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.

Jeannie Kim, the Daniels Faculty's Assistant Dean of Academic Programs and Outreach, has been selected by the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) as a jury member for the 2016 Wheelwright Prize competition. The prize is an international competition for a $100,000 grant to support travel-based architectural research. When the prize was established in 1935, it was intended only for GSD graduates. However in 2013 it was relaunched as an international competition. 2016 marks the fourth year since the competition became open to all graduates of professionally accredited programs within the last 15 years. 

The Wheelwright Prize is currently accepting applications. The deadline for submissions is February 15.

Tonight marks the opening of the Future of Suburbia — an exhibition hosted by the MIT Centre for Advanced Urbanism. A number of Daniels Faculty alumni and professors were involved in the curation, design and construction of the exhibit including Fadi Masoud (MLA 2010), Matthew Spremulli (MArch 2011), and Assistant Professor Liat Margolis, who participated in a 2-day workshop in March 2015 as part of the Future of Suburbia Biennial.

The work showcased in the exhibition aims to expose the nuance and complexity of the suburban condition and visually document suburbanization around the world. Four design frameworks for future suburban conditions were produced to describe a future of suburbia that is heterogeneous, experimental, autonomous, and productive.

The exhibition centers on a dynamic physical model of a future polynodal suburb, which is complemented by contextual research displayed in text and graphics, and aerial videos of existing global suburbs.

Fadi Masoud — a Lecturer of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at MIT, who also previously taught at the Daniels Faculty — was co-chair of the workshop and is on the exhibition team.

Matthew Spremulli — a Research Associate at the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism, and previous Instructor at the Daniels Faculty — is the lead exhibition designer. 

The Daniels Faculty is one of the the academic sponsors of the event.

For more information visit the MIT Centre for Advanced Urbanism website.

Related:

• Liat Margolis participates in Future of Suburbia design charrette at MIT's Center for Advanced Urbanism
• Drew Adams (MArch 4), Fadi Masoud (MLA 2010) published in Design for Flooding
• Fadi Masoud / Magda Dobranowski / Carla Pareja project selected for Saint Étienne International Design Bienniale
• Matthew Spremulli awarded 2010-11 Howarth-Wright Fellowship
• U of T's Mason White and Lateral Office at Venice Biennale

Fast Company recently celebrated design work by Associate Professor Steven Fong and alumnus Lorne Gertner (BArch 1982) for Tokyo Smoke Found, a shop that specializes in coffee, clothing, and cannabis, located in Toronto's West End.

“The architecture of Tokyo Smoke's Toronto outpost reinforces the narrative of a gritty product having its Pretty Woman moment,” writes Diana Budds for Fast Company. “Like Julia Roberts's Vivian emerging from a Beverly Hills boutique prim, polished, and 'respectable,' the industrial-meets-modern interiors—designed with architect Steven Fong—speak to the power of packaging and branding to sway the pendulum of perception.”

Tokyo Smoke was founded by Alan Gertner and his father Lorne, who is also a member of the Daniels Faculty's campaign cabinet, a committed group of alumni and friends of the Faculty whose vision, passion, and expertiese are helping support the Faculty's ambition to relocate and expand the school at One Spadina Crescent — a site of deep historical significance in Toronto.

Last week Associate Professor An Te Liu was featured in the ninth insallment of a series by the Globe and Mail in collaboration with Wondereur called "Why we love the art we love."

The series explores the diversity of contemporary art by approaching creative minds across Canada and the world and asking them to share the work of a contemporary Canadian artist.

In last week's insallment, the Globe and Mail profiled Marianne McKenna, founding partner of architecture firm KPMB, who selected Liu's work for the seires. According to McKenna, Liu is "thinking about temporal and spiritual time; with these pieces he evokes the totemic representation of man, the order of the world, and yet it has a beautiful texture and materiality."

As part of the series, Wondereur created a photo documentary exploring Liu's artwork. In it, Liu describes his process. "I often begin with something familiar and 'strange-ify' it," he says. "I like the idea that the work can instill a sense of curiosity and giv an opportunity to pause and reflect, and maybe scratch your head and wonder what it is you're looking at."

Works by An Te Liu. (Ryan Walker)

Visit the Globe and Mail's website for the full article.