16.04.15 - Dean Richard Sommer talks transit, suburbs, and the commuter experience in U of T Magazine Q&A
Last fall Dean Richard Sommer spoke to U of T News writer Brianna Goldberg about regional transit, the commuter experience and the urban-suburban divide. A portion of the interview, which was featured on U of T’s Cities Podcast, was recently published in U of T Magazine.
“For many Torontonians, the daily commute is a spirit-crusher,” reads to introduction to the Q&A, “but what if it could enrich your life instead?”
Sommer argues that when the debate around transit is narrowly focused on how to simply move people from A to B, we often “fail to ask questions about the overall network experience we are trying to build, who we’re building it for, and what the bigger picture looks like.” In other words how does our transit system affect our quality of life?
The interview also discusses the book Huburbs, which the Daniels Faculty published in partnership with Metrolinx, the provincial agency that helps coordinate transportation infrastructure in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.
“Huburbs looks at the inconvenient-to-access and often-ugly transit hubs in the outer GTA,” explains Sommer. “It uses complex documentation analysis and visually sophisticated models to explore how these hubs could be lively and enriching, instead of barren platforms surrounded by parking lots and vacant space.”
On the urban-suburban divide, Sommer argues it’s not always helpful to label one place a suburb and another a city. “It really has to do with the level of maturation of the geography in question,” he says. “It’s all urbanization, and some of the most interesting and diverse areas, culturally, are in what some think of as a suburb.”
08.01.15 - Architects in the arctic: Work by Mason White's firm Lateral Office profiled in the Globe and Mail
Associate Professor Mason White’s firm, Lateral Office, has received a number of awards for its work in the arctic — including the inaugural Arctic Inspiration Prize and a special mention from the jury at the 2014 Venice Biennale for the exhibition "Arctic Adapations: Nunavut at 15." This week, Mason White and his partner Lola Sheppard were profiled in the Globe and Mail among other architects who are working to address the needs of the north.
The article outlines the growth taking place in many northern communities: Iqaluit, where White has worked, for example, has seen its population more than double since becoming Nunavut’s capital in 1999.
White explained to the Globe’s Matthew Hague, “Typically, people in Iqaluit have been told, ‘Here’s the plan,’ without being consulted...There might be a fear of innovation. Because in the past, innovation may have done bad things."
“But there are other forms of innovation,” says White, “that are based on collaboration and intelligent, informed knowledge-sharing.”
Writes Hague:
One of their design proposals, envisioned after extensive travel and consultation throughout the Arctic, is a series of beautifully articulated trading huts and food storage sheds, collectively called the Arctic Food Network. The buildings would be lashed together like snow sleds, and take advantage of snow-pack walls that insulate in the winter and melt for better ventilation in the summer. But they would be strategically placed to take advantage of a food distribution strategy that largely relies on snowmobiles to reallocate hunted meat between various communities.
18.09.14 - One Spadina Cresent project recognized at the 2014 Holcim Awards
Nader Tehrani and Katie Faulkner, Principals at NADAAA, received a Holcim Award last week for their design of the Daniels Faculty’s new home at One Spadina Crescent, one of Toronto’s most prominent and historic addresses. Presented by the Holcim Foundation, the awards recognize “projects and visions that contribute to a more sustainable built environment.”
The Holcim Awards jury called the One Spadina project “a rare approach towards bringing a heritage building back to life through new construction, one respectful of the existing structure, while introducing new spatial qualities to the entire ensemble.”
The foundation also commended the project’s approach to sustainability: “The project’s basic objectives are to rehabilitate existing urban, landscape, and architectural elements — and, to demonstrate the [University of Toronto’s] aim to foreground sustainability as part of its pedagogic program via state-of-the-art construction materials and energy systems.”
The jury further commended the design for creating a dialogue "between the past and the present,” adding that this dialogue is “most clearly expressed in the sequence of spaces at the intersection of the ‘new’ and the ‘old’.”
Renewal of the existing historic building on the iconic site is now underway, and work to build the stunning modern addition will commence this fall. Once complete, the project will be a model of sustainable construction, with a resilient structure and the ability to adapt over time. Features such as rainwater harvesting, extensive daylighting, bicycle parking, and green roofs built to incorporate photovoltaic technology as it evolves are part of a broader low-carbon approach to lowering the project’s environmental impact.
The Holcim jury expressed a particular respect for “the efforts undertaken to integrate environmental principles in the development of the design, without falling into the pitfalls and clichés of ‘sustainability’. On the contrary, new standards for architecture are confidently brought to the fore.”
Architecture and Urbanism Professor Richard Sommer, Dean of the Daniels Faculty, joined Baudouin Nizet, CEO of Holcim Canada, and jury member Lola Sheppard, a partner with Lateral Office, to present Tehrani and Faulkner with the award on September 18th in a ceremony at Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks.
The Holcim prize is one of many awards that NADAAA has received. Earlier this month, the office was named the top design firm in the United States for the second year in a row by Architect, the magazine of the American Institute of Architects. Tehrani has received fifteen Progressive Architecture Awards, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture (2002), and the Cooper Hewitt Award for Architecture (2007). Recent commissions either completed or underway include the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, and the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
One Spadina is a $72-million dollar project, which has received substantial support from the University of Toronto and lead donors John and Myrna Daniels. Last year, the Daniels Faculty launched a campaign to raise $50-million, $45 million of which will support the redevelopment of One Spadina ($5 million of John and Myrna Daniels’ gift is devoted to new scholarships for students.) The Faculty’s fundraising campaign has recently received several new landmark gifts from alumni and friends, and continues to seek new levels of support from a broad spectrum of donors in the art, design, and city building community. The One Spadina project will have a major impact on students, the professions, and the city.
The Holcim Foundation has recognized the work of several members of the Daniels Faculty in recent years. Lecturer Jonathan Enns also received an award at last week’s ceremony. The designer — whose current work investigates how design systems (digital and otherwise) can be used to understand, manipulate and intelligently introduce foreign elements into design geometry — was awarded a “Next Generation” prize for his development of an interlocking panelized timber system. Professor Aziza Chaouni received the International Gold Award in 2009, and Professor Mason White won the North American Gold Award in 2011. Przemyslaw Latoszek won third prize in the Next Generation category while he was a student at the Daniels Faculty in 2011.
The Holcim Foundation received a total of 211 entries in this year’s North American competition. Out of these, the One Spadina project and Jonathan Enns’ work were the only Canadian projects to be recognized.
08.06.14 - Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15 recognized by the 2014 Venice Biennale jury
The exhibit, which explores the past, present, and future of architecture in Nunavut (Canada’s youngest territory) was curated by Associate ProfessorMason White, Lola Sheppard, and Matthew Spremulli (MArch 2011). Local community groups in Nunavut as well architects and architecture students from across Canada contributed to the display.
This year’s jury included Francesco Bandarin (President, Italy), Kunlé Adeyemi (Nigeria), Bregtje van der Haak (The Netherlands), Hou Hanru (China), and Mitra Khoubrou (United Arab Emirates).
The 14th International Architecture Exhibition was curated by Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas, who chose the theme “Fundamentals.” The theme “exposes modernity as a vehicle for social, cultural and geopolitical transformations,” explains the Biennale's website. “It shows that modernity has not only been absorbed, but also adapted, rejected and critically transformed.” Forty countries participated in the exhibition.
Architecture critic Alex Bozikovic reviewed the Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15 exhibit in this weekend’s Globe and Mail.
“It’s a region that is awe-inspiring in its beauty and its complexity and its strangeness,” says Lateral’s Lola Sheppard. She and fellow principal Mason White have visited Nunavut dozens of times over the past five years, researching the history and the current state of the territory’s communities and buildings, and they see important challenges in its profound state of flux.
The Inuit “have gone from igloos to the Internet in 60 years,” Sheppard says. “We’re trying to establish what a Canadian Arctic urbanism would look like. I don’t think we know what that is yet, at least in [Nunavut].”
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“A building is just one piece of any architectural design. This philosophy reflects Lateral Office’s approach to its work, part of a broad movement in the profession toward what’s called “social architecture.” “It’s about motivating a new approach to design,” White says, “one that responds more directly to culture and environment.”
20.03.14 - Michael Piper and colleagues at Dub Studios preserve and enhance historic L.A. home
A beautiful renovation and addition to a Los Angeles home — the house where renowned poet, playwright and theatre director Bertolt Brecht wrote “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” and other plays in the 1940s — was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times. Dub Studios, the firm of Assistant Professor Michael Piper, designed the expanded family home.
So after architect Gabriel Sandoval and principals Natalya Kashper and Michael Piper renovated the Brecht house, they worked with the landmark commission to design and build the addition alongside the original structure. The new building stretches from the front of the site, on what was once the garage, to the back of the 12,000-square-foot property. They call the addition "the Bar" for its long and slender shape.
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Though the addition is understated in front, in back it is enlivened by glass walls that connect it to outdoor dining and living areas, lush landscaping and a pool. The floor-to-ceiling glass is a modern juxtaposition to the more traditional exterior of the Brecht house.
Inside the sun-filled first floor of the new home, the outdoors is always present. From here, the family can watch Leah swim or Alek pick blueberries in the garden.
Two years after breaking ground, the new compound stands largely as envisioned: It's an open, sunny and surprisingly quiet environment deeply in unison with the outdoors.
15.09.13 - One Spadina architects named the top American design firm by Architect magazine
NADAAA, the architecture firm that won an international competition to redesign the Daniels Faculty's new building at One Spadina Crescent, has been named the Top American firm in Design by Architect, the magazine of the American Institute of Architects.
Flip through NADAAA’s 2012 portfolio and you see a practice skilled in designing for all scales. For instance, a 600-square-foot retail space in San Francisco for skin care brand Aesop, in which a seemingly simple wall of randomly stacked recycled boxes utterly transforms a narrow, deep space into a dynamic interior. Or two new schools of architecture in Canada and Australia, both of which challenge the traditional assumptions of academic buildings with creative uses of material and assembly.
The building project at One Spadina Crescent will renew the south-facing 19th century Gothic Revival building and build out the unrealized northern face of the circle with a stunning work of contemporary architecture. Designed by architect Nader Terhani and his collaborator Katie Faulkner of the internationally renowned firm NADAAA, One Spadina will include dynamic, flexible learning and research environments for faculty and students, and will nurture the next generation of leaders in the field.
Below is a presentation of the design for One Spadina given on June 11, 2013 by NADAAA Architects Nader Terhani and Katie Faulkner.
28.08.13 - Fort York Library by KPMB architect Shirley Blumberg to open in November
The Toronto Star wrote an article on Toronto's 99th library, which is now under construction and set to open in November. Near the historic Fort York to the east of the Bathurst Street bridge, the modern building was designed by University of Toronto Alumna Shirley Blumberg of the award winning Toronto firm KPMB.
"It’s an elegant glass pavilion that will glow like a welcoming lantern at night," says Star writer Leslie Scrivener. "It’s such a presence that the neighbourhood of condominium towers and community housing has been named by the developer, Context, in its honour: the Library District."
Scrivener speaks to Blumberg about the odd angles and trapezoid shape of the building as well as the architect's approach to designing a library on such a historic site.
When it’s finished, the building will have perforated vertical fins that will hold illustrations by artist Charles Pachter. They are taken from a book, The Journals of Susanna Moodie, a collaboration of Margaret Atwood’s poetry and his drawings. (Moodie was a 19th century settler whose book Roughing it in the Bush is a lively account of pioneer struggles.) Sections of Atwood’s poetry will be used on the exterior, too.
The Toronto Public Library’s 100th branch, designed by LGA Architectural Partners (formerly Levitt Goodman) with Philip H. Carter, Architect will open in Scarborough in 2014.
18.06.13 - NADAAA architects provide insight into the design of the new Daniels Faculty complex at One Spadina Crescent
On Tuesday, June 11, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design unveiled its plans to revitalize and renew One Spadina Crescent, one of Toronto's iconic landmarks. At an event held at One Spadina that day, the lead architects for the project, Nader Tehrani and Katie Faulkner of the firm NADAAA, gave a short presentation to media, donors, and members of the community about the design of the new complex, which will incorporate the existing heritage building.
A 10-minute video of this presentation is posted below and is also available on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube channel.
The One Spadina project is part of the Faculty’s recently announced 50 million dollar fundraising campaign, of which 24 million remains to be raised. Tehrani, Faulkner and the broader Toronto-based design and engineering team have worked with Professor Richard Sommer, Dean of the Daniels Faculty — as well as faculty, students, and staff across the entire university — on transforming this historic site.
“This project is the result of a collaboration that brings together the accumulated talents and experiences of many, many people,” said Dean Sommer at the June 11 event. “Imagine designing a project for a group of architects, landscape architects, and urban designers — it’s like cooking for a room full of fussy chefs.”
The result is a building that has been thoughtfully considered from countless perspectives — from those of the students and faculty to those of the surrounding communities.
Tehrani and Faulkner brought a wealth of experience to the project. Both have designed award-winning buildings for other educational institutions and schools of architecture, including the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning; the Rhode Island School of Design's Fleet Library; and Georgia Institute of Technology’s Hinman Research Building.
A key part of Tehrani and Faulkner’s presentation on June 11th was the role that sustainability played in the building’s design.
“One can't talk about a building in this day and age, and least of all a school of architecture, without speaking about sustainability and environmental responsibility,” said Faulkner. “We were given a mandate that the building had to be absolutely overtly sustainable, that it needed to be a teaching tool for the students, the faculty and those in the city of what a building can be.”
Some of the sustainable features of the building include:
Daylighting: The roof and north-facing windows will bring light into the core of the building. In total, 61% of the building will be served by daylighting, resulting in energy savings that will amount to 54% less emissions than would otherwise be needed.
Storm water harvesting: The roof of the new building has been designed to channel and harvest rainwater (approx. 1096 m2 per year). Rain that falls on the roof will be directed into a cistern and will be used to irrigate green roofs and surrounding landscape. One hundred percent of the site’s greywater needs will be satisfied by storm water harvesting.
Accommodation for pedestrians and cyclists: Parking spaces for 280 bikes will be provided underneath a terrace in front of the historic building on the south side. The current fencing around the site will be removed and walkways will be created around the entire site to ensure open pedestrian access.
Heat reduction: The new building will incorporate white roofs (to reflect, rather than absorb, the sun) and green roofs (which help keep buildings cool). Calculations to date suggest that this will make the building up to 30 degrees Celsius cooler on a hot, sunny day, without the use of air conditioning. The new building’s green roof will provide an additional site for the Faculty’s Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (also known as the GRIT Lab), where researchers working with industry partners and the City of Toronto, are working to determine how to improve the efficiency of green roofs.
Overall building emissions rate: 58% of Model National Energy Code for Buildings.
The video of the architects’ presentation on the expansion and renewal of the Daniels Faculty at One Spadina Crescent can be found on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube Channel here.
For more on the Daniels Faculty's campaign and the One Spadina project, click here.
27.03.13 - Mason White and Lateral Office chosen to represent Canada at the 2014 Venice Biennale
For the first time in the history of Canada’s involvement in the 2014 Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Canadian exhibition will be centered on Canada’s north — and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is thrilled to announce that Assistant Professor Mason White and his colleagues at the design firm Lateral Office have been selected by a national jury to organize and curate the exhibit.
This is an incredible honour for the Daniels Faculty professor, who has been studying and developing projects in the Canadian arctic since 2008. The 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture, scheduled to take place from June 7 to November 24, 2014, is the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition and competition. Each year, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada select a proposed exhibition to represent the country. In 2014, the Canadian showcase will be entitled “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15”
“Given the rise in national and international interest in the Arctic, this is a timely exhibition,” said Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of the Canada Council. “‘Arctic Adaptations’ will bring attention and insight to the unique challenges and opportunities that Nunavut is facing, and the possibility for architecture to positively impact its future.”
White and Lateral Office — which includes University of Waterloo Associate Professor Lola Sheppard and Daniels Faculty graduate Matthew Spremulli (MArch 2011) — are ideal curators for the exhibition. In December, the experimental design firm was awarded the inaugural Arctic Inspiration Prize. In February, it received a Progressive Architecture Award from the American Institute of Architecture. Both awards were for the firm’s project Arctic Food Network — a network of contemporary buildings designed to encourage and inspire traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering practices.
White's interest in the arctic has extended to his teaching. In 2010, he took Daniels Faculty students to Nunavut as part of a sudio entitled “63 Degrees North,” which explored reconceiving Iqaluit’s public realm to better accommodate snowmobiles. In the last year and a half, the professor has travelled to all eight circumpolar countries to study the role that architecture can play in addressing the unique challenges faced by arctic communities.
In preparation for the exhibition, five design teams, each made up of representatives from a Canadian school of architecture and a Canadian architecture office, will work with Nunavut-based organizations to create proposals along the themes of health, education, housing, recreation, and arts. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication, and will be taken on a tour across Canada after the Biennale closes.
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18.12.12 - Mason White and Lateral Office win the Arctic Inspiration Prize
On December 13, Mason White — Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design — and his colleagues at the design practice Lateral Office became the inaugural recipients of the Arctic Inspiration Prize.
Lateral Office includes White’s partner Lola Sheppard (Associate Professor, University of Waterloo) as well as Daniels Faculty graduates Matthew Spremulli and Ali Fard (M.Arch 2011). The ceremony took place in Vancouver, and was organized by ArcticNet, a network of scientists focused on the Canadian North.
Winning this award was no small feat for the architecture firm. Non-governmental organizations, health professionals, scientists, and cultural leaders from across the country were considered for the honour. Lateral Office was selected by a high-profile jury that included former Governor General Michaëlle Jean, CBC news anchor and correspondent Peter Mansbridge, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and Jane Glassco Arctic Fellow Kyla Kakfwi-Scott. White and his research team will use the $360,000 it received from the award to continue to pilot prototype structures in the hamlets of Rankin Inlet and Sanikiluaq in Nunavut.
White first developed an interest in the Arctic when Lateral Office entered a design competition in Iceland in 2007. The firm was shortlisted and invited to participate in the second stage. After travelling there, the team became interested in architecture that responded to Iceland’s specific environmental and cultural challenges.
“Then we thought: Why aren’t we working closer to home?” says White. “There are architects working in Nunavut, but there were no architects doing research or experimental design work there.”
Since then, White and his team have developed a number of research projects in Canada’s northern territories, from Ice Road Truck Stops to Health Hangars. In the last year and a half, White has travelled to all eight circumpolar counties to study the role architecture can play in addressing the challenges faced by arctic communities. In 2010, he took a group of graduate students from the Daniels Faculty to Nunavut as part of a studio course that explored reconceiving Iqaluit’s public realm to better accommodate snowmobiles.
The project that has garnered the most attention, however, is Arctic Food Network: a series of contemporary cabins designed by Lateral Office that support traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering practices in a way that engages local Inuit youth (The average age in Nunavut is 25.)
In recent decades, the traditional Inuit diet, centered on hunting and fishing, has been replaced by manufactured food imported from the south. The result has been an increase in obesity and diabetes rates and the loss of traditional knowledge and culture.
The Arctic Food Network ‘s cabins have been designed to accommodate food preparation, food storage, and lodging. Since roads and highways are next-to-nonexistent, materials to build the cabins were designed to be transported on the back of a sled and easily assembled on site. Each site will be strategically placed near food sources and at intervals that can be traveled by snowmobile.
White and his team have created kits so that members of the community can practice assembling models of the cabins and provide their feedback. They are also developing prototypes to test how a small network of cabins will perform in real-life conditions. Lateral Office has worked on this initiative with Nunavut’s Arctic College, hunters and trappers associations, and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
For more information on the Arctic Food Network, visit Lateral Office’s website. Background on the Arctic Inspiration Awards — including a video featuring an interview with White — can be found here.
