Flowers then travel to one of three auction halls where they are bought and sold on a global scale through electronic trading platforms."

For Nguyen, the Aalsmeer Flower Auction is a perfect example of the way architecture can become an intersection point for global economic forces. "The site brings a lot of important concerns into focus," he says. "There's a relationship between nature and culture — between a flower, which is quite fragile and doesn't have a long lifespan, and human consumers. Another layer is the relationship between the global north and global south. Many of the buyers are from North America, Europe, and East Asia, but the flowers by and large come from Africa and Latin America, so there are important issues to consider regarding environmental exploitation and the global economic balance, and imbalance, of power."

Another student, James Noh, studied the Salar de Atacama, a salt flat in Chile that is one of the world's largest and purest sources of lithium.

"Lithium extraction is used for the green economy," Nguyen says. "James looked at sites where lithium is actually extracted from the ground, which involves a huge amount of infrastructure development. Huge amounts of water have to be pumped in to process the lithium."

A diagram showing the flow of lithium from extraction site to consumer products. Image by James Noh. Click here to see a larger version.

In his essay, Noh discusses the way lithium extraction from the Salar de Atacama has enabled global production of consumer devices like cell phones and electric cars while at the same time creating adverse conditions for the Indigenous communities that live among the mines.

"Lithium extraction has led socio-environmental pressures on the site to overexploit water in hydro-social territories, resulting in significant damage to the ethno-culture and its ecosystem," Noh writes. "Local animals such as vicunas and flamingos are constantly losing more access to water. Local farmers are also losing more agricultural activities such as the cultivation of corn, quinoa, vegetables, and fruit, along with small-scale Andean livestock that develop in the Salar — mainly guanacos, llamas, and alpacas."

The course is an extension of Nguyen's research on the architecture and infrastructure of trade and exchange during the early modern period. "I'm interested in the construction of global capital networks within the context of European colonization and mercantile expansion," he says. "By studying sites of exchange, I hope to better understand architecture's multifaceted and often troubling role in the creation and distribution of modern wealth, including its connections to contemporary globalization and enduring systems of economic and racial inequality."

Architectural mock-ups are usually not given much, if any, thought. They're full-scale replicas of building elements, constructed for the purpose of letting everyone involved in a project get a sense of how different wall or window systems will look when completed. They're usually erected in out-of-the-way locations on construction sites and later demolished when they outlive their usefulness, or when a building is nearing completion.

But, for David Ross (MArch 2003), a Daniels Faculty alumnus who is now a visual artist, these mock-ups are more than mere throwaways. When he looks at them, he sees fascinating sculptural artifacts of the complex social and economic dynamics that underlie every architectural project.

That's why he devoted nearly five years to the creation of his newly released book, Archetypes, in which he uses photography to (literally) cast architectural mock-ups in an entirely different light. In addition to David's photographs, the book contains four essays on architectural mock-ups, two of which were written by Daniels Faculty professors: one by assistant professor Peter Sealy and another by professor Ted Kesik.

The cover of David Ross's book, Archetypes.

"Mock-ups are the engagement ring of the architecture world," Ross says. "They're a physical representation of the relationship between the designer, the client, and the contractor. They're acts of insurance and assurance. Insurance because they provide a way for all the parties involved in a project to feel comfortable with the materials, the construction, and the methods by which a project is going to be executed. Assurance, because mock-ups are the first things that are made. They act almost as a kind of prenup for the relationship going forward."

The book, edited by Reto Geiser and published by Standpunkte and Park Books, collects 39 colour photos Ross took at construction sites throughout North America and Europe, with funding from the Graham Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Ross made arrangements with builders — many of them, he says, bemused by the idea that any artist would want anything to do with mock-ups — to visit construction sites at night. Using a flash and a special camera rig adapted for use on ladders, he photographed each mock-up in isolation from the typical construction site clutter, with only darkness in the background.

Left: Swiss Life Arena, Zurich. Caruso St. John Architects. Right: Andreasturm, Zurich. Gigon/Guyer.

The consistent nature of the photographic style makes it easy for a viewer to start imagining mock-ups as an architectural type, rather than as one-off misfits. "I photographed them all from the midpoint of the mock-up," Ross says. "There are funny things that happened with the scale. Because they're all framed in a similar way, it makes it difficult to tell not only where they are, but how big they are."

The essays from Sealy and Kesik, which appear at the back of the book, help contextualize the photography. Kesik's essay argues that mock-ups are (or at any rate should be) an essential step in the creation of any architecturally ambitious building. "Innovation in architecture that moves away from tried-and-true tectonic precedents necessarily relies on engineering and building science to fulfill its promise and performance," Kesik writes. "This is why the mock-up is an essential part of any robust design process that seeks innovative and original outcomes that do not just offer comparable quality to conventional approaches, but aspire to exceed all aspects of aesthetic delight and technical performance."

Left: Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. NADAA. Right: John P. Robarts Library, University of Toronto. Mathers & Haldenby.

Sealy's essay draws parallels between Ross's work documenting architectural mock-ups and the 19th-century practice of photographing plaster casts of decorative architectural elements. Sealy recounts the way French architect Hector Lefuel used plaster-model photography to aid the process of carving ornamental details for the mid-19th-century expansion of the Louvre. "The twenty-first-century mock-ups photographed by Ross occupy a similar quasi-contractual status," Sealy writes, "one that is recorded in endless smartphone photographs sent back and forth between architects', clients', and builders' offices."

The book isn't the only place Ross is showcasing his mock-up photos. Over the next few months he'll be exhibiting his work at BALTSprojects in Zurich (starting May 29), Architekturgalerie in Munich (starting in July), and the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel (starting August 27).

Archetypes can be purchased on Bookdepository.com, and will soon also be available at Indigo and Amazon.