Assistant professor Alstan Jakubiec has been named the latest beneficiary of the Mayflower Research Fund, an endowed research fund established at the Daniels Faculty in 2019. Jakubiec will use his grant to fund research into the effects of interior light on human psychology and physiology in Canada's subarctic and polar regions.

"Mayflower funding is going to be super helpful in pushing this project forward," Jakubiec says. "It's great because it allows me to focus specifically on design questions, which I think a lot of this type of work doesn't look at very rigourously."

The Mayflower Research Fund was established by a generous donor to encourage and stimulate research in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Each year, the Daniels Faculty's research committee recommends a top applicant for consideration and selection by the dean. Daniels faculty members with full-time appointments are eligible to apply for the annual $10,000 grant.

Jakubiec, who is the third faculty member to receive Mayflower funding since the fund's inception, plans to take the opportunity to fill what he sees as a glaring gap in the existing research on the relationship between far-north residents and light.

"The research that has been done has been mostly through the eyes of people working at climate monitoring stations or in the military, not long-term residents of the north," Jakubiec says. "I really want to understand how long-term residents perceive and react to light."

Jakubiec's Mayflower project will build on his earlier research into light and human biology. In 2017, Jakubiec worked with the software development firm Solemma, where he's the director of engineering, to create ALFA, a computerized tool that lets designers simulate the effects of various lighting conditions on human health and cognition. In 2020, he worked with a research assistant to scour the latest research on light, sleep, and human health.

An example of spectral daylight simulation in a dwelling, from Jakubiec's previous research.

From these investigations, Jakubiec has concluded that the presence or absence of light in buildings can have profound effects on the wellbeing of occupants. "We have this internal biological clock, which is regulated by some subcomponents of the hypothalamus," he says. "In places where there's very little light exposure for parts the year, it can have impacts on your mood and cognition. It can make you feel more sleepy throughout the day."

"Excessive light exposure, on the other hand, has been shown to have significant impacts on things like blood sugar. You can effectively have the symptoms of type-two diabetes."

The reason Jakubiec has chosen to focus his latest research on Canada's far north is that it's a part of the world where lighting conditions are especially variable — and therefore especially challenging to the human psyche. Iqaluit, Nunavut, for instance, gets more than 20 hours of daylight in summer and fewer than four hours of daylight in winter.

Working with a graduate student, Jakubiec will gather data on existing structures in Canada's subarctic and polar regions, and also conduct interviews with permanent residents of those regions, in order to get a sense of how they feel about the levels of light exposure the receive in their homes and workplaces throughout the year.

Using all that data, Jakubiec hopes to create a computational model that will allow architects and engineers to evaluate tradeoffs between natural light and energy efficiency in far-north building design. This computerized tool will, Jakubiec hopes, interface with 3D-modelling software to help designers figure out, for example, whether the potential heat loss from a large window is worth the potential benefit of increased natural light during the dark winter months — or whether it's better to make up some of the light deficit with artificial illumination.

"My goal is to have a standalone user interface that could work on top of a model for fixed geometry to give you outputs about circadian performance, or non-visual lighting performance," Jakubiec says.

While Jakubiec gears up for his research, the two previous Mayflower Fund recipients are putting their grants to work.

Assistant professor Fadi Masoud, the grant's inaugural recipient in 2019, used his funding to launch an in-depth study of the design of suburban parks, with a view towards creating a primer that would help designers, public agencies, and private developers create green spaces that respond to contemporary social and environmental needs. “The Mayflower funding enabled my research team at the Centre for Landscape Research to spend the summer documenting and analyzing a network of public parks along the Black Creek sub-watershed in Toronto –– a region that faces chronic social and environmental stresses,” Masoud says. You can view the group's findings on their website.

Assistant professor Maria Yablonina, who received the grant in 2020, is using her funding to advance research in the field of computational design and digital fabrication with a focus on innovative ways to use robotics in architecture and the environment.

Samantha Eby, who graduated from the Daniels Faculty's Master of Architecture program in 2019, has been named the recipient of the 2020 Prix de Rome in Architecture for Emerging Practitioners, a prestigious $34,000 prize awarded annually by the Canada Council for the Arts to a recent architecture graduate who has demonstrated potential in contemporary architectural design.

This is the third year in a row that a Daniels Faculty alumnus has won the prize. The other two recent Daniels Faculty recipients were Kinan Hewitt, who graduated in 2018, and David Verbeek, who graduated in 2017.

Samantha Eby.

The Prix de Rome prize money can be used to finance travel to sites of architectural research interest. Once pandemic-related travel restrictions are lifted, Eby plans to use her new funding to make research trips to Australia, Germany, and Austria, so that she can visit and document examples of collective and non-profit housing developments. She hopes to gain a deeper understanding of the ownership models, financing practices, and planning policies that have made such developments possible.

Her interest in collective housing stems from her Daniels Faculty thesis project, for which she investigated new ways of adding affordable multi-unit housing to Toronto's single-detached neighbourhoods. "My research is looking for unrealized opportunities in Canada for new forms of housing that are outside the current practices of financing and site development," she says. "I'm looking at questions of how housing in Canada can be more than just a commodity, and how, by using communal financing and development practices, we can make multi-unit housing more accessible, sustainable, and desirable."

Images from Eby's Daniels Faculty thesis project.

"As an architect, Samantha balances a deep curiosity for the economies that contribute to architecture and urbanism with a provocative and tangible design sensibility," says Eby's thesis advisor, assistant professor Michael Piper. "Her thesis research about collective development models, the calculus of site selection, and the design of beautifully sensible housing demonstrates this unique combination of skills."

Eby says this fully funded travel opportunity will be a rare chance for her to elaborate upon some of the design concepts she studied during her time at Daniels. "I think, as architects, we often have very idealistic approaches, where we think we can change the world with our ideas — which is something that is amazing in school and often gets crushed when you get out into the real world," she says. "This is a really good opportunity for me to challenge myself to push back against those real-world constraints, and consider thoughtful and convincing ways to understand pro formas for development, how different ownership models actually work, and what the barriers are to these new architectural typologies."

Even as she has continued to pursue her research, Eby has been working in the architectural field. For the past two years, she has been an intern architect at Toronto-based Batay-Csorba Architects.

The pandemic-era shift to remote learning forced many Daniels Faculty students to get extra creative with their thesis projects. Milan Nikic, who presented his thesis in fall 2020, was no exception.

He had originally planned to display models for his thesis presentation, but the lack of a physical presentation space made him rethink the way he'd present that work. Instead, he ended up creating a 15-minute short film, titled Raft Islands.

Now, that film has gained Milan some international recognition. It was accepted by the International Architecture Film Festival Barcelona, where it will make its international debut as part of a short-film program on May 13.

"New and creative ways of representing architecture have emerged as a result of this pandemic," Milan says. "I never really explored storytelling and film as a medium before my thesis, but I found it to be a powerful tool to communicate the experience and atmosphere of the built environment. There is a lot you can show with just a simple pan of a camera."

The inspiration for Milan's short film came from a trip he took with his thesis advisor, assistant professor Adrian Phiffer, and the other members of Phiffer's thesis-prep studio. The group visited Tofino, British Columbia and made a stop at Freedom Cove, a giant floating home located off the shore of Vancouver Island.

The home — which is so sprawling and complex that it could be considered more of an artificial island — is an agglomeration of 12 floating platforms, cobbled together from salvaged materials. On top of those platforms is an off-the-grid homestead, complete with a cottage, gardens, dance floor, and artificial beach. The owners, Wayne Adams and Catherine King, are a pair of artists who began building the Freedom Cove complex in 1991. They welcomed the students and showed them around.

"I found it really fascinating to see how these two individuals lived in their environment, and how they managed to be self-sufficient atop this piece of floating infrastructure," Milan says.

He decided to use Freedom Cove as a jumping-off point for an imaginative exercise. His thesis project used film to weave a narrative about a future world where entire communities live on floating barges that are tailored to the needs of inhabitants. "I wanted to tell a story about a fictional future community that was inspired by Freedom Cove," Milan says. "As I was building physical models, a specific architecture evolved out of the necessity for them to actually float on water. I was quite interested in telling a story about how collective life was negotiated amongst individuals. Imagining a community on a floating island was a way to amplify that negotiation."

His film is an impressionistic mixture of water imagery and shots of his scale models. "I wanted the designs to feel like they were attainable to almost everybody, in the spirit of Freedom Cove," he says.

The Raft Islands trailer is embedded above. The International Film Festival Barcelona is not open to viewers outside of Spain, but Milan plans to make his full film available online at the conclusion of the festival.

Victoria Cardoso, Erman Akyol, and Eugenia Wong, all first-year students in the Daniels Faculty's Master of Architecture program, jointly created a design project that has been named one of five honourees in this year's SHIFT Challenge, a biennial competition, hosted by the Ontario Association of Architects, that invites students and architects to address social challenges through design.

Their winning project is a proposal for a community-oriented redesign of Ontario Place, the disused public amusement park located on a small chain of artificial islands off Toronto's western shoreline. They originally created the design for a fall semester course at Daniels, professor Ted Kesik's Building Science 1 (ARC1041).

Victoria Cardoso, Erman Akyol, and Eugenia Wong.

Cardoso, Akyol, and Wong, along with the four other groups whose designs were selected by the 2021 SHIFT jury, will present their work during the OAA's Virtual Conference. The online SHIFT event will begin at 4:30 p.m. on May 20, and will be viewable online on the OAA's YouTube channel.

"This was really an opportunity for us to open ourselves up to the field," Eugenia says. "We'll get to present our project not just to teachers and our colleagues, but also to architects, landscape designers, and urban designers. We're hoping to get our proposal out to decision makers and important stakeholders for the site."

The group's project, titled "Ontario Place: On-to-our Next Adventure," is a master plan for the revitalization of Ontario Place, a publicly owned piece of land that operated as an amusement park and exhibition ground from 1971 until 2012, when it was shuttered by Ontario's provincial government.

Although Ontario Place has fallen into disuse, it still has a number of architecturally significant buildings and landscapes designed by architects Eberhard Zeidler and Michael Hough.

Victoria, Erman, and Eugenia's master plan would attempt to draw diverse groups of users back into the site by adding a variety of new amenities, but without destroying or disfiguring any of the existing historic structures. They approached the problem by splitting the Ontario Place site into five different zones, each tailored to a different group of users.

A rendering of the group's proposed sports facility.

In the "play" zone, there would be indoor and outdoor public recreational spaces, including beaches and boardwalks. The "exhibit" zone would preserve two of Ontario Place's most important existing structures, Zeidler's iconic Cinesphere (a ball-shaped Imax theatre) and his "pods," large diamond-shaped structures that hover above Lake Ontario's waters on sets of stilts. Each of the five pods would get a modest interior retrofit for a different type of programming. (For instance, one pod would be an exhibition hall, and another would be a digital arts museum.)

The plan also calls for the addition of new sports facilities and the preservation of the Budweiser Stage, an existing concert venue on Ontario Place's central island.

A rendering of the group's proposed research campus.

But the most radical change proposed in Victoria, Erman, and Eugenia's plan is in the "innovation" zone, where they would add a university research campus to the southern edge of Ontario Place's east island. The campus would include student residences, which would give Ontario Place a permanent population, transforming it from a tourist destination into a neighbourhood.

"For Ontario Place to be sustainable financially, there's no point to just introducing new programming," Eugenia says. "The innovation hub can provide a source of economic activity that can sustain the island without casual visitors. So when casual visitors come there will be restaurants and other amenities available to them."

Top image: A rendering of Ontario Place's pods and Cinesphere.

Batoul Faour, a student in the Daniels Faculty's post-professional architecture program, has been named the first-prize winner in the 2021 Avery Review Essay Prize competition. Her winning essay is a distillation of her Daniels Faculty thesis project, which critically examines the role of architectural glass in exacerbating the damage from last year's catastrophic port explosion in Beirut.

The essay, which won Batoul a $4,000 prize and top billing in the Avery Review's April issue, describes the way shattered window glass piled up in Beirut's streets after the blast. It traces the historical and contemporary uses of glass in Lebanon to reveal the politics behind the fragile material.

Batoul writes:

Desired for its transparency in a country that has none to offer its people, glass in Beirut is a valuable form of absence: it provides unobstructed views of the city beyond. Windows permit one to see without having to smell, hear, or touch the power structures at play beyond the transparent panels. As political and economic corruption flourishes and the outside world grows exponentially more inhospitable, glass proliferates across the city. Glass, in all its many iterations, was the last line of defense for a people attempting to make a life within and around the failures of the Lebanese state.

A material designed to uplift quality of life through light and views, glass has instead become a weapon wielded by a corrupt state. On August 4, it splintered and stabbed for miles across Beirut’s homes and streets — disfiguring, blinding, and murdering. Some victims, left with dozens of stitches, described how the glass hit them like “shooting guns.” Shattered and splintered glass was blamed for causing an overwhelming number of the recorded injuries and deaths.

The Avery Review is a monthly architecture journal published by the Office of Publications at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture. The April issue is readable online.

Read Batoul Faour's winning essay here

Top image: A pile of broken glass in Beirut, after the blast. Photograph by Batoul Faour.

Four graduating Daniels students were among the recipients of this year's University of Toronto Student Leadership Awards, which recognize exemplary service and commitment to the university. We asked them about their time at Daniels, their advice for new students, and what they're planning to do now that they've finished school. Their answers are below.

Kurtis Chen

Kurtis was this year's GALDSU president, and he's an executive member of the Toronto Society of Architects — the youngest one in the society's history. "I'm really interested in standing up for the profession in general, and also in creating a more equitable and inclusive environment at Daniels," he says. He'll be receiving his Master of Architecture this spring.

What was it like finishing your degree during the pandemic?

I gained a little weight. Biking down to work or to school was more a part of my life than I thought it was. But actually, in terms of my education, I think I was pretty lucky. I was in my third year, so I'd developed a network of peers and support that I could rely on.

This year being virtual wasn't ideal, but it has been better than I could have expected. But I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who's finishing the program, which is totally different from the perspective of someone who's new.

I think this year has shown has the role of technology in how we work is radically changing. I see remote work as opening up more opportunities for collaboration across borders.

What are your post-graduation plans?

I'm currently looking for work. And I'm continuing my work with the Toronto Society of Architects.

What advice would you give to a new Daniels student?

I think a strength of the Daniels program is that it accepts a diverse range of students. For instance, I came from film and advertising. So, what I'd say is: understand the value that you bring as someone coming from a non-architecture background. Leverage that as not only an important experience but as something you can bring to the table that's different from what everyone else is working on.

I kind of wish that in first year I didn't take the capital-A architecture part of it so seriously. Studying here is a really incredible opportunity to explore what you're interested in and why you decided to do your masters in architecture.

Do you have a favourite Daniels memory?

I guess my first year. Jumping into a professional Master of Architecture program coming from film was extremely challenging, but also extremely rewarding.

The Daniels Faculty is entering a period of rapid change, with the return to in-person learning and the arrival of a new dean. What do you hope will happen at the school?

Mass timber is the material of the future. Everyone is talking about mass timber, and everyone wants to build with mass timber. Here we are now, connected to the forestry program, where they're doing incredible research on mass timber and materials science. I think leveraging that opportunity and having more collaboration between design and cutting-edge forestry research could be really important. Daniels could become a hub for mass timber research globally.  

Yana Kaiser

Yana has been an active volunteer throughout her time at the Daniels Faculty. She served as GALDSU's social chair in 2019, organized several guest lectures, and co-created of Interiors of Isolation, a publication of student drawings related to the experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. She'll receive her Master of Architecture this spring.

What was it like finishing your degree during the pandemic?

It was definitely hard. So much happened during this time. In October, I moved back to Germany, to the middle of nowhere. I couldn't even get takeout food because I would have had to drive 20 minutes by car to get to the closest restaurant.

Doing thesis in almost complete isolation was definitely mentally challenging. I mean it was really hard, but we did it. And it was such an odd moment when it was done, because I really missed celebrating that milestone with my peers, and with my friends. I was happy that I had my parents with me, so I could celebrate with them. But I felt robbed of graduation, almost.

But a lot of good things happened, too. I'm still working on Interiors of Isolation. We just got funding from GALDSU to print a run of books. And in February I started an internship at Bjarke Ingels Group, in Copenhagen, so I've been working full time there and also teaching as a TA for undergraduates.

What are your post-graduation plans?

I'm planning on living in Copenhagen for the next few years and getting some experience in Europe. I also want to get registered in Canada, so I'm trying to get some of my international experience recognized for the license.

Do you have a favourite Daniels memory?

One of the highlights for me was definitely my option studio. We were able to go to Newfoundland and work with the community there. It was a very hands-on opportunity and it was the only opportunity I had to venture out a little bit into landscape architecture.

What advice would you give to a new Daniels student?

Try to get involved as much as possible. Either you're a part of GALDSU, or you're part of The Annual, or if the café is open you can do volunteering at the café. All of those things are extracurriculars that can really help you get to know people, and when you get to know people you get to know skills.

Those can sometimes be really practical skills, like figuring out a Rhino command. And you can also find out about opportunities. For instance a lot of people are afraid to travel because of the financial burden, but there are many opportunities at Daniels to receive funding.

Shalice Coutu

Shalice was the coordinator for the inaugural year of the Daniels Faculty's graduate mentorship program. She also served on GALDSU this year, as a third-year representative. She'll receive her Master of Architecture this spring.

What was it like finishing your degree during the pandemic?

I was actually fortunate. I struggle with ADHD, so I found online learning way more helpful than in-person learning, because it's very distracting to be in a classroom. Online everyone is muted and you just hear the prof.

The social side of things was definitely difficult. I live alone, so I tried to go on outdoor walks with friends as much as I could, keeping safety and safe distances in mind. Overall it was actually a way better year than I thought it would be.

Do you have a favourite Daniels memory?

I think it would probably be being in studio, late nights, and ordering huge platters of sushi with a bunch of friends. It was always the times in the studio when it was late at night and we were all kind of stressing over our reviews together.

What are your post-graduation plans?

I'm originally from Saskatchewan, but I think I'll stay in Toronto to work here and start to get my hours for getting licensed. I don't have any actual work lined up, but I'm going to start applying soon.

What advice would you give to a new Daniels student?

One thing I learned at Daniels is to never be shy about approaching upper-year students, especially when you're all in studio together. We have a really amazing community, and everyone is always so excited to help each other.

Also, take advantage of some of the programs that Daniels offers, including the mentorship programs. Just get involved where you can, because that three years is very short. The more time you spend in studio and meeting a bunch of people, the better memories you'll have when you walk out of there.

The Daniels Faculty is entering a period of rapid change, with the return to in-person learning and the arrival of a new dean. What do you hope will happen at the school?

I was a TA for this year's first-year MArch design studio, which was a First Nations project. That was an amazing change to see, that we're bringing First Nations into the core studio. I hope there are more electives that really focus on First Nations architecture, but also just First Nations culture itself and maybe ways of integrating that culture into design.

I'd also like to see us rethink this idea that we need to be in studio until five in the morning every day leading up to reviews. It's such a bad habit to expect that insane amount of work. It's tough on our bodies, and on our mental health.

Randa Omar

Randa was this year's AVSSU president. She was also a leader of the Student Equity Alliance, a group formed out of the Daniels Faculty's three student unions to address issues of diversity and equity at the Faculty. On top of all that, she was a co-founder of Making Difference, a student club that aims to empower women and nonbinary people in the design fields. She'll receive her Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies this spring.

What was it like finishing your degree during the pandemic?

It was challenging, but it also opened up a lot of opportunities that I don't think would have been opened up otherwise.

With remote learning, it can be more difficult to ask questions. It's just more difficult to learn when you're at home alone and you're not in a studio environment.

But I think the good thing about being online is that it was easier to organize the community. The shift to remote working made community discussions more accessible in many ways. I think that helped with new initiatives like the Student Equity Alliance and Making Difference. Because of the pandemic, people wanted new ways to build community.

What are your post-graduation plans?

I just heard last week that I’ve been fortunate enough to receive an NSERC award to do research under the supervision of Dr. Brady Peters. I've been wanting to work with him ever since I took ARC180 in first year. That class was my first introduction to parametric design, and it inspired me to go into the technology stream.

I'll also be taking the summer to work on my portfolio and to apply for jobs for the fall.

Do you have a favourite Daniels memory?

Peter Sealy's class, Close Readings in Architecture. That was a turning point for me. It made me feel like I had a place in architecture. I found a lot of my interests in the history courses.

Also, co-managing and volunteering at the café. That was always very joyful. Everyone likes coffee and muffins, so the café brought everyone together.

Some of my favourite memories are being at studio at three in the morning, working on models with my friends for ARC280. There’s something about bonding over cutting cardboard.

What advice would you give to a new Daniels student?

I would advise them to engage with the Daniels community and support their peers, especially their equity-seeking peers. And I'd tell them, if they don't feel like they have a community then they can just create their own, whether that's by volunteering at the café, or by being an orientation leader, or by creating their own clubs.

I would also say that they can reach out to professors throughout the university and express interest in their work or in speaking to them. It's a really great way to learn from people, and to learn outside of the classroom. That's something I wish I knew about earlier, because I asked questions in class but was always kind of shy about bothering professors outside of class.

Also, use the resources. My favourite one is the Writing Centre. The Writing Centre is absolutely amazing. The instructors can help with anything from brainstorming what to write, to revising, to figuring out how to cite. They can also help with more visual projects. I wouldn’t have made it to graduation without them.

The Daniels Faculty is entering a period of rapid change, with the return to in-person learning and the arrival of a new dean. What do you hope will happen at the school?

I'm looking forward to Dean Du coming in. I know her work in the urban design field deals with social issues. I really hope that kind of understanding, combined with her own experience working in Hong Kong, will bring new perspectives to the Faculty.

I just really hope that the Faculty becomes more diverse and prioritizes equity and being an inclusive learning and working environment. That's really all I want.

A group of three Daniels Faculty almuni have been named the winners of the Jury Prize in the "Ontario Place: A Call for Counterproposals" competition, which asked entrants to develop creative ways of preserving Ontario Place's architectural heritage.

Catherine Howell (MLA 2018), Ramsey Leung (MArch 2019), and Joseph Loreto (MArch 2019) jointly developed a proposal titled "Megalandscape Ontario" that charts out a future for Ontario Place as a lush recreational area for a nearby high-density residential community.

Their design was selected from a field of over 40 other entries by a jury of experts including urban designer Ken Greenberg and Daniels Faculty professor Brigitte Shim. The three teammates will receive a prize of $1,500 to split.

"This scheme's incremental approach with an emphasis on community engagement will ensure that Ontario Place responds to the city's future and evolving needs," Shim wrote in a statement.

The competition was an initiative of The Future of Ontario Place, a collective of architects and designers that formed in response to the Ontario government's ongoing efforts to redevelop Ontario Place. The organization is co-led by Daniels Faculty associate professor Aziza Chaouni; professor emeritus George Baird; Javier Ors Ausín, of the World Monuments Fund; and William Greaves, of Architectural Conservancy Ontario.

Ontario Place is former exhibition ground, located on a pair of islands on Toronto's western waterfront. It was the site of a publicly owned amusement park until 2012, when the Ontario government shut it down. Although Ontario Place hasn't been in daily use for nearly a decade, it still has an impressive architectural legacy, consisting of modernist structures and landscapes designed in the late 1960s by Eberhard Zeidler and Michael Hough. The Future of Ontario Place's goal is to ensure the preservation of those architectural features.

The "call for counterproposals" competition was open to students and recent graduates of Canadian architecture, urban planning, and urban design programs. The competition brief asked entrants to develop master plans for Ontario Place that would not only preserve Zeidler and Hough's designs, but that would also allow the site to continue to be used as a public amenity, without condos or other private development.

The plan's three phases. (Click here to see a larger version.)

Howell, Leung, and Loreto decided to create a plan with some intentional gaps. "We approached this master plan as a framework," Leung says. "We didn't want to design the whole site, but rather set up a system in which the community as a whole could design the site."

A key component of their strategy was the idea that not all of their proposed changes would happen quickly. "The important thing was the idea of slowness," Loreto says. "What we were trying to do was zoom out to a scale where we could look at the site and really understand its place in the city."

The pods would be transformed into a habitat for wildlife. (Click here to see a larger version.)

In the first phase of their plan, Lakeshore Boulevard would be re-graded to create smoother pedestrian connections between Ontario Place and the mainland to its immediate north. Ontario Place's "pods," a group of structures designed by Zeidler that protrude from the lake on sets of stilts, would become a habitat for wildlife. Native plants would be established on the pods' rooftops, and birds and other animals would be allowed to make homes there. "The pods haven't functioned in a long time as gallery spaces, which is what their original intent was," Howell says. "We wanted to re-imagine them as vessels of nature preservation, while rehabilitating the shoreline for more aquatic and amphibious life, and keeping the architecture as a monument."

At the same time, Ontario Place's islands would be enlarged with decontaminated landfill. The new landmass would allow the islands to be converted into a sprawling public park. To the north, on the mainland, a portion of Exhibition Place, Toronto's permanent fairgrounds, would be converted into an open mall — an unprogrammed area where various community events could take place.

A site plan showing Ontario Place at the conclusion of its transformation, with additional landmass from landfill and a residential community to the north. (Click here to see a larger version.)

In the final phase of the plan, parts of Exhibition Place would be redeveloped into a high-rise residential community, whose residents would then be able to use the revamped Ontario Place for leisure activities.

Howell, Leung, and Loreto hope their proposal helps nudge the Ontario Place redevelopment process in a more inclusive direction. "There are stakeholders that have not been consulted, to date," Leung says. "Marginalized groups that should be involved in the process of designing Ontario Place for the future."

Ontario Place: A Call for Counterproposals also gave out two other awards. Paul Arkilander, Tali Budman, Ryan Coates, and Connery Friesen, from Ryerson University and the University of Manitoba, won Special Mention. Blaike Allen, Michael Monaghan, and Kathryn Pierre, from the University of British Columbia, won the Public Vote prize.

The Urban Land Institute Hines Student Competition is a prestigious annual contest in which student teams compete to create the best solution to a complex urban design problem. In the past, the grand prize has always gone to students from American universities. That streak ended this week when a Canadian team, including two students from the Daniels Faculty, took the competition's top spot for 2021.

The winning team included Ruotian Tan, a Daniels Faculty Master of Urban Design student, and Chenyi Xu, a Daniels Faculty Master of Architecture student. They had three teammates from other Toronto universities: Frances Grout-Brown and Leorah Klein, urban planning students at Ryerson University, and Yanlin Zhou, a student in York University's Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure program. The group was supervised by Steven Webber and Victor Perez-Amado, both assistant professors at Ryerson's School of Urban and Regional Planning. Raymond Lee, a senior associate at Weston Williamson + Partners, and Christina Giannone, vice president of planning and development at Port Credit West Village Partners, acted as advisors.

The group made its final submission to the competition's jury on April 8, in a videoconference presentation. The Urban Land Institute, which holds the competition, announced the win on Monday.

The all-Toronto team bested a field of 104 other entires from schools around North America. The four other finalists represented a number of America's top schools, including Penn State, Columbia, Berkeley, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In addition to the bragging rights that come with having impressed the competition's high-powered jury of practitioners from the fields of design, land use, and real estate, the students will get something a little more tangible: a $50,000 (U.S.) prize to split.

"Reflecting on this experience in its entirety, it’s surreal how much we’ve learned along the way," the team said in a statement to the Urban Land Institute. "Though each member of the team brought different skills to the table, we were strongly aligned in our aspirations for the site and were proud to present our proposal rooted in enabling physical and social connectivity and achieving economic and environmental resilience."

The group's master plan includes a 107,000-square foot community centre.

The ULI Hines Student Competition asks students to form multidisciplinary teams and tackle a multifaceted urban design project. This year's competition brief called for groups to develop master plans for the East Village, a neighbourhood in Kansas City, Missouri. Student proposals had to take into account a number of goals, including positive economic impact, sustainability, housing affordability, and access to transportation. Teams were required not only to design ways of transforming the neighbourhood, but also to develop phased implementation plans and financial pro formas.

The Daniels/Ryerson/York team's design, titled "Fusion," was unique among the competition's finalists in that it didn't include any tourist infrastructure. Instead, the group chose to focus on building a lively pedestrian promenade for locals, lined with mixed-income residences, office space, retail, and a 107,000-square-foot community centre with housing for seniors inside.

The Fusion site plan.

The group's master plan also included a network of green infrastructure intended to control the flow of stormwater across the site. Permeable pavement and street bioswales would allow the East Village to absorb rain and store it for reuse in a series of local gardens and green roofs. A vertical farming greenhouse would make it possible for the neighbourhood to produce some of its own food.

This attention to environmental sustainability and agriculture won the competition jury's approval. "Fusion stood out as it pushed a new paradigm for an urban neighborhood based on the strong regional legacy of agriculture," ULI Hines jury chair Diana Reid wrote in a statement. "Their financing plan and design enabled economic resilience through small scale food growth and distribution, local culinary incubation, and research-driven employment opportunities."

Learn more about Fusion and the other ULI Hines Student Competition 2021 finalists on the Urban Land Institute Americas website.

Top image: The group's design for a vertical farming greenhouse.

The Daniels Faculty congratulates professor Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, founding partners of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, on receiving the 2021 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Gold Medal. Awarded to practitioners whose work has made a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian architecture, the Gold Medal is this country's highest national architectural honour.

“During the 33 years that I have known Brigitte and Howard, I have been struck by how their architecture, academic and artistic pursuits are so deeply rooted in an understanding of landscape and site, research and history, and innovation in both craft and materials," says Robert Wright, interim dean of the Daniels Faculty. "Their work transcends traditional architectural practice at the highest level of cultural significance — both in Canada, and internationally. An instrumental member of the Daniels Faculty for decades, Brigitte has raised the quality of our programs and inspired countless students. The RAIC Gold Medal is a fitting honour and on behalf of the entire school community, I congratulate Brigitte and Howard on this extraordinary achievement."

In a statement about the award, the RAIC's Gold Medal jury noted Shim and Sutcliffe's lasting impact on the architectural field both within Canada and around the world. "Their work demonstrates a dedication to material expression and exquisite detailing across multiple scales, in addition to creating an intimate connection with the site," the jury wrote.

Shim was born in Kingston, Jamaica and emigrated to Canada in 1965. She met Sutcliffe, who had emigrated to Canada from England the year prior, in the early 1980s, when both of them were studying at the University of Waterloo. The duo founded Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in 1994, and have completed many significant projects throughout Ontario.

Shim began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1988. At the Daniels Faculty, she leads core design studios, advanced design studios, and elective courses.

"Brigitte's teaching really is the truest demonstration of linking practice and theory," says Donald Chong, a design principal at HDR who studied under Shim at the University of Toronto and later worked for Shim-Sutcliffe Architects. "It gave me and my generation hope that you could still believe in the idea, and in critical development, and in trying to pursue the very things that we were taught in school."

Top: Integral House. Bottom: Shim and Sutcliffe's Laneway House. Photos by James Dow.

Shim and Sutcliffe have received 15 Governor General's Medals for Architecture, as well as an American Institute of Architects National Honour Award, among many other prizes and accolades. In 2013, they were both awarded the Order of Canada. The firm is particularly well known for Integral House, a vast ravine residence in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood with a two-storey living room designed to accommodate musical performances.

The firm's other notable works include the Robertson Davies Library and St. Catherine's Chapel in Massey College, at the University of Toronto; the Corkin Gallery, in Toronto's Distillery District; a residence for Toronto's Sisters of Saint Joseph; and the Wong Dai Sin Temple, in Markham.

Shim and Robert Levit examine student models during final reviews in fall 2019. Photo by Harry Choi.

"Having known Brigitte and Howard for 40 years and having observed their remarkable careers unfold, this special recognition from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada is both thrilling and fitting," says Larry Wayne Richards, former dean of the Daniels Faculty. "As well, it is a moment to reflect on Professor Shim’s decades of dedicated teaching in the Daniels Faculty. In her design studio courses, Brigitte frequently engaged topics and research that were linked to the core interests of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, such as laneway housing, the integration of architecture and landscape, and the development of cultural relevance."

Shim and Sutcliffe will receive their award at the 2021 edition of the RAIC's annual conference.

Each year, hundreds of student teams from across North America make submissions to the ULI Hines Student Competition, in which entrants are challenged to tackle a complex urban planning and design exercise. Only four teams advance to the competition's final round. This year, one of those teams includes two Daniels Faculty students: Ruotian Tan, a student in the Faculty's Master of Urban Design program, and Chenyi Xu, a Master of Architecture student.

Ruotian and Chenyi are working as part of a five-member, multidisciplinary crew. The other three students on the team are Frances-Grout Brown and Leorah Klein, both Ryerson University urban planning students, and Yanlin Zhou, a student in York University's Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure program. The group was supervised by Steven Webber and Victor Perez-Amado, both assistant professors at Ryerson's School of Urban and Regional Planning. Raymond Lee, a senior associate at Weston Williamson + Partners, and Christina Giannone, vice president of planning and development at Port Credit West Village Partners, acted as advisors.

The students will give their final presentation during a video call with the ULI Hines Student Competition jury on April 8. The competition's winning team receives a prize of $50,000. The three runner-up teams receive $10,000 each.

The competition is a rare opportunity for students to work with people in disciplines other than their own. "It was a great multidisciplinary learning experience for me," Ruotian says. "It was a very good chance for me to practice and get some good results before I actually go into a professional career."

The competition brief called for each student group to develop a detailed master plan for the East Village, a neighbourhood in Kansas City, Missouri. The East Village is a lightly developed 16.2-acre site located within the city's central business district. The student proposals had to take into account a wide variety of ambitious goals, including positive economic impact, sustainability, housing affordability, and easy access to transportation. In addition to redesigning the site, students had to produce implementation plans and financial pro formas that described exactly how their designs might be made into reality.

The Daniels Faculty/Ryerson/York team designed its master plan, titled "Fusion," around two central ideas: connectivity and resilience. Although the East Village is a relatively blank slate, with plenty of room for megaprojects, the group's plan doesn't contain any large tourist attractions, like stadiums or museums. "One thing that distinguished our proposal from the other finalists is that we wanted to create a community for people who are actually living there, rather than attracting tourists or visitors to the site," Ruotian says.

In the first phase of the group's three-step implementation plan, the city would build a new pedestrian promenade at the centre of the neighbourhood, then line it with the beginnings of a dense new urban neighbourhood. The plan calls for an initial 615 mixed-income rental units, a 107,000 square-foot community centre with some seniors housing inside, plus office space and ground-floor retail.

The group's site plan.

Over two subsequent phases of redevelopment, the neighbourhood would evolve into a continuous row of mixed-use housing, office, and retail structures. The community centre and an adjacent water-feature park would serve as gathering points not only for neighbourhood residents and workers, but also for other Kansas City residents, who would be channeled into the East Village by cross streets and bus routes parallel to the pedestrian promenade.

The "resilience" piece of the group's plan manifests in the form of a neighbourhood-wide network of green infrastructure aimed at allowing the site to gracefully accept rainwater. Permeable pavement would allow precipitation to seep into the ground. Street bioswales would collect rainwater for reuse. A series of rain gardens, community gardens, and green roofs would use stormwater for irrigation. And a vertical farming greenhouse would allow the neighbourhood to produce food at scale, in an environmentally friendly way.

The vertical farming greenhouse.

"Kansas City has a long history with agricultural industries," Leorah says. "We noticed to the east of the site, they have really strong community networks with urban agriculture, so we wanted to build on networks that were already existing and provide a place for them to build up their networks and build up their businesses. And COVID really showed the importance of a local food system."

Visit the ULI Americas website to learn more about this year's ULI Hines Student Competition finalists.