Architects rely on wood. It's an integral part of almost every construction project, and, with the advent of new mass timber technologies, it's becoming a viable substitute for steel. And yet, architects rarely contemplate the fact that every plank of wood was originally a tree. And every tree, of course, was originally part of a forest.

As part of this year's option studio program, instructors Brigitte Shim and Robert Wright will be leading Daniels Faculty students on a scholarly investigation of a place where the world of forestry intersects with the world of architecture: a mass timber factory.

Students will work with Shim and Wright to design a mass timber production facility based on the requirements of Element 5, a mass timber producer that is actually in the process of constructing a factory in St. Thomas, Ontario.

Aiding Daniels students in this design process will be a series of expert speakers, who will visit One Spadina for "midday talks"—hour-long lectures on topics relevant to forests and wood production. These talks, although intended to supplement the studio's course material, will be open to the public and free to attend.

Here's the schedule:

Tuesday, October 1: Dr. Sean Thomas (Daniels Faculty), "Forests, Architecture, Sustainability," 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Room 200

Tuesday, October 15: Jane Hutton (Waterloo Architecture Faculty), “Wood Urbanism," 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Room 200

Tuesday, October 22: Dr. Danijela Puric-Mladenovic (Daniels Faculty), "The Southern Ontario Forest," 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Room 200

Tuesday, October 29: Craig Applegath (Dialog Design), Robert Wright (Daniels Faculty), “Mass Timber Buildings,” 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Room 200

Tuesday, November 12: Dr. Sandy Smith (Daniels Faculty), “Urban Forests,” 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Room 200

The "midday talk" series will help students form ideas for the design of a mass timber production facility that is, itself, constructed of mass timber. Architecture and landscape architecture students will work together to conceptualize a building and site plan that meet the requirements of a busy factory while also achieving design excellence.

"Wood is a metaphor for thinking about how we build, how we use our materials, and how we relate natural materials to urban resources," says associate professor Robert Wright. "Canada should be a world leader in mass timber production."

Photograph by Province of British Columbia/Flickr

Brian Boigon, an associate professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, has just launched a new research lab: the Inner Outer Space Lab.

The IOSlab's research is focused on architecture and quantum dimensional design, with an emphasis on design problems associated with reality, dynamical systems, consciousness, and meta states in metaphysics.

For the past three years, Boigon has been working at the intersection of architecture and science fiction. His project "The Interopera" is based on his research in the locomotive pathway that he refers to as "Framing, Looping and Projecting" (FLP). Boigon will be delivering a lecture on this concept at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna this fall. And he will continue to teach the design precepts associated with FLP as part of the Daniels Master of Architecture program.

The Inner Outer Space Lab will provide a scalable infrastructure for Boigon to use in developing a broader array of research projects, both with Daniels students and through his advisory board, which includes:

• Barbara Imhof, a preeminent architect of space station design, based in Vienna.
• Elizabeth Diller, founding partner of DSR Architects and a professor at the Princeton School of Architecture.
• Sanford Kwinter, a professor at the Pratt School of Architecture and an honorary professor at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
• Harry Ruda, the Stanley Meek Chair in Nanotechnology and a professor of applied science and engineering at the University of Toronto, as well as the director of the Centre for Advanced Nanotechnology.

Together with his lab research associates, Boigon will accelerate his projects and offer students a new level of exposure to architecture design and quantum mechanics.

For more information, see www.innerouterspacelab.org, or visit the lab on Instagram or Facebook.

Professor Ted Kesik was inducted as an Fellow of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) during its the biennial Building Simulation 2019 conference in Rome, Italy this past September.

IBPSA launched their Fellows program in 2010 to recognize individuals who have attained distinction in the field of building performance simulation, through education, research, practice, and/or simulation tool development.

Kesik has contributed to the building performance simulation field since 1983 as a practitioner, researcher, and academic who trains highly qualified personnel. His large body of technical studies, conference, and journal papers has influenced energy efficiency requirements in building codes. His former PhD student, Aylin Ozkan is now teaching building performance simulation courses at the Daniels Faculty in both the undergraduate and graduate programs as a sessional lecturer.

Canada is home to nine per cent of the world's forests, with more hectares of greenery per person than any other nation on earth. And yet our production of wood products often lags behind that of other countries, and we've been slow to adopt new construction technologies that allow timber to be used in place of steel in tall buildings.

On Thursday, September 26, the Daniels Faculty will host Forest Culture, a panel discussion that will consider the state of Canada's forests from three very different perspectives.

Dan Handel, an architect who has curated exhibitions on the meanings of wood and forests for institutions in Canada and around the world, will discuss forestry from a cultural standpoint. Stephanie Seymour, an Anishinaabe-kwe from Garden River First Nation who is conducting PhD research in forest science at Lakehead University, will come at the subject from an Indigenous angle. Representing the forestry profession will be Scott Jackson, a former policy manager for the Ontario Forest Industry Association who is now the director of Indigenous and stakeholder relations at the not-for-profit Forests Ontario, which advocates for forest restoration and stewardship.

The evening's discussion will be moderated by Brigitte Shim, who in addition to being a professor at the Daniels Faculty is also a consumer of architectural wood products at her private practice, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects.

Forest Culture is part of Hindsight is 20/20, the Daniels Faculty's 2019-2020 public programming series. More details about this event and others in the series can be found on the faculty's website.

Image: "The Forest Community: Sovereign, Subject, Trees," Dan Handel

Daniels Faculty alumnus Drew Adams (MArch 2011) has co-authored an essay for Azure magazine in which he argues that architects have a responsibility to be more environmentally responsible in their choices of building materials.

The essay, which Adams wrote with Janna Levitt — a 1986 U of T architecture graduate and founder of LGA Architectural Partners, where Adams is an associate — discusses the ways in which adaptive reuse can reduce the carbon footprint of a construction project. The piece takes particular notice of LGA's own design for the reuse of the kiln building at Toronto's Evergreen Brick Works, a former brick manufacturing facility that the firm helped transform into an event and education space.

Adams and Levitt write:

For too long the profession has rationalized using carbon-intensive materials so long as we built to last — and built better... The change needs to happen now. In contrast to the long-term impacts of energy efficiency, embodied carbon is an upfront consideration. While it is possible, for example, to add renewable energy at a later date to offset a building’s operational impacts, the carbon costs of building materials cannot be reversed.

Read the full story at Azure.

The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design is pleased to announce this year's Frank Gehry International Visiting Chairs in Architectural Design: Tina Gregorič and Aljoša Dekleva, of Slovenia-based Dekleva Gregorič Architects.

As joint chairs, Gregorič and Dekleva will lead a program of study on collective housing with the Daniels Faculty's third-year Master of Architecture students. They will also deliver a public lecture on October 10.

"Tina and Aljoša have an agile practice that can operate at both small and large scales," says Shane Williamson, director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Architecture program. "The fact they have such a keen interest in affordable housing makes them a great fit for our faculty, given the shortage of living space in Toronto and their ongoing research into the socio-cultural impact of flexible systems upon residential planning."

Gregorič and Dekleva first received international attention for XXS House, a 460-square-foot dwelling located in central Ljubljana. Working within the home's small volume, they created a light-filled pied-à-terre lined with sleek, fibre cement panels. The design won a European Architecture Award in 2004.

Their award-winning design for a metal recycling plant in the Slovenian town of Pivka included an all-metal office building designed to be recyclable on-site at the end of its service life. Earlier this year, Gregorič and Dekleva won first prize in an international competition to design a Science Centre for Ljubljana. Their solution envisions a series of circular pavilions linked by a walkable green roof. They have also designed several collective housing projects.

Gregorič and Dekleva's Clifftop House on Maui (2011) explores the concept of several houses under a common roof that doubles as a deck.

Dekleva earned his Master of Architecture from London's Architectural Association in 2002 with distinction. He has been director of the Architectural Association Nanotourism Visiting School since 2014. He has also been a guest professor at École d’architecture de l’Université de Montréal and a visiting professor at the L'Ecole Nationale d'Architecture Paris Val de Seine.

Gregorič earned her Master of Architecture from London's Architectural Association in 2002 with distinction. She has been a full professor and head of the Department of Architectural Typology and Design at the Institute of Architecture and Design at the Vienna University of Technology since 2014.

About the Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design:

Named in honour of Frank O. Gehry, this endowed chair brings a highly recognized international architect to teach a graduate studio and deliver a public lecture at the Daniels Faculty each year. Students in their third year of the Master of Architecture program study with the chair holder before they start their design thesis. Heather Reisman, founder of Indigo Books and Music, and 45 others raised $1 million, matched by U of T, to establish the chair in November 2000. It's named for the Toronto-born designer of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Experience Music Project in Seattle; and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Last year, Daniels undergraduate students explored architecture's role in gentrification as part of a course taught by Sessional Lecturer Reza Nik. Focusing on Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood, Nik challenged the students to investigate social and political issues through an architectural lens.

This summer, work produced as part of that class by Jo-Lynn Yen, Hannah Hui, Saige Michel, and Esteban Poveda Torres is on display at The Public (58 Landsdowne Avenue), a store-front gallery that addresses issues of social justice and anti-oppression.

The exhibition, Footprints of Change, highlights gentrification's detrimental effect on the local community, with a focus at specific sites undergoing change. The students were also inspired to support communities in the area working to resist gentrification.

Footprints of change runs until September 10. Visit The Public's website for more details.

Photos by Reza Nik

City Moments, taking place August 15 from 7:00pm to 2:00am, "is a late-summer art party that celebrates film, video, and projection work by internationally acclaimed visual artists living and working in Toronto."

Curated by Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist Peter Lynch, featured artists include Eldon Garnet, Iris Haussler, Luis Jacob, Mark Lewis, Kelly Mark, Jon Sasaki, Alex McLeod, Peter Lynch, and Giles Monette.

Short films by Daniels Faculty students will also be included in the mix.

The films were produced over the years as part of a Master of Architecture course taught by Associate Professor John Shnier. Both Shnier and Lynch selected the short student films to be screened at the event. Over the course of the evening a variety of multimedia projects will be showcased. Each explore the "fleeting experiences, theoretical architecture, immigrant histories, animal sentience, dystopian imaginaries, fictitious biographies, and everything in between — the facets and fantasies that comprise urban life."

Click here to register for a free ticket.

Featured films include:
Litter, by Ali Fard (also featured above)
Re-oriented,  by Peter Kitchen
Move / Still,  by Andres Bautista and  Matteo Maneiro
Other Side, by Edgar Leon and Nathan Bishop
City as Data Space, by Kinan Hewitt
Round Tower, by Mario Arone
Colouring Book, by Zheng Li
Half Life, by Ian Cheung
As Above So Below, by Tara Castator
Built in a Day, by David Verbeek
How About Just Fall, by Zack Glennon and Sonia Ramundi
Beach Body, by Silvia Gonzalez and Donna Bridgeman
Approaching Limbo, by Wai Ming Lo
Immaterial, by Liheng Li

City Moments
Thursday August 15
7:00pm - 2:00am
Sidewalk Labs, 307  Lakeshore Blvd. East

This summer, undergraduate students at the Daniels Faculty explored the role that architecture could play in fostering community outreach and engagement in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood.

As part of a design/build studio (ARC399) led by Sessional Instructor Reza Nik, the students worked with members of the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (PNLT), to look at ways that engagement in social justice movements could be more spatially dynamic.

Over the course of two weeks, they designed and built a mobile structure that could be rolled out and set up in the public spaces people often pass through. The goal: to help local organizations, such as PNLT, spark discussion, participation, learning, and action in their own neighbourhood. Inspired in part by tourist information kiosks, The Mobilizer made its debut outside the Toronto Public Library’s Parkdale branch, July 4.

"In a city like Toronto, the general public often engages with social justice movements in the form of demonstrations, pickets, and, occasionally, targeted pamphleting campaigns — efforts that are typically limited in frequency and geographical scope, or are aesthetically unapproachable," says Nik. "As architects and designers, we could have a major part to play in addressing this problem. We are uniquely poised to design new spatial nodes that connect social movements with new and diverse elements of the public."

Led by Parkdale residents and community groups concerned about the gentrification that threatens the neighbourhood’s unique social, cultural, and economic diversity, PNLT formed to build a community land trust, which would allow it to acquire land. Once owned by the community, the purchased land could then be dedicated to affordable housing, social enterprises, non-profit organizations, urban agriculture, or open space. The organization bought its first piece of land in 2017. In 2019, it purchased an existing rooming house and will help ensure its units remain affordable for another 99 years.

Andrew Winchur, who currently chairs PNLT’s Communications Engagement Committee and manages the Parkdale Free School, joined Nik’s summer class as a guest instructor. He spoke to the students about the strengths and weaknesses of typical engagement tactics and the idea of using tourist kiosks as a framework for social movements. The students visited the Parkdale neighbourhood to meet with members of the community and learn more about PNLT.

The objective of the course was to develop a type of “pop-up architecture” that would “take up space” and facilitate a high level of social engagement. “The community wanted something that was mobile, so it could be set up anywhere, anytime, and something that provided a spectacle when pushing it down the sidewalk,” says Nik.

The resulting "Mobilizer" is flexible and easy to move, with fold out seating, a built-in chalkboard, shelves and slots for books and pamphlets, and a small battery-powered generator for microphones and laptops. The structure was designed to not only engage passersby, but also support pop up events and an outdoor classroom for the Parkdale Free School. A corkboard map of the neighbourhood provides wayfinding, and poles can be set up to support shading. The Mobilizer also includes six benches that can easily be assembled to seat 3 people each. The pattern of holes on one of the fold-out walls reflects the community’s solidarity flag.

In addition to providing students with the opportunity to turn their own drawings and concepts into a real physical piece of architecture, Nik hopes that the two-week intensive design/build studio will also inspire them to rethink their understanding of the role that architecture can play in social movements. “Lack of attention to the spaces of engagement creates an opportunity for architectural intervention,” says Winchur.

Visit PNLT’s website to learn more about the organization and how to get involved.