Lateral Office — the firm of Associate Professor Mason White and Lola Sheppard — has won a  Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Urban Design Award for Impulse — a playful installation in the Place des Festival in Montreal.

The full team for the project included: Lateral Office (Architect & Co-Designer); CS Design (Lighting Design & Co-Designer); EGP Group (Engineering); Generique Design (Fabrication); Mitchell Akiyama (Sound); Robocut (Interactive); Iregular (Video); Maotik (Video).

Held in cooperation with Canadian municipalities, the winning projects are announced by the RAIC along with the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP), and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CLSA).

Impulse transforms Montreal’s arts district “into a space of urban play through a series of thirty interactive acoustic illuminated see-saws that respond and transform when in motion. The seesaws form repetitive units of light and sound that can be activated and played by the public to create a temporal, ever-changing event.”

The installation also incorporates a series of nine commissioned videos that visualize sound and are projected on buildings in the neighbourhood.

The Jury for the award commended the project for bringing people out into the city — even on cold winter evenings.

Related:

• Lateral Office transforms Montreal's art district with playful installation
• Lateral Office 'Makes Camp' at Chicago Architecture Biennial
• CBC Radio features Making Camp on Spark
• Mason White and Lateral Office win the Arctic Inspiration Prize
• Mason White and Lateral Office chosen to represent Canada at the 2014 Venice Biennale

Pin-ups have been un-pinned, exams have been written and students are undoubtedly catching up on some much needed sleep. Before shifting into summer mode, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on the past academic year. Here are the six most read news stories of the last 8 months.

6. Architectural Studies graduate Omar Gandhi "one of Canada's most exciting emerging designers," says the Globe and Mail

January 18, 2016

5. View the competition entries and have your say in the redesign of U of T's St. George Campus

October 5, 2015

View the winning design by KPMB Architects, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) and Urban Strategies.

4. #ReadingList: 3 books to read over the holidays

December 15, 2015

3. Photographs by Peter MacCallum document the transformation of One Spadina

June 4, 2014 (updated regularly)

View all One Spadina photos on the Daniels Faculty's Flickr page

2. Multigenerational housing: Daniels faculty and alumni rethink the family home

February 25, 2016

1. 12 things every grad student presenting their thesis should know

March 25, 2015

This year's Jane's Walks — a series of free, citizen-led walking tours held in nearly 200 cities around the world — take place this weekend. Inspired by writer and activist Jane Jacobs, the event gives participants the opportunity to explore neighbourhoods through the eyes of local residents.

With over 175 walks to choose from in Toronto alone, deciding which walks to attend can be overwhelming. Here is a list of 9 Jane's Walks being led by Daniels Faculty alumni and faculty May 6-8.

1. Why Socks Are Not Enough: Social Justice on the Danforth
Walk leader: Denise Pinto (MLA 2011) and Lois Didyk
May 6, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours
May 8, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours

2. East Danforth East - A Culinary Walking Tour
Walk leader: Phil Pothen (MLA 2006), Elise Aymer, Danning Liao, and Janet Masching
May 6, 2016, 11:00 AM, 2 Hours
May 8, 2016, 1:00 PM, 2 Hours
 

3. King and Spadina: One of The Two Kings
Walk leaders: Margie Zeidler (BArch 1987) and Paul Bedford (U of T Adjunct Professor)
May 7, 2016, 10:00 AM, 2.5 Hours

4. Walking around Gerrard Square
Walk leaders: Todd Irvine (Co-Instructor, Urban Ecology Field Course) and Dylan Reid
May 7, 2016, 10:00 AM, 2 Hours

5. Listening to the Language of Plants
Walk leaders: Yi Zhou (MLA 2013), Jasmeen Bains (MLA 2013), and Tyler Bradt (MLA 2013)
May 7, 2016, 11:00 AM, 1 Hour

6. Summerhill Summerdale
Walk leader: John van Nostrand (BArch 1972)
May 7, 2016, 2:00 PM, 2 Hours

7. Little Free Libraries: An Impromptu Reading Walk With Neighbours
Walk leader: Denise Pinto (MLA 2011)
May 7, 2016, 4:00 PM, 1.5 Hours

8. Walk the Green Line: Infrastructures of Park Space
Walk leader: Netami Stuart (MLA 2004)
May 8, 2016, 10:00 AM, 1 Hour

9. Walk with us Woodbridge!
Walk leaders: Gail Shillingford (BLA 1995) and Moira Wilson (MLA 2006)
May 8, 2016, 2:00 PM, 1 Hour

Did you know?

• Jane's Walk originated in Toronto, and Master of Landscape Architecture alumna Denise Pinto (MLA 2011) is the Global Director of the festival. Read our Q&A with Pinto, published last year.
• Jane Jacobs, who lived in Toronto from 1968 until her death in 2006, would have celebrated her 100th birthday this year on May 4. In honour of her centenary, a number of events are planned throughout Toronto (and beyond), including an exhibition at Urbanspace Gallery, Jane at Home, curated by Jim Jacobs and Margie Zeidler (BArch 1987).

The Daniels Faculty would like to congratulate Ja Architecture Studio — the office of Daniels Faculty alumni Nima Javidi (MUD 2005), Behnaz Assadi (MLA 2008), and Hanieh Rezaei (MUD 2004) — on receiving an Award of Merit from Canadian Architect for its project “111”. The project team included Master of Architecture students Kyle O'Brien and Zhou Tang.

111 is an urban infill project — three 3-storey residential units — set atop a commercial podium in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood. The Studio describes the project as “an exercise in architectural massing and typology,” which “aims to create change in this sensitive historic context without falling into either extremes of aggressive development or low-rise domestic conformity.”

Canadian Architect's Awards of Excellence is an annual awards program open to all architects registered in Canada and Canadian architectural graduates with buildings in the design stage. It is one of only two national award programs devoted exclusively to architecture.

This year's jury included Maxime Alexis Frappier, principal and lead designer at ACDF Architecture in Montreal; Pat Hanson, founding partner of gh3 in Toronto; and Johanna Hurme, cofounder of 5468796 Architecture in Winnipeg.

Canadian Architect will provide exclusive coverage of the award winners in it’s December 2015 issue. For more information, visit: www.canadianarchitect.com

Last month Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni led a design workshop for a music school in southern Morocco. Located in the oasis of M'hamid El Ghizlane, the Joudour Sahara music school will focus on empowering the 2,000 local children and youth through music education programming in a safe and welcoming space. Its main objectives are to transmit and preserve traditional music heritage, offer training in music-related disciplines such as recording and videography, and to spread environmental awareness in the region.

In addition to classroom instruction, the school will offer a visiting artist exchange, performance spaces for local and travelling acts, an instrument-making and repair workshop, and accommodaions for tourists who are interested in supporting and visiting the school.

The project is led by local NGO Zaila and supported by two other NGOs: Playing for Change and the Sahara-Roots Foundation. Chaouni, who is volunteering for the project, is tasked with developing the project design as well as overseeing the construction process. The design workshop she led involved mapping out the variety of singing styles in the oasis, meeting and recording the performers, and collaborative design work. Three undergraduate Daniels students, Ashita Parekh, Sarah Gaines and Mengyi Zhang, contributed to the project by creating the study model used in the workshop.

Last month, Chaouni presented the project at the Visa for Music Festival in Rabat, Africa's largest music professionals event. She presented again during a session at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

As final reviews and exams begin to wind down, attention is turning to all of the fun and relaxing things one might do during the holidays. At the top of most lists is reading a good book. We asked Associate Professor Brian Boigon, Director of the Undergraduate program at the Daniels Faculty, for his top suggestions of what to read over the break.

Brian breaks down his 3 suggestions for what to read over the holidays into three categories: the Social of the Digital, the Social of the Analogue and the Social of the Digital and Analogue.

Holiday #ReadingList
by Brian Boigon

Given that the holiday season is upon us, I thought it would be best to recommend books that deal with social architecture. In other words, what it means to be social today and the challenges associated with the online and offline world.

1. The Social of the Digital: Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle is one of the most insightful analysts of social media.

From her book Alone Together:

"We shape our buildings, Winston Churchill argued, then they shape us. The same is true of our digital technologies. Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we face a moment of temptation. Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, we conduct 'risk free' affairs on Second Life and confuse the scattershot postings on a Facebook wall with authentic communication. And now, we are promised 'sociable robots' that will marry companionship with convenience."

I also suggest watching Sherry's TED talk, "Connected, but alone?"

2. The Social of the Analogue: The Psychoanalysis of Fire by Gaston Bachelard

I was educated as an architect and one of our philosophers was Gaston Bachelard. His book The Poetics of Space was required reading in my 2nd year. But one of his lesser-known books The Psychoanalysis of Fire is one of my all time favourites. Bachelard delves deep into why fire is such a profound social event. One of our late great literary scholars, Northrop Frye, gives a beautiful introduction.

3. The Social of the Digital and Analogue: We Have Impact by Brian Boigon

Then if it's all a bit too long-winded, you can delve into any one of the shorter chapters from my recent book We have Impact. There are several dozen short ruminations on design today from the weekend to the mutiny…

For further reading, I recommend you check out two of my favourite book stores in Toronto:

Swipe (401 Richmond Street West)
An independent bookstore with a focus on graphic design, urbanism, and architecture

Art Metropole (1490 Dundas Street West)
An artist-run organization with a focus on artist-initiated publications.

Happy reading and happy holidays!

See you all next semester,

Brian

What is the future of furniture design? This was the question posed by the organizers of the 2015 VMODERM Furniture Design Competition presented by eVolo magazine.

Daniels Faculty alumni Indrit Alushani (MArch 2015) and Kostika Lala (MArch 2015) considered the trend of small living spaces and the growing need for rooms to serve multiple purposes (such as a bedroom and living room and office). Their solution involved designing furniture that can easily transform from an empty hardwood floor to a table, bed frame, or chair — all made out of the integrated panels that pattern the floor. The duo’s entry, titled Floor to Furniture was awarded an honorable mention out of 233 entries from 34 countries.

Write Alushani and Lala in their competition entry:

By employing a series of highly resistant and durable carbon fiber joints, levers and tracks the floor panels can elevate to a height of 700mm which is equivalent to the height of a traditional desk. Moreover the system is motorized which can be controlled from a main unit where the location for where the panels to be raised are indicated as well as the height and any angle adjustments (mainly for seating purposes).

For more information on the competition and Alushani and Lala’s entry, visit the VMODERN Furniture Design Competition website.

When Daniels Faculty lecturer Katy Chey and her partner Javier Viteri struggled to find the right furniture for their home, they decided to simply design their own. With too little space for both a dining room table and living room seating, the two architects looked for a way to blend the two spaces with one hybrid piece. The result is +Table, which quickly came to the attention of Toronto furniture manufacturer Speke Klein.

"We conceived the table as one continuous surface to support the idea of one fluid line connecting two spaces," Chey told The Globe and Mail. +Table is now being manufactured and sold by Speke Klein, with various options for material and finish. It has since received a lot of media attention and has been featured in Azure Magazine and Interior Design Magazine and was promoted by Design Exchange.

Daniels alumnus Craig Newsome (BArch 1986) of MMC Architects was selected by the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) as a recipient of a 2015 Merit Award for his work on the rehabilitation and restoration of an 1860s early Victorian cottage in Brantford, Ontario.

The cottage is located within the Brant Avenue Conservation District. "The rehabilitation approach to this project was based on pretecting its heritage value while adapting the property for contemporary residential use," writes CAHP in its announcement of the award.

For the full list of Heritage Award winners, visit Canadian Architect magazine's website.

Omar Gandhi, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Honours, Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program, has been profiled as “one of Canada’s most exciting emerging designers" in the Globe and Mail.

The 36-year-old Halifax-based architect is a featured speaker at Interior Design Show in Toronto on January 23, and is planning to open a satellite office in Canada’s largest city.

Gandhi is a tribute to the success of the Daniels Faculty’s undergraduate program. In 2014, he was awarded the Prix de Rome and named among the world’s top 20 young architects by Wallpaper magazine.

Writes the Globe and Mail’s Design Editor Danny Sinopoli:

Gandhi joins the steadily growing ranks of elite Atlantic Canadian architects who are boldly contemporizing East Coast building forms, redefining the region’s design aesthetics in the process. “My work certainly isn’t unique, nor does it aspire to be,” Gandhi says with some of that inherited Maritime modesty, citing others, such as Halifax master Brian MacKay-Lyons, Newfoundland-born Todd Saunders and New Brunswick’s Acre Architects as those who have produced “incredible regionally inspired work” before and alongside him. There is, however, one significant difference between Gandhi and many of his East Coast colleagues: Having been born in Toronto and raised in Brampton, he is essentially an outsider who learned and subsequently mastered the regional vernacular, then reinterpreted it. Such sensitivity to setting isn’t commonplace. And it will serve Gandhi well as he expands his practice to other parts of Canada and beyond.

The full article is available on the Globe and Mail’s website.