Upon learning he was shortlisted for an Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) Award, Henry Heng Lu (MVS 2017) said he felt happy just to be nominated — he did not expect that he would actually win. After all, it is rare for a student-curated exhibition to receive Exhibition of the Year (Budget under $20,000 - Thematic).

“When it was announced that I won, I thought, ‘This is happening?’” he said. “I was so thrilled. The award is a great encouragement.”

Held last year at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Lu’s now award-winning exhibition Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us was his final project in the Master of Visual Studies, Curatorial Studies program at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. It is also the first student-curated exhibition at the Art Museum to receive an OAAG Exhibition of the Year Award. The show — which included a video screening, artist-talks with Karen Tam and Chih-Chien Wang, a public lecture with Ken Lum, and off-site projects at U of T’s John M. Kelly and E.J. Pratt Libraries — explored the work of Canadian artists of Chinese descent and narratives of Chinese Canadian culture.

“We are exceptionally proud of Henry Heng Lu and his well-deserved win at the OAAG Awards. The exhibition, Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us, represents Henry’s Graduating Project for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies and is an example of the extraordinary work that students are producing at the Art Museum. The award is wonderful acknowledgement of Henry’s passionate curatorial commitments to connect artists and communities across generations and diasporic backgrounds,” said Barbara Fischer, Director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies and Chief Curator of the Art Museum.

Lu says U of T’s Art Museum — one of the largest gallery spaces for art exhibitions and programming in Toronto — is a valuable resource for students.

“I owe a lot of thanks to my advisor Barbara Fischer for giving me the opportunity to do the show at the Art Museum and guiding me through the planning and execution processes for this project,” says Lu. “The rest of the Art Museum team was also pleasant to work with. I felt very supported.”

As an undergraduate student, Lu majored in Studio and Arts Management at U of T’s Scarborough campus. It was at that time, as an international student and newcomer to Canada, that he started exploring work created by Canadian artists of Chinese descent, questioning how Chinese art is defined, and wondering why it is usually presented in “cultural clusters.”

“Later on, I got very interested in what being Chinese means in Canada and how ‘Chinese’ identities are configured and fabricated and started my investigation,” he says. “Canadians of Chinese descent have been gradually taking up a bigger role in Canadian cultural dynamics but it seemed to me that artistic practitioners from this population didn’t often get themselves heard. I wanted to learn more about their experiences.”

The exhibition featured works by Alvis Choi aka Alvis Parsley, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gu Xiong, Will Kwan, Ho Tam, Ken Lum, Morris Lum, Ho Tam, Karen Tam, Chih-Chien Wang, Paul Wong, and Winnie Wu.

Lu is currently Artistic Director at the Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre in Kingston, Ontario, as well as an independent curator and artist, whose projects were most recently presented at Trinity Square Video and Nuit Blanche Toronto. Together with Yanjing Winnie Wu (HBA 2016) he cofounded Call Again, an initiative “committed to creating space for contemporary diasporic artistic practices and to expanding the notion of Asian art in the context of North America and beyond.”

The annual OAAG Awards recognize exhibitions, publications, and programming in Ontario’s public art galleries. Art Museum Curator, Sarah Robayo Sheridan was also shortlisted for a 2018 OAAG Award for Short Text (Under 2,000 words) for Figures of Sleep. And though his was the first student-curated show at the Art Museum to win Exhibition of the Year at the OAAG Awards, Lu was not the first student to have his exhibition recognized by the Association: in 2015, Liora Bedford’s, MVS exhibition Image Coming Soon #1 received an honourable mention for Exhibition of the Year (Budget under $10,000).

“We are delighted for our colleagues in the Art Museum, and also for Henry,” said John Monahan, Warden of Hart House, where the Art Museum’s Justina M. Barnicke Gallery is located. “The fact that he won his award for his graduating exhibition in the Master of Curatorial Studies program at the Daniels Faculty only makes his success that much sweeter, for it reminds us, yet again, that the work of the Art Museum and Hart House makes an essential contribution to both the artistic and the academic life of this university.”

Lu says he was very fortunate to be a part of a cohort of amazing artists and curators at U of T. “The sense of community among us was very important to me,” he said recognizing Sandra Brewster (MVS 2017) among those who helped him figure out how to integrate his grad school experience with the broader art world. In addition to Fischer, he said Daniels Faculty instructors Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak, Ed Pien, and Will Kwan also played an important role in helping him shape his work. “Looking back, the best part of my degree was when my ideas were challenged, and I had to actively brainstorm ways to respond and defend them.”

About the Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Comprised of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the University of Toronto Art Centre, which are located just a few steps apart, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto is one of the largest gallery spaces for visual art exhibitions and programming in Toronto. Building on the two galleries’ distinguished histories, the Art Museum organizes and presents a year-round program of in-house and off-site exhibitions, as well as intensive curricular and educational events. Learn more at artmuseum.utoronto.ca

About the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
The University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design provides interdisciplinary training and research in architecture, art, landscape architecture, and urban design. Located in the heart of Toronto, the Daniels Faculty fosters a prominent community of students, scholars, and art and design professionals committed to initiating new modes of research and practice tuned to a changing planet and the evolving needs of society. Its mission is to educate students, prepare professionals, and cultivate scholars who will play a leading role in creating more culturally engaged, ecologically sustainable, socially just, and artfully conceived environments.

On November 19, the Ontario Associate of Art Galleries (OAAG) will host the OAAG Awards, an event that “celebrates and recognizes the exhibitions, publications, and programming of Ontario’s public art galleries over the past year.”

Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us — curated by Henry Heng Lu (MVS 2017) as part of his Master of Visual Studies degree — is on the short list for Exhibition of the Year (Budget Under $20,000 Thematic). Lu’s exhibition ran last year from September 6 to October 9 at the University of Toronto’s Art Museum.

Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us offered different perspectives on the Chinese Canadian community’s historical and cultural evolutions by “exploring notions of distancing and being distanced in relation to race, identity, sexuality and their relation with Chinese Canadian history.”

Writes Lu:

The idea of distance unfolds in multiple layers: in the geographic sense, as in going through a distance from point A to point B, like the construction process of the Canadian Pacific Railway; in the cultural sense, through the mainstream’s imposition of stereotypes, as in how the Chinese Canadian community has been culturally differentiated and essentialized; and in the context of the Chinese community itself, as in who is “Us”, and the distances between different groups of ethnic Chinese.
 

The exhibition featured works by Alvis Choi aka Alvis Parsley, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gu Xiong, Will Kwan, Ho Tam, Ken Lum, Morris Lum, Karen Tam, Chih-Chien Wang, Paul Wong, and Winnie Wu.

The Art Museum, comprising two galleries located just steps apart — the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Hart House, and the University of Toronto Art Centre at University College — is one of the largest gallery spaces for visual art exhibitions and programming in Toronto and a vital cultural resource and destination for arts and academic communities world wide.

The 41st OAAG Awards Gala takes place at the Harbourfront Centre on Monday, November 19, at 6pm. Winners will be announced live during the ceremony.

For more information, visit the OAAG website.

Our idea looks at desks that are interchangeable and moveable. Everything is controlled by artificial intelligence that records people’s stages of work and when certain people need to be clustered together. A series of curtains make the spaces but are moveable themselves. The AI will also record people’s daily patterns and attempts to gradually transition layouts in-between stages of a project to be minimally intrusive overtime. This constant flux in arrangements will help keep the workers more engaged.
 

There were 38 finalists in the competition, which was open to all. Of those, 9 received honourable mentions, and 3 winners were selected. Nguyen, Bajaman, and Baik's project will be featured in the Non Architecture Competitions book and website.

To learn more about the Daniels students' project, visit the Non Architecture Competitions website.

Second year Master of Architecture students Pedram Karimi and Ehsan Naimpour joined forces with four Schulich Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure (MREI) students to compete in the 7th annual NAIOP Development Challenge. On October 4, following live presentations made by three finalists, the Daniels Faculty / Schulich team — named “Four Corner Investments” — was awarded first prize. It was the only student team among the three finalists. 

Each competing team produced a development proposal for a prominent site in Toronto and were required to consider real-life scenarios including cost analysis and architectural design. The Four Corner Investments team's proposal included a high rise rental apartment that complements two existing office towers.

Writes Four Corners Investments:

In order to unify the entire development scheme, the team envisioned a set of bridges, a life science incubator space, and retail to unify all the buildings at the podium level. By providing multi-floor connections, the bridges aim to give emphasis to the circulation and enhance interaction.

The residential tower accommodates a vertical, yet community-oriented form of living. In its entirety, the building form consists of three jagged and dynamic blocks that offer live and leisure space within each individual block. The jagged form allows for more considerate setbacks and provides a unique presence in the fabric and skyline of the city.
 

Congratulations to the winning team members:

From the Daniels Faculty: Pedram Karimi and Ehsan Naimpour 
From Schulich: Jordan Trinder, Umehani Kanga, Alannah Bird, Bao Nguyen

Lead image, top, by Norm Li.

For the second year in a row, a graduate studio from the Daniels Faculty has received ARCHITECT magazine's Studio Prize.

The Studio Prize "recognizes thoughtful, innovative, and ethical studio courses at accredited architecture schools" across Canada and the United States. The Daniels Faculty's Option Studio "Coding Flux: In Pursuit of Resilient Urbanism in South Florida" (LAN 3016) taught by Assistant Professors Fadi Masoud, who coordinated the course, and Elise Shelley is among this year's six winners.

Rayna Syed (standing at right) and Alexandra Lazervski (third from left) present their plans for a southern Florida county that faces flooding challenges, increasing water levels and salt water damage (photo by Harry Choi)

The award-winning studio challenged students to develop design solutions to address increased flooding from rising sea levels and intense storms, such as hurricanes, in South Florida — events that are becoming increasingly common to due climate change.

Writes ARCHITECT:

The responses, which the students presented to Broward County representatives who visited Toronto, ranged from a “freshwater credit” system that incentivizes residents to capture excess rainwater in cisterns on their property to a “flux” zoning code that changes as rising sea levels impact land-use patterns around the county. Yet another proposal considers the county’s western border, which abuts the Everglades wetlands, more as an inland “coast,” with recreational and tourism possibilities, and less as a site solely for real estate development, which might leave the area more vulnerable to sea level rise. Juror Jennifer Yoos, FAIA, lauded the students’ approach to “rethinking how these design processes should be done.”

This was the fourth time Masoud has led a hands-on, pragmatic studio focused on South Florida, and Broward County officials say it was the first time their office had worked with such a studio on planning ideas. They say they welcomed the outside insight, and have begun to incorporate some of the students’ ideas, like flux zoning, into their long-range planning.
 

U of T News covered the student's work in the studio last year, from the start of the term in September to final reviews.

Students who participated in the award-winning studio include: Chaoyi Cui, Marianne Lafontaine-Chicha, Meikang Li, Niloufar Makaremi, Leslie Norris, Natalie Schiabel, Qiwei Song, Zainab Al Rawi, Meng Bao, Chukun Chen, Mengqi Dai, Jessica Guinto, Tania Hlavenka, Joshua Kirk, Alexandra Lazaervski, Ning Lin, Aidan Loweth, Carlos Portillo, and Rayna Syed.

For more information, visit ARCHITECT's website.th Florida" recently received the Sloan Award, a Studio Prize from Architect magazine.

Image, top, by: Qiwei Song, Meikang Li, and Chaoyi Cui

Five Daniels Faculty Master of Landscape Architecture students have been recognized this year with American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) awards — outnumbering all other schools with students among the winners. The University of Toronto was also the only Canadian school with prize winners on the list.

The ASLA awards honour the top work of landscape architecture students around the world. This year the Society received 332 entries across 17 schools. Of the 332 entries, 27 winners were announced.
 

Niloufar Makaremi Esfarjani received the top prize — the Award of Excellence — in the General Design Category for her thesis In Between Walls, a project set in Sistan, Iran, where dust storms are "causing socio-economic, health, and environmental issues and compromising a valuable cultural site." Makaremi Esfarjani''s proposed design included a series of  strategically located walls that would contribute to ecological improvements and cultural reconnections and act as a diplomatic gesture.

A total of four Daniels Faculty students received an Honor Award in the Analysis and Planning Category: Meikang Li, Marianne Lafontaine-Chicha, Qiwei Song, and Jaysen Ariola

Meikang Li's thesis focused on the Hollygrove District in the 2013 Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan an re-imagined "a new landscape framework that forges a better water culture, promotes future development, and welcomes residents to return and stay."

Marianne Lafontaine-Chicha's thesis looked at Lake St. Pierre, a UNESCO biosphere reserve "traversed by a major navigation channel that will require a capital dredging project in the near future."

For her final thesis, Qiwei Song proposed a topographic landscape strategy for the future development on the hills of Mexico City.

Jaysen Ariola's thesis examined "how changes in landscape policy and ecological planning can mitigate nutrient loading from the Red River into Lake Winnipeg."

The student awards jury included:
    • Roberto Rovira, ASLA, Chair, Florida International University, Miami
    • Andrea Cochran, FASLA, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, San Francisco
    • Kurt Culbertson, FASLA, Design Workshop, Aspen, Colorado
    • Tom Dallessio, Professional Planner and Policy Expert, Philadelphia
    • Jennifer Daniels, ASLA, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
    • Ray Gastil, City of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh
    • Jeffrey Hou, ASLA, University of Washington, Seattle
    • Elizabeth Kennedy, ASLA, Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architect, Brooklyn, New York
    • Lucinda Sanders, FASLA, OLIN, Philadelphia

Daniels Faculty alumna Tiffany Dang (HBA, Architectural Studies 2014) has received the J.B.C. Watkins Award from the Canada Council for the Arts. The J.B.C. Watkins Award is granted to "a Canadian professional architect wishing to pursue postgraduate studies outside Canada, ideally in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or Iceland." Recipients are selected by a peer assessment committee and receive $5,000 each.

From the Canada Council for the Arts announcement:

Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, territorial scholar Tiffany Kaewen Dang holds a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and has recently been admitted to the Geography PhD program at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the Canadian National Parks System as a colonial infrastructure of racial oppression and territorial conquest, under the premise that if landscape architecture has a continuing role in the colonization of what is today known as Canada, then the subversion of traditional landscape architectural methodologies can be utilized for decolonization. She is currently conducting research as a part of the OPSYS Landscape Infrastructure Lab.
 

Congratulations to Dang on receiving this award!

Alumni David Verbeek (MArch 2017) and Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp (both MArch 2005) were also recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts this year. Verbeek, a recent graduate, received the Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners, while Adair and Kopp of the New Brunswick-based firm Acre Architects received the Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture.

Daniels Faculty alumni swept Canada's Prix de Rome in Architecture awards this year.

Recent graduate David Verbeek (MArch 2017) received the Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners, while Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp (both MArch 2005) of the New Brunswick-based firm Acre Architects were awarded the Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture.

Presented annually by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Prix de Rome is one of the field's most prestigious national awards.

Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners - David Verbeek

“Congratulations to David Verbeek: he is one of our most talented recent graduates, and we are thrilled that the Canada Council for the Arts jury has chosen him for this year’s Prix de Rome,” says Dean Richard Sommer. “Field-based architectural research can illuminate the complexity of some of our most rapidly transforming urban geographies. Building on his award-winning thesis and experience at Daniels, Verbeek’s proposed study will bring techniques of careful documentation, visual analysis, and design speculation to bear on a set of liminal spaces where difficult intersections between emerging architecture, globally-networked waterfronts, and climate change come into play.”

Upon graduating from the faculty in 2017, Verbeek (pictured above) received the RAIC Gold Medal, the AIA Henry Adams Medal, and the OAA Architectural Guild Medal. The designer, researcher, and urbanist is now working in Rotterdam with OMA (office for Metropolitan Architecture).

"David's work has been observed to be representative of a true artistic act of architecture, and indeed his illustrations, are evidence of the alternative tendencies that young architects are taking in imagining their work through drawing," says Associate Professor John Shnier, who was Verbeek's thesis advisor in 2017, and Canada Council’s inaugural Prix de Rome winner in 1987. "His published drawings have been described as 'game-changers;' part of a generation of architects that are exploring 'Post Digital' techniques in illustration."
 
Verbeek's prize includes $34,000, which he will use to broaden his knowledge of contemporary architecture through travel and participate in an internship at an internationally acclaimed firm of architecture. The award will provide him with the opportunity to investigate "constructed coastlines in transition," and observe first-hand, the frontlines of urbanization and coastal threats, building on work he completed as part of his Master of Architecture thesis, which explored the idea of "an eventual archipelago in Toronto's constructed port lands as grounds for invention in the future megacity."
 
Verbeek follows in the footsteps of Daniels graduates Drew Sinclair (M Arch 2007) and Kelly Doran (M Arch 2008) who won the Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture - Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp, Arce Architects

Adair and Kopp have been receiving a steady stream of awards and media recognition for their work at Acre Architects, where they work to create "original, provocative, contextually driven design." (Read our Q&A with Monica Adair from 2017.)
 
In 2017, they received a Lieutenant-Governor’s Award of Excellence in Architecture. In 2016, Wallpaper listed the firm among 20 “breakthrough practices from around the globe.” And in 2015, Adair was a recipient of RAIC's Young Architect Award.

Last year the duo returned to the Daniels Faculty to teach an option studio that took students from Toronto to the Saint John Harbour to study and develop design ideas for Partridge Island, a former quarantine station and National Historic Site.

Adair and Kopp plan to use the $50,000 awarded by the prize to "experience firsthand world renown projects, places and key people that have succeeded in creating a sustainable tourism that enhances a sense of place, including its environment, its heritage, its aesthetics, its culture, and the well-being of the people who live there."

"There is an appetite in the Maritimes to go beyond the sentimental pseudo-traditional recreated environments, complete with landlocked imitation lighthouses, and to explore new ways to guide the perception of a region toward more meaningful development," write the architects in a post about the award on their website. "We want to be part of shaping an architectural history that bears witness to our era and its richly diverse ambitions, and this requires specialization and currency in learning from successful tourism precedents that serve to forge new ways forward."
 
Adair and Kopp join other Daniels Faculty and alumni who have received the Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture. Associate Professor John Shnier received the inaugural Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts in 1987.  Associate Professor Shane Williamson (2012), Associate Professor Mason White (2010), and alumni Omar Gandhi (2014) and Pierre Bélanger (2008) have also been recognized.

Lecturer Adrian Phiffer received the Incentive Award in the Riga Circus Competition. A team of third year Master of Architecture students — including Angela Cho, Matthew Leander, Mariano Martellacci, and Avi Odenheinmer — also contributed to the winning submission. Competition participants developed sketches for the renovation of the historic  Riga Circus building in Latvia and a vision for the territory.

Writes Phiffer:

It is rare and fascinating to find a nomadic institution, such as a circus, permanently embedded in the center of a city. Usually, the circus is a temporary structure built at the edge of the urbia. It is kept on the outskirts out of fear. The circus brings with itself a new reality that can only be allowed for short periods of time. It is as if it is dangerous to allow its presence for too long because it might contaminate the empirical and monotone reality of the permanent urban form. This prompts a question of type: what kind of city is that one that accepts a circus in the middle of its fabric? It could only be a city that is always ready to expand its collection of realities, a city that has convictions, a city open to the new. Riga is such a city.
 

Congratulations to all involved!

A team of students from the Daniels Faculty — John Nguyen, Stephen Baik, and Abubaker Bajaman — has received a 2018 International VELUX Award for students of architecture.

Held every other year, this prestigious competition challenges students "to explore the role of daylight in architecture and inspire new thinking" around how to use daylight as a main source of energy and light and how to ensure the "health and well-being of the people who live and work in buildings."

Assistant Professor Mauricio Quirós Pacheco supported the master of architecture students in their submission, which received first place in Daylight Investigations category within "The Americas" region. The team's project, titled "Daylight to Water" will represent North America at the World International Festival in Amsterdam November 28-30, where the top global prize will be selected.

Submissions to the competition were reviewed by an international jury comprised of renowned architects selected in collaboration with the International Union of Architects.

This is the first time that a team of students from a Canadian University has won a top award in the VELUX competition. Nguyen, Baik, and Bajaman beat out teams from Harvard, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and elsewhere.

The Daniels students' project proposes a system that uses "natural daylight heat to capture moisture within the air in humid environments and transform it into usable water."

"Environments such as Deserts benefit greatly from this implementation as light rains often evaporate in the air before touching the ground," write the team in their submission. "Our proposal would allow dry climate regions to gather ambient moisture and transform it into usable water until there is enough to use."

For more information on "Daylight to Water" and the International VELUX Awards, visit the competition's website.