The Graduate Architecture, Landscape, and Design Student Union (GALDSU) will launch this year’s issue on Friday, October 6. This issue will explore “the multiplicity of ways in which the graduate students of Daniels confront the realities of our world – and their worlds – as a way to imagine and create space for multiple futures.” How, Co-Editors and Alumni Jasper Flores, Elise Hunchuck, and Dayne Roy-Caldwell ask, do the “practices of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and visual studies suggest ways for us to design with and for each other?”

The launch party will take place at OFFSITE Concept Space at 867 Dundas Street West. There will be music, food, and a cash bar. Copies of the new publication will be available to purchase. For more information, visit the Eventbrite page.

A note from the editors on the cover image (pictured above): “The moon was installed at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto in April 2016, alongside Gillian Dykeman (MVS 2016)'s video 'Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future,' watercolour schematic drawings of the earthworks, and a keystone covered in tachyon particles. For more, please see 'Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future (page 13-18) and Psychic Strata: Land, Art, Subjectivity (page 19-26). Both works are by Gillian Dykeman. The cover photograph was taken by Jesse Boles (MVS 2015), courtesy of Gillian Dykeman (2015).

Other photos (in order of appearance): 2-On Spheres by Ekaterina Dovjenko, 3-Wasting Futures by Elaine Chau, 4-To Melt Into Air, Slowly by Vanessa Abram, 5-∆ Museum by Melissa Gerskup and Ray Wu

On October 27, Lecturers Adrian Phiffer, Alex Josephson, and Monica Adair will join discussions on marketing and promotion of architecture at this year’s POP // CAN // CRIT symposium. In its second year, POP // CAN // CRIT 2017 will bring together Canadian architects, marketing professionals, photographers, advocacy groups, and media to discuss and debate the vital roles that architects, media, marketing personnel, and the public play in shaping the general discourse surrounding architecture.

Featured Panel Discussions

Panel 2: advocacy + activism
Moderator: Matt Blackett (Spacing)
Speakers: Toon Dreessen, Susan Algie, Monica Adair, Johanna Hurme

Panel 3: image + architecture
Moderator: Adrian Phiffer
Speakers: Ben Rhan, Younes Bounhar, Amanda Large, Norm Li, Naomi Kriss

Panel 4: architecture as icon/ branding + Toronto condo revolution
Moderator: Nicola Spunt (PARTISANS)
Speakers: Alex Josephson, Alex Bozikovic, Adrian Phiffer

In these discussions, participants will be answering questions such as, “In what ways do we market architecture?" "How can we best advocate for the profession?" "And what impact does a photograph have on our understanding of the built environment?” The event will take place at the Design Exchange in Toronto with $45 general admission and $35 student admission. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite.

For more information, visit http://spacing.ca/popcancrit/

Listen to audio from last year’s discussions:

Photo, top: Tinker's Orchard by Acre Architects, founded by Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp.

“It is commendable when a design student tackles a tough building typology, and exceptional when the author discovers real invention within that typology. The developer-driven world of mid-rise residential housing requires just such invention and new thinking.”

This summer, a group of students worked together to tackle issues of sustainable and affordable housing through straw bale design. Master of Architecture student Sarah Hasan writes about the first project undertaken by the new University of Toronto student group: Future-Living Lab.
 
Future-Living Lab consists of architecture students at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design; U of T’s Department of Civil Engineering; and Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science.
 
Earlier this year, the students set off to design a 1000 square feet home in Callander, Ontario. The design brief provided by their client called for affordability, ease of construction, and sustainability within the home’s environmental context. The students researched and consulted with multiple design and engineering firms before settling on a Structurally Insulated Panel (SIP) system that uses straw bale as the main insulation material.
 
In August, the group acquired building permits and held a build workshop where interested students gathered and assembled the SIP’s. This process consisted of layering clay and straw bale in specific proportions within pre-fabricated wooden formwork. In the upcoming weeks, the panels will be lifted up into position to form the house walls.
 
The Future-Living Lab aims to continue fostering collaboration among students from different disciplines for a common goal. Going forward, the group also hopes to have an influence on the future of dwelling through ongoing research and design projects.
 
You can view their website at: Futurelivinglab.ca
 

On September 2, Lecturer Matthew Allen presented a paper titled “"Architecture and the Algorithm, or: What Happens When Abstract Art Meets Concrete Poetry?" at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science on in Boston.

From the abstract:

Cambridge UK in the 1960s saw a surge of interest in pre-war abstract art and a thriving concrete poetry scene. Also in this milieu one of the first laboratories in which architects worked with computers opened in 1967. To explain how these events are related, this paper describes how a new discipline (built form studies) adjacent to architecture congealed around a new epistemic object, the algorithm.
 
The concept of the algorithm was famously formalized in 1936 by Alan Turing as a jarring combination of abstract procedure and physical analogy. In post-war Cambridge, philosophers of science continued to parse the divisions between the poetic and the concrete. This line of inquiry made its way into architecture as several mathematics students switched departments around 1960. With the opening of a university computer center, they faced the practical matter of working rigorously in the realm of the algorithm.
 
I argue that this productive moment set in place concepts and practices that continue to reverberate through architecture. Assessing their impact is difficult, however, because they did not resolve into a broad explanatory theory. I argue that algorithms often took the place of theory. Because an algorithm can be seen as containing its own explanation, protagonists of built form studies developed a matter-of-fact textual style that lends itself to misinterpretation. Though a close look at algorithms created in 1960s Cambridge, I will elaborate a catalog of aesthetic effects and political intentions and begin to reconstruct a retroactive theory for relating architectural ends with algorithmic means.
 

An architect and writer, Allen has a Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design as well as degrees in Physics and the Comparative History of Ideas. He has worked previously in the video game and bioengineering industries as well as several internationally-recognized firms — most recently for Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., on a number of award-winning projects in China. His expertise in design spans the intricately geometric, the flexibly parametric, and the complicatedly situated.

The presidents of Toronto’s four universities – the University of Toronto, OCAD University, York University and Ryerson University – have teamed up for a new initiative called StudentDwellTO to tackle one of the biggest issues facing post-secondary students in the Greater Toronto area: affordable housing.

The initiative brings together nearly 100 faculty and students from the four universities to take an in-depth look at student housing in the GTA. The Daniels Faculty is thrilled to have faculty and students participating in this project.

This follows a previous collaboration between the four universities: a massive survey of student travel behaviour, called StudentMoveTO, which revealed that long daily commutes for students – many of whom live far away where housing is more affordable – were leading to lower campus engagement and in some cases limiting students’ class choices.

StudentMoveTO and StudentDwellTO are parts of an initiative by the presidents of the four universities aimed at improving the state of the city-region – and, in turn, the experiences for university students in the GTA.

“This is another example of how the impact of our collective efforts can be far greater than the sum of individual contributions,” says Professor Shauna Brail, U of T’s presidential adviser on urban engagement and director of the urban studies program.

Given the number of post-secondary students in the GTA – more than 180,000 spread across the four universities alone – studying the basic issues facing our students as they live in and navigate the city is critical, says Brail, who will be U of T’s representative for StudentDwellTO’s steering committee.

StudentDwellTO will look at housing affordability from a range of perspectives, bringing together disciplines including architecture, art, education, engineering, environmental studies and design, geography, psychology, real estate management and urban development and planning.

The two-year initiative will have heavy research and advocacy components, and the researchers will collect data using a variety of research methods that include:

• wide-scale focus groups and accompanying surveys to draw out narratives surrounding students’ lived experiences,
• interactive website and community arts programming and communication tools, and
• interactive maps to develop affordable housing strategies.

The subject matter will also be incorporated into experiential learning courses, across all four universities and various disciplines, to propose and test solutions to the student housing experience and crisis.

Along the way, researchers will collaborate with government, non-profit, private sector and community partners in the GTA.  Each university will hold public events, including affordable housing charrettes, to get a wide range of input on solutions.

Image, top: by Suhaib Arnaoot, from his Master of Architectrure thesis titled Responsive Social Housing

Congratulations to Associate Professor and former Director of the Master of Architecture Program Robert Levit at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. He and his partner Rodolphe el-Khoury of Khoury Levit Fong (KLF) were selected as Official Participants at the upcoming 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB). KLF is the only firm from Canada to receive this distinction.

KLF’s exhibition, Typetopia, was designed by Levit and el-Khoury along with Daniels Master of Architecture graduate student Nick Reddon; research associate at the University of Miami, Chris Chung (MArch 2014); and recent graduate Dorsa Jalalian (MArch 2016).

The Biennial, which recognizes outstanding work in the field, is the “main stage” of contemporary architecture, unveiling avant-garde ideas, materials, technologies, and practices. It is where architects connect, collaborate, and engage the public while examining disciplinary issues and global concerns.

The first architecture biennial, took place in Venice in 1980. Twenty-five years after Venice, China launched the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in 2005 in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Chicago is the third city in the world to host an Architecture Biennial that upholds the structure, programming, and international representation of the original Venice Biennale.

CAB’s 2017 theme, “Make New History” will focus on the relationship between art and architecture, history, and modernity, with the curatorial guidance of Los Angeles-based architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee.

In 2015, more than 530,000 Chicago residents and visitors took part in CAB. It was the largest international exhibition of contemporary architecture ever held in North America, and featured the ideas of more than 100 architecture and design firms from 30 + countries. Based on the diverse selection of firms by CAB’s new artistic leadership team, the second edition is poised to build on the success of the first. The magnificent Chicago Cultural Center, operated by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, will once again serve as the anchor of the exhibition, with additional sites across the city.  Through its constellation of exhibitions, full-scale installations, programming, and related events, the Chicago Architecture Biennial invites the public to engage with and think about architecture in new ways, in a global discussion on the future of the field. It will take place from September 16, 2017, to January 7, 2018.

For more info on KLF, go to: www.khourylevitfong.com and for the Chicago Architecture Biennial, go to: chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org. More information on KLF's exhibition at the Biennial is available at: http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/participants/khoury-levit-fong/

Image, top & middle: Chicago Cultural Center (SUTTON), courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Biennial

Alumnus Tye Farrow (BArch 1987) has designed a bold solution to help address the need for more affordable housing in Toronto — and the Bloor Viaduct, one of city’s most iconic bridges, is at the heart of his plan.

His proposal would transform the bridge from a single-use function into a multi-use one. In addition to connecting the neighbourhoods west of the Don Valley Ravine with those to the east, the bridge could providing places to live, places to play, and places to work and shop — and be a popular tourist destination to boot. Dave LeBlanc recently wrote about Farrow’s Living Bridges idea in the Globe and Mail.

"There are few government-owned or low-cost sites in the city’s core available for development," writes Farrow in his proposal for Living Bridges [PDF]. "The quest to identify economical sites that are near public transit as well as suitable for quick construction will require innovative thinking and bold action."

Key to the building's affordability is the use of a new type of inexpensive material — metal-strengthened plywood, now being developed by a company called GRIP Metal. Made of “thin sheets of metal with microhooks between the plies of wood,” the plywood can be formed into cylinders, built off-site, to create individual units.

“Can we dream that big again?” writes LeBlanc. “Can we spike the water with 1960s Kool-Aid?” He is not the only one interested in this bold idea for the Bloor Viaduct. The proposal has been also covered by the Toronto Star, BlogTO, Daily Hive, Salus, and Vancouver Roundhouse Radio. He will be presenting the design idea at the inaugural Healthy City Design 2017 International Congress in the UK in the Fall.

Visit Farrow’s website to read his full proposal [PDF] for Living Bridges.

Designed by Nader Tehrani and Katie Faulkner, the Daniels Faculty’s nearly finished new home at One Spadina Crescent has been receiving accolades from both members of the public (search #OneSpadina on instagram and twitter) and the media (see Architecture Critic Alex Bozikovic’s review in the Globe and Mail).

Tehrani and Faulkner are principals at firm NADAAA. And with the completion of The Daniels Building at One Spadina, the Boston-based firm will have a total of three architecture school buildings under its belt — “a feat that no one else is known to have achieved,” reports Architectural Digest. Tehrani has also designed the buildings for the architecture school at Georgia Tech and the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne.

From Architectural Digest:

Now he is preparing for the opening of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto on a prominent site with an existing neo-Gothic building, which he incorporated into the new structure. Given that the school offers training in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, Tehrani made sure the building “engaged all three disciplines.” Indeed, like the other two buildings, it invites collaboration; Tehrani says that “with the withering away of architecture as a siloed practice, we need buildings that encourage interdisciplinary thinking.”

As the Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union in New York, Tehrani is familiar with the needs of architecture schools and can easily put himself in the place of a dean working with a designer. Close collaboration is key, he tells Architectural Digest.

At One Spadina, NADAAA collaborated with Adamson & Associates (the project’s Architect-of-record), heritage architects ERA, and landscape architects Public Work.

Visit Architectural Digest’s website to read the full article: “Nader Tehrani Is Literally Shaping the Future of Architecture.”

Photos by Nic Lehoux

Associate Professor An Te Liu is working with Daniels Alumus Graeme Stewart (MArch 2007) to brighten up Kensington Market.

Writes Dave LeBlanc for the Globe and Mail:

What do you get when you mix the following? An architect with a particular interest in “tower renewal” – the science of reskinning 1950s-1970s buildings to be more energy efficient – who also works at one of the city’s top heritage firms; a world-class sculptor who has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Shanghai, Los Angeles and New York; a condominium board filled with artists, educators, architects, engineers, writers and other creative types; and a wall that didn’t exactly look good after some much-needed structural repairs.

You get a new gateway to Kensington Market on the east wall of the Kensington Market Lofts at 160 Baldwin St.

“This will be his biggest public piece,” said Stewart of Liu’s design. A professor in the Master of Architecture program at the Daniels Faculty, Liu has been engaged in sculpture and installation work that explores issues of funtion, occupation, and cultural coding in the domestic and urban realms since 1999. A principal at ERA Architects, Stewart was a key initiator of the Tower Renewal Project, which examines the future of Toronto’s modern tower neighbourhoods, and a founding director of the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal.

Writes ERA on their website:

While not a tower renewal project, there are several aspects that have been informative for tower renewal endeavours. This has included:

• Detailed thinking about construction sequencing without displacing residents.
• Instituting a best practice approach to recladding of existing assemblies that takes into account long term durability, fire protection, improved insulation, and continuity of vapour barriers.
• Showing how an initially functional imperative can be leveraged to provide a design approach with additional meaning for the residents and the community.

Visit the Globe and Mail’s website to read the full article by Dave LeBlanc.

Image, top: Artist An Te Liu once painted a postwar bungalow ‘Monopoly green’ as part of the ‘Leona Drive Project’ in Willowdale, Ont.