Associate Professor Zeynep Çelik Alexander was recently featured in GSAPP Conversations – a podcast produced in partnership between ArchDaily and Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Alexander discusses her ongoing research on the history of modern architecture since the Enlightenment and the meaning of "Gestaltung,” the need for developing new language suitable for contemporary practice, and the role of architecture schools within the context of research universities.

“We haven’t yet developed the language with which to understand the world that we live in,” says Alexander to Columbia GSAPP student Jarrett Ley.

GSAPP Conversations is a podcast series designed to offer a window onto the expanding field of contemporary architectural practice. Each episode pivots around discussions on current projects, research, and obsessions of a diverse group of invited guests at Columbia, from both emerging and well-established practices.

Alexander recently published the book Kinaesthetic Knowing: Aesthetics, Epistemology, Modern Design (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2017), which “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.”

From the University of Chicago Press website:

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.

When Isaac Seah started his Honours Bachelors of Arts degree, Architectural Studies at U of T in 2015, his goal was to land a summer job at an architecture firm by third year. This summer, his goal became reality when he was offered a placement at Perkins+Will. During his first two years at U of T, Seah held positions at the GRIT Lab, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery, The Varsity, and Shift Magazine. He also co-founded a start-up called Placey — a virtual reality visualization tool for architecture. Each of these positions provided an opportunity for him to use his skills in design and computer science, topics he enthusiastically writes about for his personal blog on LinkedIn. Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies student Josie Northern Harrison (HBA 2017) met up with Seah to chat about his summer job at Perkins+Will, the value of extracurricular activities, and the benefits of creating a start-up.

Tell me about your summer job at Perkins+Will.
My summer internship encompasses a lot of different aspects of architecture; it’s a way for undergraduate students to explore the design industry in general. I’ve been involved in designing a donor wall (a wall that recognizes donors and alumni), and I’ve helped with feasibility studies for higher education buildings. For these studies, I mapped out the spaces for programs in a building to figure out what activities we could fit into a certain space. For example, sometimes I analyze how many labs can fit onto the third floor of a building. We go through multiple explorations based on the programmatic requirements that the client gives us. The exercise is very similar to one of the second year architecture studio courses, but this project is much more technical in the sense that we have to follow code requirements and the structure of a building. For the studio course, we were asked to design a study space that reflected the architectural qualities of the Goldring Centre and Robarts Library. From there, we identified the programs we could fit onto the site, and we were given height requirements, as well as different site conditions that we had to respect.

What inspired you to apply for a summer job at Perkins+Will and how did you go about it?
I was offered my summer position at Perkins+Will because of my start-up called Placey, which I created with Amin Azad and Freddy Zheng. Placey is a virtual reality visualization tool for architecture. To develop our start-up, we participated in the U of T Entrepreneurship Hatchery program last summer. The program allows students to spend a summer developing a product, and if it’s good enough then you are allowed to present your idea to potential investors. We developed a prototype, and went through a series of exercises to identify who our target market would be. We eventually found that our potential clientele could be architecture firms.

We went through 16 weeks of pitch presentations. Every two to three weeks, we would pitch our idea to seasoned entrepreneurs, professors, and other people well-versed in pitching strategies. As we pitched to more people, we became more relaxed and more organic in our presentation. There were several firms interested in listening to our pitch, and Perkins+Will was one of the companies interested in collaborating with Placey. After we presented, the representative from Perkins+Will asked me to send in my resume to be considered for the co-op placement.

Out of all the firms that I researched, Perkins+Will offered a developed research environment. They are highly involved in technological pursuits and research which they publish in their own journal. For example, they often collaborate with Autodesk and create computational tools like space plan generators. My minor in computer science allows me to better appreciate these research efforts. Perkins+Will has that vision and direction of innovation. They serve as practitioners of the architecture field, but try to innovate and bring in people from computer science, materials engineering, and other fields as well. That was something that I got really excited about because it offers an opportunity to imagine practicing as an architect while keeping an active interest in research.

You’ve worked with the GRIT Lab, The Varsity, and Shift Magazine. Did these positions help you with what you’re working on now and maybe what you want to work on in the future?
For Shift I was a Website Designer; for GRIT Lab I helped develop the Performance Index; and for The Varsity I was a Website Developer. There are many different types of architects; for example, you could emphasize the arts aspect, or you could emphasize the technology and optimization aspect like Norman Foster. My involvement with different groups at U of T allowed me to have a taste from these different perspectives. The experience at the Entrepreneurship Hatchery was eye-opening because it helped me understand the potential for computer science, and how helpful programming is to every single field of study. Shift Magazine was my entry into understanding the community at the Daniels Faculty, and how we could perceive architecture through an arts and humanities lens. With the GRIT Lab, I explored the technology perspective: how we assess the performance of green roofs and what kind of tools we can develop to explain this information to the industry. The Varsity pushed that thinking a little further, but it was less about architecture and more about the graphic design, and it was a campus-wide organization, which exposed me to some aspects of organizational thinking.

What advice do you have for Daniels students?
I would highly recommend the Entrepreneurship Hatchery program to anyone who has a chance to do it. The Hatchery experience helped me to adopt a more systematic way of thinking, defined my public speaking skills, and exposed me to the business mindset that explores the value of a product. It’s especially effective for architecture students because we are essentially in a service industry: we have to respect our client’s wishes while convincing them to choose the wisest option without too much pressure.

For the first-year students, I would encourage them to explore the diverse and established ecosystem of research going on at U of T. Those research avenues are places where you can learn about ideas relevant to architecture. If you’re willing to be exposed to these topics early on in your education then you’ll be in a very good position to realize that architecture is more than just drawing a section or a perspective. Architecture can become very exciting when we think about how we can integrate different fields like computer science, engineering, biology, and visual studies. My advice is to go to other faculties and explore the different majors and minors that the school offers.

Associate Professor Shane Williamson has been appointed Director of the Master of Architecture Program for a three-year term effective July 1, 2017.  Williamson’s research and creative practice employ advanced digital tools as a means to critically engage/transform traditional modes of construction and tectonic expression. His work seeks to situate digital fabrication and wood construction in a broader cultural context and link theories of design and technology to sustainable building strategies. He is a Principal of Williamson Williamson Inc., a Toronto-based architecture and design studio that operates at multiple scales ranging from furniture design to master planning. One of the recurring themes within his (and Betsy Williamson’s) studio’s body of work is the notion of “Incremental Urbanism” which recognizes the possibilities of intensification latent in the morphology of urban fabric.

Williamson’s built, projected, and speculative work has been widely-published and has garnered significant awards and accolades, including the Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Design Achievement and the Professional Prix de Rome for Architecture from the Canada Council of the Arts, the Emerging Architectural Practice Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the Young Architects Prize and the Emerging Voices Award from the Architecture League of New York, and various design/construction awards, including awards from Residential Architect, a Journal of the American Institute of Architects, the Ontario Association of Architects, the Canadian Green Building Council, and the Canadian Wood Council.

Williamson brings with him his interest in our Master of Architecture program’s relationship to the City of Toronto and the broader profession, and his focus on the nexus between architecture, urbanism, and digital (and traditional) modes of representation and fabrication.

It’s been a decade since Toronto’s building boom — which saw cultural institutions such as the ROM, the National Ballet School, the Toronto Film Festival, and OCAD, among others — transform the city with new works of architecture. Chief among these new buildings was the Art Gallery of Ontario, whose Frank Gehry-designed expansion was completed in 2008.

So how is the addition holding up? The Toronto Star spoke to AGO employees and local architects — including Daniels Faculty Dean Richard Sommer — about the transformation and how it came to be.
 

Writes Nick Patch:

Compared to the audacious scratch-made classics Gehry had recently turned out to worldwide acclaim — 1997’s astonishing Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, of course, or 2003’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles — he was going to be, in some ways, restrained simply based on the realities of the site.

Yet several critics now believe those limiting circumstances ultimately benefited the project.

“Gehry was doing extremely high-budget, big-gesture projects at that point in his career, and this one didn’t allow for that,” said Richard Sommer, dean of the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. “He’s sometimes at his best when he has to do something scrappier.”
 

Visit the Toronto Star’s website to read the full article “Frank Gehry’s gift to Toronto gets better with age.”

A number of Daniels faculty and alumni were recently named part of “30 Canadian Architecture Firms Breaking New Ground” by Azure Magazine. The list was created to celebrate Canada Day and was the third in a series of “best and brightest” lists.

“Some of our choices are studios that are fresh out of school and have yet to complete an entire building; others have won international competitions that will see their work realized on the other side of the world,” writes Azure. “At every scale they share a drive (some might call it an obsession) for pushing architecture to the limits in terms of technology, innovation and beauty.”

Omar Gandhi Architecture founded by Omar Gandhi, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Honours, Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program (project pictured above)

“With a second office now in Toronto, the studio is bringing and adapting rural sensibilities within an urban context. Says Gandhi: “I want my aesthetic to change constantly.” Last week, the firm took home a People’s Choice AZ Award for Rabbit Snare Gore.”

Studio AC, founded by Sessional Lecturer Jennifer Kudlats and Andrew Hill

“Principals Jennifer Kudlats and Andrew Hill are alums of KPMB Architects, where they first met. Running their own studio since 2015, they are now finishing up three residential renovations that express their taste for clean lines, wide open rooms, natural wood finishes and large doses of natural light.”

Office OU, founded by Sessional Lecturer Nicolas Koff and Uros Novakovic

“Earlier this year Office OU won a major masterplan competition for Sejong City (shown). The 190,000-square-metre site has been mapped out to house administrative buildings and five national museums that sit among manicured and natural landscapes, including terraced rice fields. When completed in 2023, the project’s impact is expected to shift South Korea’s cultural focus from Seoul to Sejong.”

Hapa Collaborative, where Sarah Siegel (MArch 2006) is an Associate

“Along with Nick Milkovich Architects and Matthew Soules Architecture, Hapa is responsible for the new Vancouver Art Gallery Plaza (shown), a $9.6-million renovation of the popular 4,197-square-metre square. The project, which had a soft opening on June 22, is already adored by locals. Its most defining feature is a tricolour mosaic of asymmetric tiles. In Canadian cities public squares can be few and far between. This plaza’s dramatic upgrade gives a new face to the entire downtown core.”

Public Work, the Landscape Architects for One Spadina

“Public Work is one of the key players envisioning plans for a 400-hectare waterfront site in Toronto. Called the Port Lands, the massive project has just received a financial injection of $1.25-billion from three levels of government. It is the largest redevelopment project of its kind in the history of Toronto, and it is expected to transform the postindustrial area into new neighbourhoods and parks, while providing a necessary flood barrier.”

Polymétis, founded by Sessional Lecturer Michaela MacLeod and Nichola Croft

“When Polymétis won the Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners, a year-long scholarship, they used the funds to visit 20 international sites that take a design approach to reclaiming waste sites within cities. We’re excited to see how Polymétis finds ways to apply this knowledge for cultivating public spaces out of wastescapes.”

Office of Adrian Phiffer, founded by Lecturer Adrian Phiffer

“The firm makes little distinction between art and architecture. Their competition entries have ranged from imagining Guggenheim Helsinki as a giant purple barge to a winter warming hut that lends out orange blanks to keep ice skaters warm.”

JA Architecture Studio, founded by Sessional Lecturer Nima Javidi, Behnaz Assadi (MLA 2008), and Hanieh Rezaei (MUD 2004)

“Now under construction is Duple Dip, a minimalist house in Toronto’s westend that from the exterior looks like a chapel. Inside, the sparse interior connects four outdoor spaces.”

Partisans, founded by Sessional Lecturer Pooya Baktash and Lecturer Alex Josephson

“The early success of Partisans hasn’t meant they have rested on past laurels. Among other large-scale projects the studio is working on is the rebirth of Union Station, Toronto’s central rail hub. The station is now undergoing a massive expansion that will see it double in size, mostly by digging underground. The project is expected to be completed in 2018.”

Woodford Sheppard Architecture, founded by Taryn Sheppard (MArch 2010) and Christ Woodford

“A number of WS projects signal a change for the region [St. John’s in Newfoundland]. In particular is the firm’s ambitious concept for The Bridge, a building that responds to the recent expansion of Newfoundland’s offshore oil industry and the need for both housing and office space. If built, the project would provide a campus that acts as a buffer zone between industrial and residential areas.”

Public City Architecture, a merger between Peter Sampson (BArch 1999) Architecture Studio and Plain Projects Landscape Architecture

“Making winter fun is one of the PCA’s main preoccupations. Their latest social engagement effort appeared on a public ice rink in Winnipeg last winter: a giant “crokicurl” game that mixes the rules of the tabletop board game crokinole with the physical scale of a curling rink.”

For the full article, visit Azure's website.

When he graduated in 2015, Jonah Ross-Marrs received the Jackman-Kuwabara Prize, awarded to the student judged to have the most outstanding Master of Architecture thesis of the year. That summer, he won a Pier 9 Artist-in-Residence fellowship at AutoDesk in San Francisco. How’s life a year after graduation? Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies student Josie Northern Harrison (HBA 2017) caught up with Ross-Marrs over email to find out how his time at U of T has helped prepare him for future work in computation and architecture — and how he plans to expand on his thesis this Fall as a new student in the Master of Science in Architecture Studies (SMArchS) in Computation at MIT.

What inspired you to study architecture at the Daniels Faculty?
After completing an undergraduate degree in History, I wanted to study something tangible that would give me a foothold in the professional world. I was inspired by the models and diagrams on the walls of the architecture department at McGill University and felt I would be more at home in such an environment. I thought architecture might be an opportunity to build on my hobby of making electro-mechanical things and bring my creative work into a more formal academic environment.

I decided to study at Daniels because of the accomplished faculty. I liked the diversity of professors and felt the reputation of the school would help me in my career. I also felt that living in a large urban center would be a good supplement to my studies.

When did you first start experimenting with open source software?
I have been interested in electronics since the mid-1990s, when I began building simple solar-powered robots from e-waste. My interest was sparked by the magic of tiny, intricate mechanisms coming to life when charged with electricity. When Arduino (an accessible type of open-source hardware and software) was released, it allowed a whole group of people like myself access to microchips (mini reprogrammable electronic brains) that was previously unavailable. Once I was familiar with Arduino, it was a natural progression to make Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines.

How did studying at the University of Toronto influence your work?
Every design studio was, for me, life-changing and extremely challenging. I wasn’t sure I would continue on the traditional path of a practicing architect, so I used the courses I took as opportunities to develop my own creative method. I began to develop a creative process and learned that my strengths were in visual communication. I also learned to work within a highly critical environment and to accept criticism of my work. Studying design changed my view of making and made me aspire to higher ideals and have a greater appreciation for the context of my work.

Living in Toronto, I had access to valuable resources needed for experiments with custom CNC tooling. Active Surplus, Jacob’s Hardware, Above All Electronic Surplus, Hacklab.To, and other communities were crucial assets to my projects.

The Mini CNC Foam Cutter tutorial that you posted on Instructableshas been very successful (with ~42,000 views and ~500 favorites). Will you continue to contribute to the open source/hardware hacking community?
I have published a few more Instructables since the Mini CNC Foam Cutter and hope to get feedback from the community about the value of these projects. I hope to meaningfully contribute to the open-source community because I build on projects created by my peers as prime resources for my investigations. For the open-source hardware community in particular, I would like to continue to develop a series of mini CNC machines that work with different materials and use e-waste components in different ways.

What was it like being an Artist-in-Residence at the Autodesk Pier 9?
The Autodesk Artist-in-Residence Program was an excellent opportunity to interact with the programmers who develop software used by designers, and to gain access to cutting edge fabrication technologies. It was also an opportunity to meet incredibly talented designers and artists from around the world and learn from their practices. The San Francisco tech scene in general is extremely stimulating and full of intelligent and entrepreneurial individuals.

What did you create for the residency?
My project captured a moment that is normally lost in the process of printing a 3D model. When a computer prepares a 3D model for printing, it rebuilds the model out of triangles (i.e. translates the model into triangles) before virtually slicing the model into layers for the 3D printer to interpret. This first triangulation step is called the meshing process. I printed each component of this translation process separately in the order they have been rebuilt by the meshing algorithm. This was done with various input models: a house, a car, a washing machine, or a pencil sharpener. The results visualize the work of the meshing algorithms, providing a behind-the-scenes look into an almost instantaneous computer process that designers interact with every day but would never experience spatially. The potential of the project is in the way it can analyze and compare the behavior of different algorithms designed to do the same task in a kind of visual short-hand.

Do you hope to expand on the work you did for your MArch thesis in the SMArchS program in Computation at MIT?
At MIT, I hope to continue exploring my MArch thesis project and follow it wherever it leads me while challenging myself to increase my skill level in programming languages. Most of all, I hope to meet others in my field and learn from them, hopefully allowing myself to evolve and develop new insights.

Do you have any advice for students starting their Masters of Architecture degree next year?
I would suggest attending the guest lectures as they are a valuable opportunity to get insight into the design process and various strategies of presenting work. I think maintaining an interest in extra-architecture subjects is important because of the nature of inspiration. Connected with this, I think it is important to find ways to maintain a balanced lifestyle throughout the degree.

This summer, the Research Opportunity Program (ARC399H1) was conducted as a two-week intensive workshop offering undergraduate students the unique opportunity to design and build a structure on Hart House Farm.
 
Students spent the first week in a studio setting on the St. George campus, designing and prototyping a collaborative project using both digital and analog tools and materials. During the second week, they stayed at Hart House Farm to collectively assemble the structure they designed. Taught by Instructors William Haskas, and Matei Denes of PlusFARM, the studio (entitled “Nocturne Elemental”) was established as an environment for discourse, digital design, craftwork, fabrication, and construction with a particular emphasis upon the areas where analog and digital design overlap, trade places, and inform each other.
 
Following an initial analysis of a pivotal cinematic moment, students worked with Rhinoceros and Grasshopper to explore generative workflows and fluidity in form-making. This was followed by a series of physical prototypes developed around the simple program of a space for projection and different forms of bodily occupation. In the absence of a specific site or material constraints, the exuberant forms were then evaluated in terms of their potential performative success.
 
The project was then developed through a poly-authored digital design process, allowing every student to embed, share, and infuse their ideas upon the final outcome. In keeping with this model of collaborative authorship, the students decided collectively which scheme to invest in and take to Hart House Farm the following week.
 
For the second half of the course, students continued to develop and refine the scheme while camping on site, ultimately fabricating a collaboratively-built structure that functions as a screening pavilion, a beacon, and a viewing device that is intended to transform our understanding of the natural setting of Hart House Farm.
 
PlusFARM is an internationally recognized design and fabrication studio with built projects in London, Lima, Toronto, and New York City. Working with both digital and material design, the studio inverts traditional, authoritarian, top-down design to explore horizontal platforms of participation and production through the practice of “poly-authorship,” which responds to how digital technologies have changed the way artchitecture is being taught, practiced, and managed.

Visit our Facebook page for more photos.

Photos above by Harry Choi

A team of undergraduate students from the Daniels Faculty — including Kian Hosseinnia, Pearl Cao, Tina Siassi, Dimah Ghazal, and Ous Abou Ras — won the URB PRK Emerging Young Architecture + Planning Program (EYAPP) design-build competition. The competition “was inititiated to provide an outlet for students and interns in Architecture and Planning to showcase their creative talents and show to the community the importance of design and how it can be both clever and environmentally sustainable."

Each year, students are challenged to create a summer refuge or “parklet” within a city using innovative strategies and sustainable materials. This year the site was two parking stalls on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton Alberta.

Hosseinnia and Cao were guests on CBC’s Edmonton AM to discuss their design on June 8.

The students are now raising money to realize their winning plan. The extra funds will assist them securing the necessary materials.

“This is a very important project for us as it gives us the opportunity as emerging designers to provide for the public and enhance their social experience of Whyte Avenue,” write the students on their Go Fund Me page. “We greatly appreciate your support in helping us with this exciting project and for taking the time to read about our cause.”

Lecturer Matthew Allen recently reviewed the exhibition Archaeology of the Digital: Complexity and Convention (pictured above) for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Curated by Greg Lynn at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), the exhibition presented 25 projects "for which digital materials are integral to an understanding of the design process.”

“My guess is that exhibitions like Archaeology of the Digital will help incorporate new aesthetic categories surrounding digital production into the larger scheme of architectural values,” writes Allen. "Archaeology of the Digital represented a type of show that will undoubtedly become more common."

Allen also contributed to the recently launched exhibition architecture, architectural & Architecture at the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles (pictured above). At the centre of Allen's contribution is an example of cutting-edge computational aesthetics in the form of a screencapture of a digital model of Preston Scott Cohen's Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Curated by Anthony Morey and Ryan Tyler Martinez, the exhibition is a collection of “100 Architects, 100 Objects, 100 Texts, 100 Images,” and will be on display until July 2, 2017.

Daniels Faculty undergraduate student Victoria Cardoso was part of the winning team in the “Towers on the Ravine, 1967-2067: Transitioning to Net-Positive Biophilic Urbanism” competition, which took place in May. Her team members included York University graduate students Alex Gatien, Assaya Moustaqim-Barrette, Kiana Javaheri, Nick Brownlee, and Steven Glass.

The competition, launched at the 2017 Ontario Climate Symposium May 11 & 12, asked students to envision the transformation of the tower neighbourhood north of Finch on Kipling Avenue into a resilient and environmentally and socially sustainable community.

The winning proposal included a focus on honouring indigenous history; strategies for addressing the projected population increase; the formation of a local community land trust to develop, fund, and manage public spaces; recognition of emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles; and the reintegration of a ‘lost’ stream  with the neighbourhood’s commercial and public spaces.

A number of other Daniels Faculty students participated in the competition. They included: Master of Landscape Architecture students Catherine Howell and Stacey Zonneveld; Master of Architecture students Zoal Razaq, Shou Li, and Xiaolong Li; and undergraduate students Adaeze Chukwuma, Feng Le, Tian Wei Li, and Yujie Wang. Images from Howell, Li, Razaq, and Zonneveld’s proposal (Alisa Nguyen was also part of this team) are pictured above.