Associate Professor Zeynep Çelik Alexander's book Kinaesthetic Knowing: Aesthetics, Epistemology, Modern Design "offers the first major intellectual history of kinaesthetic knowing and its influence on the formation of modern art and architecture and especially modern design education."
 

Is all knowledge the product of thought? Or can the physical interactions of the body with the world produce reliable knowledge? In late-nineteenth-century Europe, scientists, artists, and other intellectuals theorized the latter as a new way of knowing, which Zeynep Çelik Alexander here dubs “kinaesthetic knowing.”     

In this book, Alexander offers the first major intellectual history of kinaesthetic knowing and its influence on the formation of modern art and architecture and especially modern design education. Focusing in particular on Germany and tracing the story up to the start of World War II, Alexander reveals the tension between intellectual meditation and immediate experience to be at the heart of the modern discourse of aesthetics, playing a major part in the artistic and teaching practices of numerous key figures of the period, including Heinrich Wölfflin, Hermann Obrist, August Endell, László Moholy-Nagy, and many others. Ultimately, she shows, kinaesthetic knowing did not become the foundation of the human sciences, as some of its advocates had hoped, but it did lay the groundwork—at such institutions as the Bauhaus—for modern art and architecture in the twentieth century.
 

Published by University of Chicago Press, Kinaesthetic Knowing has received rave reviews.

"Zeynep Celik Alexander's stunningly original study of the intersection of emergent laboratory psychology, new pedagogical credos, and artistic practices in late nineteenth-century Germany, is a landmark analysis," said Barry Bergdoll of Columbia University.

Daniel M. Abramson of Boston University called the book extraordinary: "A critical history of design education, this book is exceedingly learned, smart, knowing, original, and, for all that, accessible and well-written. Its impact will be as broad and deep as the work itself."

The book can be purchased online, and is also available at the Daniels Faculty's Eberhard Zeidler Library.

Zeynep Çelik Alexander is an architectural historian whose work focuses on the history of architectural modernism since the Enlightenment. Her current research project explores architectures of bureaucracy from the Kew Herbarium to the Larkin Administration Building. Alexander is a member of Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative and an editor of the journal Grey Room.

Congratulations to the Daniels Faculty undergraduate students Dimah Ghazal, Ous Abou Ras, and Adriana Sadun on winning the 2018 TEDxUofT design competition. The competition called for installations that addressed the theme of the conference: Deconstruct. 

As the team writes in their proposal:

"The design consists of two sculptural pieces made from solid and semi-transparent cubes. Each cube is arranged in a specific orientation that conveys a whole. However, this whole is formed of two intersecting ideas, an artistic visualization of form and a physical interpretation of the deconstruction of light. The idea of intersection comes from the letter X, a sign of two lines meeting one another at a singular point. At the intersection is where the two lines deconstruct and reconstruct to form a new meaning. It is where different disciplines meet to form new relationships."

This year's TEDxUofT Conference held a design competition, where they reached out to aspiring U of T designers to design an installation for the intermission space in the St. Lawrance Centre for the Performing Arts. "We want this design to engage with the guests in a way that is both intriguing and thought-provoking, captivating them outside the traditional speaker-audience setting", said the TEDxUofT organizers in the Design Contest Brief.

The winning team was chosen based on their creative efforts to communicate the theme of the conference and their ability to engage guests with their work.

For more information about TEDxUofT and their events, head over to their Website and YouTube Channel.

Congratulations to Daniels faculty and alumni whose firms have been listed among the finalists for the OAA Design Excellence Awards. A total of 20 projects were shortlisted for the awards.

“The 2018 finalists have set a new standard for excellence in architecture and represent a dynamic range of bold and cutting-edge thinking that architects in our province are fast becoming renowned for. The projects demonstrate exciting new approaches to functionality that enhance the lives of Ontarians, Canadians and global citizens,” said OAA President, John Stephenson. “Once again, I’m pleased that through the OAA Awards we can celebrate the world-class design and vision of architects based in Ontario that are creating and inspiring powerful contributions for our future.”

The finalists were selected from 111 submissions based on the following criteria: creativity, context, sustainability, good design/good business and legacy. Over the month of March, each finalist will be featured on the OAA blOAAg.

Below is a list of the shortlisted projects by faculty and alumni firms. (Listed in same order as the photos in the gallery above.)

Bahá’í Temple of South America
Santiago, Chile
By Hariri Pontarini Architects, the firm of David Pontarini (Barch 1983) and Siamak Hariri

House on Ancaster Creek
Ancaster, ON
By Williamson Williamson Inc., the firm of Associate Professor Shane Williamson, director of the Faculty's Master of Architecture program, and Betsy Williamson

Collaborative Greenhouse Technology Centre
Vineland, ON
By Baird Sampson Neuert Architects Inc., the firm of Professor Emeritus George Baird and Professor Barry Sampson

Alta Chalet
Town of the Blue Mountains, ON
By Atelier Kastelic Buffey Inc., the firm of Kelly Buffy (MArch 2007) and Robert Kastelic

Casey House
Toronto, ON
By Hariri Pontarini Architects

Environmental Science and Chemistry Building, University of Toronto, Scarborough
Scarborough, ON
By Diamond and Schmitt Architects Incorporated, the firm of Donald Schmitt (Barch 1977) and A. J. Diamond

National Arts Centre Rejuvenation
Ottawa, ON
Diamond and Schmitt Architects Incorporated

Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building & Louis A. Simpson International Building, Princeton University
Princeton, NJ, USA
By KPMB Architects, the firm of Bruce Kuwabara (Barch 1972), Shirley Blumberg (Barch 1975), and Marianne McKenna

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Evanston, IL, USA
By KPMB Architects

Remai Modern
Saskatoon, SK
By KPMB Architects (Design Architect) and Architecture49 Inc. (Architect of Record)

McEwen School of Architecture/ École d’architecture McEwen
Sudbury, ON
By LGA Architectural Partners Ltd., the firm of Janna Levitt (BArch 1986) and Dean Goodman (BArch 1983)

Visit the OAA website for a complete list of the shortlisted projects.

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In other OAA news, John Stephenson (Barch 1978) has been elected to serve as OAA President for a second one-year term.

From the OAA press release:

Stephenson is one of the founding partners of FORM Architecture Engineering, the largest architectural practice in Northwestern Ontario, established in 1986 as Kuch Stephenson Architects. After receiving his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, he worked as an intern architect in Toronto, before relocating to Northwestern Ontario in 1980, where he continued his internship with Graham Bacon Welter Architects & Consulting Engineers prior to beginning his practice in Thunder Bay.
 
As OAA president, Stephenson is committed to building a strong profession that is valued and empowered to serve the public interest through excellence in design and professional practice.
 
“In addition to design excellence, the key to achieving this goal is recognizing that effective project and risk management is central to the architect’s role today,” he says.
 
Stephenson joined OAA Council in 2013. He had originally served a term in the early 1990s, continuing to volunteer with the Association afterward. Since then, he has participated in several committees, task forces and executive roles, serving as Senior Vice President and Treasurer for the two years prior to becoming President.
During his time on Council, Stephenson has taken part in several new and ambitious initiatives, many of which remain in progress, including the OAA Headquarters Renew + Refresh project, re-imagining the OAA Honours and Awards program, a new media content creation and communication strategy and, in collaboration with ARIDO, considering ways in which the practice of interior design could be regulated under the Architects Act.
Stephenson is particularly passionate about promoting continued public engagement and advocacy by architects on topics such as procurement, housing affordability and the role of the architectural profession in reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
 
During his first year as President, Stephenson led the profession in a vigorous campaign refusing to participate in procurement processes that require architects to contract out of their professional obligations. He has also been a vocal advocate for more enlightened employment practices by architects and for the creation of a National Architecture Policy to guide the procurement of architectural services and the creation of a safe, healthy and uplifting built environment for all Canadians.
 

Congratulations to Stephenson on his election!

Daniels Faculty lecturer Katy Chey will be speaking about her new book Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day at the California College of the Arts on February 19th. Her talk is part of the lecture and panel discussion "Housing the Multitude." Sarina Kennerly of Kennedy Architecture & Planning, and Matthew G. Lasner, of Hunter College, CUNY will be joining her on stage to discuss the relationship bewteen urban development and the production of new housing typologies.

Chey's new book was also recently announced on ArchDaily. Click here to read the full article.

Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities is available in-stores at the U of T Bookstore, Swipe Books + Design, Type Books on Queen Street, and Indigo in the Eaton Centre, and other major online retailers.

"Every family is different. Why are so many family homes the same?" asks Alex Bozikovic, architecture critic for The Globe and Mail.

He explores the answer to this question in a recent article that spotlights a multigenerational home in Ancaster near Hamilton, designed by Associate Professor Shane Williamson and Besty Williamson, principals of Williamson Williamson Architects. This isn't the first multigenerational home that the firm has built. Their Grange Triple Double house, designed for a three-generational family, has won multiple awards.

Williamson Williamson Architects' House on Ancaster Creek "provides the suburban virtues of privacy and comfort, while making room for the elders of a family to live and age in place," writes Bozikovic. "This model of domesticity scrambles the very ideas on which the suburbs were built, to beautiful results."
 

"Property values are so high that it's becoming an easy decision to consolidate multigenerational family resources under one roof," Shane Williamson says.
...

"Multigenerational living is not so intrinsic to our North American culture as it is elsewhere," he adds. "But given the diversity of our society," he argues, "it's coming." Part of that involves the arrival of new Canadians who bring a cultural norm of multigenerational living; Binh, the homeowner in Ancaster, is of Vietnamese descent. South Asian families have likewise brought this practice with them to the Toronto suburbs.
 

Visit The Globe and Mail to read the full article.

Launched last summer, StudentDwellTO is an 18-month-long joint-research project being conducted by the University of Toronto, Ryerson, OCAD, and York University to find solutions to one of the biggest issues facing post secondary students in the Greater Toronto Area: affordable housing.

As Romi Levine writes in U of T News, researchers — including Assistant Professors Mauricio Quirós Pacheco from the Daniels Faculty and Marcelo Vieta from OISE, U of T's faculty leads on the project — have developed a strong understanding of the challenges that students face and best practices from around the world.

"One of their early findings," writes Levine, "is that design greatly affects student experiences."

From the article:

The StudentDwellTO team is currently collecting census data with the help of faculty including David Hulchanski, professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, and will be conducting focus groups with students and stakeholders to get a clearer picture of the current landscape and future possibilities.

In addition, faculty members are incorporating the study of student housing into their curricula, says Vieta.
 

This fall, Daniels Faculty undergraduate students will use the data and case studies collected to explore ideas for the design of student housing.

Visit U of T News to read the full story.

Image, top by Scott Carncross (March 2017). Part of his Master of Architecture thesis A new Housing through Symbiotic Performance.

The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce the release of Lecturer Katy Chey’s new book: Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: From 1800 to Present Day, published by Routledge. The book investigates the development of multi-unit housing typologies that were predominant in particular cities from 1800 to present day. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the direct connection between housing and dwelling in the context of a city, and the manner in which the city is an instructional indication of how a housing typology is embodied.

Each housing typology in each city begins with a characterization of the multi-unit housing type; analyzes the typology’s connection to the city; examines its housing policies, building codes and laws; presents case studies of the housing type; and ends with the typology’s circumstance in the city at present day. The typologies include back-to-backs in Birmingham; London tenements in London; Haussmann Apartments in Paris; New York tenements in New York; tong lau in Hong Kong; perimeter block, linear block and block-edge in Berlin; perimeter block and solitaire in Amsterdam; space-enclosing structures in Beijing; kyosho jutaku in Tokyo; and high-rises in Toronto.
 
Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities is available in-stores at the U of T Bookstore, Swipe Books + Design, Type Books on Queen Street, and Indigo in the Eaton Centre, and other major online retailers.

The Daniels Building has received another award: a 2018 Design Award from AIA New York. Congratulations to NADAAA, who led the project at One Spadina together with Adamson Associates Architects (the architect-of-record), and ERA Architects (the preservation architects).

The winning projects were granted either an “Honor” or “Merit” award. The Daniels Building was recognized with an Honor award in the Architecture category. Winning projects were chosen for their design quality, response to context and community, program resolution, innovation, thoughtfulness, and technique.

For more information on the awards, visit AIA New York's website.

Daniels Facutly Lecturer Ultan Byrne (MArch 2013) presented the paper "Point Cloud Paint: A Software Tool for Speculative Urban Design Using Three-Dimensional Digital Collage" at the 2017 Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) Conferencein November.

From the abstract:

Beginning from a provocation in Auguste Blanqui’s "Eternity by the Stars", this paper reports on a new methodology of digital collage for urban design. The research is situated relative to the current discourses surrounding both voxelization and point-cloud data structures in order to motivate the concept of a recombinant approach to design in existing cities. Building on these sources, and with reference to recent developments in mesh shape composition techniques, the paper presents the resulting software implementation “Point-Cloud-Paint”: a tool that enables collage-based combinatorial experimentation with urban point-cloud data.

​
The conference was hosted by the M.I.T. School of Architecture + Planning at the Media Lab.

A graduate of the University of Toronto's Master of Architecture program, Byrne also holds degrees in philosophy and architectural design, and is a computer programmer.

He recently published a review of The Internet Archive in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH).

The Daniels Building received a Best of Year award in the higher education category from Interior Design magazine. Winners of the Best of Year awards were announced in the magazine's December issue:

"Designing a space that will in turn inspire great design. That was the heady task that principals Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner undertook at this undergraduate and postgraduate facility. What they accomplished is a rich mix of old and new, patina and polish."

Designed by Nader Tehrani and Katherine Faulkner, principals of the internationally acclaimed firm NADAAA — in collaboration with Architect-of-record Adamson & Associates, landscape architects Public Work, and heritage architects ERA — the Daniels Building at One Spadina includes dynamic, flexible learning and research environments for faculty and students, and will nurture the next generation of leaders in the field.

Other awards that the Daniels Building has received include:

• The Plan Awards, Honorable Mention (2017)
• CISC Ontario Steel Design Award of Excellence (2017)
• Society of American Registered Architects Silver Award of Honor (2015)
• Acknowledgement Prize Holcim Awards (2014)
• Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design: Green Good Design Award (2014)
• Boston Society of Architects: Unbuilt Architecture Award (2013)