Green spaces have long been undervalued in urban environments, yet grassroots efforts in recent years are helping to reestablish their critical importance. 

A new documentary, Forêts urbaines : une planche de salut (Urban Forests: A Lifeline), highlights innovative nature-restoration initiatives across Canada—and features Elder Whabagoon and Associate Professor Liat Margolis, co-founders of the Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag (NDG) program. 

Now entering its eighth year, NDG is a unique access and outreach program that connects Indigenous youth with traditional teachings on the land, as well as future careers in landscape architecture, urban design, and ecological conservation. 

The film, directed by Anne-Marie Rocher, serves as a hopeful counterpoint to environmental pessimism, showcasing how communities are actively responding to the climate crisis by reintroducing nature into the urban fabric. 

Urban forests offer far-reaching benefits: they improve air and water quality, reduce heat island effects, lower noise and air pollution, curb soil erosion, and contribute to physical and mental well-being. While municipal programs have begun to prioritize green infrastructure, many pioneering efforts have come from community-led initiatives that integrate technological innovation with Indigenous knowledge and stewardship. 

From Montreal to Vancouver by way of Toronto, Urban Forests follows a range of restoration projects with a particular focus on the individuals and collectives reimagining how cities coexist with the natural world. 

Several NDG initiatives are featured in the film, including Indigenous seed-keeping practices at the University of Toronto Scarborough Farm, ecological restoration and tree planting in the Highland Creek Ravine, and a courtyard redesign at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts guided by decolonial curriculum. These projects exemplify how Elder-led teachings foster cultural identity, confidence, and a deepened connection to land among youth participants. 

"The Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag youth are the next generation of land defenders who are exercising their inherent right and responsibility to the land, and we are grateful to be able to share this message globally thanks to Anne-Marie Rocher and the National Film Board," say Elder Whabagoon and Liat Margolis.  

Urban Forests is currently screening in select Quebec theatres, with wider distribution expected in 2025. For more information, visit foretsurbaines-lefilm.com. 

To learn more about Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag, follow the program on Instagram at @nikibii_dawadinna_giigwag. 

How does one fabricate a biological architecture? What are the conditions of stewardship? What are the strategies to instigate this at scale, regionally and globally? 

These questions are the foundation of inquiry for Living Room Collective’s exhibition Picoplanktonics, presented by the Canada Council for the Arts as part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, on view in the Canada Pavillion from May 10 until November 23, 2025.  

The Living Room Collective (featured below) is a group of architects, scientists, artists and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication technologies—led by Canadian architect and biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, a lecturer and the Director of Applied Technologies at the Daniels Faculty, Vincent Hui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, and Clayton Lee, a curator, producer and performance artist.   

Amidst the ongoing global climate crisis, Picoplanktonics showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Comprised of 3D printed structures that contain live cyanobacteria capable of carbon sequestration, the exhibition is an exploration of our potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that remediate the planet rather than exploit it. By leveraging ancient biological processes alongside emergent technologies, Picoplanktonics proposes designing environments under an ecology-first ethos. 

“The interdisciplinary research at the core of Picoplanktonics, led by Andrea (Shin Ling) and the team from ETH Zurich, is exactly the type of forward-thinking collaboration we encourage among faculty and students across our fields at the Daniels Faculty,” says Robert Levit, Acting Dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. “I’m thrilled by the exhibition and the work of Nicholas and Living Room Collective, and can't wait to see what it inspires beyond its life in Venice.”

When visitors enter the Canada Pavilion, they will encounter 3D printed structures that were originally fabricated in an ETH Zürich laboratory. These are the largest living material structures produced using a first-of-its-kind biofabrication platform capable of printing living structures at an architectural scale.  

The unique Picoplanktonics experience stems from adapting the Canada Pavilion to provide enough light, moisture, and warmth for the living cyanobacteria within the structures to grow, thrive and change. For the duration of the exhibition, caretakers will be onsite tending to the structures, emphasizing care and stewardship as essential elements of the design.  

As global carbon emissions continue to rise to untenable levels, Picoplanktonics presents a vision of how a regenerative system of construction could operate. It is an ongoing experiment centered on leveraging the reciprocal relationship between living structures, the built environment, and humans. In this way, the Living Room Collective is rethinking building principles and prioritizing ecological resilience beyond human species survival. 

“Through the lens of architecture, this year’s Canadian exhibition brings technological innovation and ecological stewardship together,” says Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts. “It is a unique exhibition, sure to inspire global audiences and to ignite important conversations, about how our built environment might better house and use natural systems for a more sustainable future.” 

Commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, the selection committee was comprised of: Aziza Chaouni (architect, principal, Aziza Chaouni Projects and associate professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto); David Garneau (Métis, painter, curator, critical art writer and professor, Visual Arts Department, University of Regina); Daniel Pearl (archi-tect, principal, L’OEUF Architectes and professor, School of Architecture, Université de Montréal); Siamak Hariri (architect, founding partner, Hariri Pontarini Architects); and Sepake Angiama (curator, educator, and artistic director, Institute for International Visual Art).  

Learn more on the Picoplanktonics website: picoplanktonics.com

Read the full media release via Canada Council for the Arts: canadacouncil.ca/initiatives/venice-biennale/2025  

Visit the Venice Biennale website for more information: labiennale.org/en/architecture/2025  

Photo credits: Living Room Collective.  

A retrospective exhibition showcasing work that came out of the ROB|ARCH conference held simultaneously at the Daniels Faculty and at TMU last year is currently on view at InterAccess Gallery in Toronto.

In May 2024, some of the world’s top robotics researchers gathered at both schools to examine key currents in robotic art and architecture. Led by Maria Yablonina, Paul Howard Harrison, Nicholas Hoban, Zachary Mollica and Brady Peters of the Faculty and by Jonathon Anderson of Toronto Metropolitan University, the ROB|ARCH 2024 conference included, among its programming, eight hands-on robotics workshops run over three days. 

Work from each of those workshops is on view in the InterAccess show, which runs until April 5. Entitled Beyond Optimization: ROB|ARCH Retrospective, the exhibition has been led by Anderson, Hoban and Mollica.

On Wednesday, April 2, a closing reception will take place between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. at InterAccess, which is located at 32 Lisgar Street. All are welcome to attend.

A free public event showing participants how to draw paper illustrations from digital designs using the Universal Collaborative (UR) robot arm is also being held on the last day of the exhibition. 

Collaborative Robot Drawing will take place between 2:00 and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 5.

Participants may register here.

Volume 1 of Scaffold* Journal, created and published by the student-run SHIFT* Collective, has been released. 

It’s the first print edition of the rebooted publication, which evolved out Shift Magazine, a previous Daniels publication.

Shift Magazine, an undergraduate risograph journal, was released nine times between 2014 and 2019. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all Shift operations until 2022, when they were revived by the members of the SHIFT* Collective. 

Since 2022, the collective has published four additional risograph zines while planning the reimagined Scaffold* Journal. Its members consist of students from across all years and programs within the Daniels undergraduate cohort.

“Our current team created Scaffold* in response to a gap that we had perceived in access to research within our academic context,” says the collective. “All of the research we had seen was perfect, it was pedestaled, and we wanted to provide a clearer path through which students could pitch themselves into the pits of scholarship.” 

Their goal with the new publication, team members add, was “a process-oriented research journal platforming the work of emerging scholars in disciplines of the built environment.” To that end, the editing team met “prolifically” with student contributors and faculty advisers “to understand their practices and our responsibility in representing them.”

Volume 1 of the journal, whose contributions include students and faculty members across programs, contains “a multitude of disparate perspectives that all fall under the constructed-environment umbrella.” According to its creators, the edition explores methodologies ranging from collage and board gaming to junk appropriation and speculative fabulation.

“Scaffold* only attempts to represent the diversity of work that goes on within disciplines of architecture, art and the built environment. Ultimately, it is a testimony to what we, as a community within the Daniels Faculty and beyond, have learned and continue to learn from each other.”

With the first print edition of Scaffold* now complete, the SHIFT* Collective is already at work on Volume 2, submissions for which “will open soon.”

Print copies of Volume 1 are currently available for purchase at Cafe 059 in the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent. A digital version can also be accessed at theshiftcollective.net.

Above: Contributors and faculty recently joined members of the SHIFT* Collective to mark the launch of Scaffold* Journal’s first print edition. Scaffold* is a new iteration of Shift Magazine, a previous Daniels publication.

In the final days before the fall of Saigon in 1975, 125,000 Vietnamese resettled in the United States. Finding themselves in unfamiliar places yet still connected in exile, these refugees began building their own communities as memorials to a lost homeland. Known both officially and unofficially as “Little Saigons,” these built landscapes are the foundation for Assistant Professor Erica Allen-Kim’s latest book.  

Building Little Saigon: Refugee Urbanism in American Cities and Suburbs (University of Texas Press) provides an in-depth look at how Vietnamese American communities have shaped urban landscapes across the U.S. Allen-Kim’s research focuses on the architectural and planning approaches adopted by Vietnamese Americans over the past 50 years, showing how these efforts have influenced mainstream urban practices.  

For Allen-Kim, the connection to this research is close to home. “Growing up in Southern California, I spent my childhood in Orange County's Koreatown, just next door to Little Saigon,” she says. “I saw how ethnic entrepreneurship was changing in response to generational shifts as well as broader transnational movements. I wanted to document the buildings, memorials and storefronts of these communities.”  

Through visits to 10 Little Saigons and interviews with developers, community planners, artists, business owners and Vietnam veterans, Allen-Kim examines the challenges and successes in building and maintaining these communities. Building Little Saigon highlights the role of everyday buildings—from family-owned businesses to cultural centres—in reflecting and preserving cultural heritage. 

Allen-Kim’s work contributes to the understanding of how immigrant communities shape urban environments. By exploring the design and function of various spaces within Little Saigons, Building Little Saigon offers insights into the broader impacts of migration on city planning and architecture. 

The book will be featured in the Fall 2024 Community for Belonging Reading Group at the Daniels Faculty. This initiative, open to all Daniels students, alumni, faculty and staff, will focus on the theme “Reclaiming Place and Identity in Urban Diasporas.” Participants will read Building Little Saigon alongside Denison Avenue, by Daniel Innes (illustrations) and Christina Wong (text). 

Building Little Saigon is available for checkout at the Eberhard Zeidler Library in the Daniels Building and for purchase online. 

From Paleolithic caves to spiritual temples like the Panthenon, medieval cathedrals and mosques to modernist planetariums, domed architecture has served as a pivotal space for human reflection. In his new book, The Desert Turned to Glass, acclaimed artist and Associate Professor Charles Stankievech explores the evolution of the planetarium as it relates to the origins of life, consciousness and art. 

The book reflects over a decade of Stankievech’s research, pairing visual documentation of his cinematic installations with newly commissioned essays by geologists, exobiologists, philosophers and archeologists. The book’s title is inspired by Stankievech’s time spent in the desert during an artist residency in Marfa, Texas, “where both meteorites and the first atomic explosion melted the desert sand into glass.”  

The book opens with a newly translated 1923 Walter Benjamin text that discusses the inauguration of the first planetarium and humanity’s search for a cosmic connection during a period of technological progress and post-World War I reflection. This historical context frames the subsequent essays by editors Ala Roushan, Dehlia Hannah and Nadim Samman. 

Originally commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the planetarium, a central part of the publication documents Stankievech’s exhibition The Desert Turned to Glass, first mounted at Calgary Contemporary. The cinematic installation Eye of Silence blends footage of atmospheric phenomena, volcanic landscapes and meteorite craters to depict the Earth’s evolution and provoke reflections on creation and transformation.  

Additional essays by physicist Karen Barad and archaeologist David Lewis-Williams explore cosmological questions from a deep-time perspective. Further interviews with experts, including renowned architect Douglas Cardinal, who serves as Decanal Advisor on Indigenous Knowledge at the Daniels Faculty, offer insights into geoscience, meteorites, architecture, Zen Buddhism and Artificial Life. 

The book also includes a final section on Stankievech’s methodology, featuring a discussion with primary collaborator Roushan. 

“With this closing dialogue weaving together the book’s themes, I hope we have established a new realm of connections, resonances and relationships,” Stankievech writes. 

The Desert Turned to Glass is available for checkout at the Eberhard Zeidler Library in the Daniels Building and for purchase online through Hatje Cantz. The related body of work will be exhibited at Oakville Galleries and internationally in Germany, Prague and Denmark this fall. 

Banner image: The Eye of Silence, 2023. 6K video 30mins with 7.1 audio. Installation View at Contemporary Calgary Planetarium Dome.

Assistant Professor Rasoul Yousefpour has been appointed the new Executive Director of the Mass Timber Institute at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. 

Established at the Faculty in 2018, the Mass Timber Institute focuses on bridging the gap between academia, industry and Indigenous communities to drive forward mass timber technologies and practices. 

Yousefpour, who joined the Daniels Faculty as a tenure-track professor in Forestry in 2021, brings a wealth of experience in forest economics. His previous role at the University of Freiburg in Germany and his extensive research on forest ecosystem processes and timber markets make him an ideal fit to continue the Mass Timber Institute’s mission to position Canada as a global leader in sustainable mass timber products and technologies. 

“We will collaborate with research and industry partners in wood construction, design, manufacturing and production to tackle supply chain challenges and create solutions for the expanding sustainable building sector,” Yousefpour said of his goals as he steps into the role of director. “We are advancing a holistic forest-to-building model that rigorously evaluates the sustainability, economic benefits and potential GHG emissions reduction of wood-based housing policies.” 

Yousefpour will continue to work closely with Dr. Anne Koven, who will remain involved as the founding director of the Mass Timber Institute. 

Recent and ongoing initiatives of the Mass Timber Institute include: 

Ontario Forest and Wood Sector Model 
In partnership with the Centre for Research & Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE), this project investigates the supply and demand dynamics of wood fiber in Ontario. It aims to optimize supply chains and enhance the sustainability of the mass timber industry in the region. In collaboration with the International Institute for System Analysis (IIASA, Austria), the Ontario Forest and Wood Sector Model is developed to integrate global and regional wood production, imports and exports, offering a climate-smart forecasting and policy analysis tool for future wood markets including mass timber. 

Historical Tall Wood Structures in Toronto 
This research project, led by Ross Beardsley Wood, investigates the historical construction methods of Heavy Timber Mill Construction buildings in Toronto. The goal is to recover and document the construction principles of more than 40 significant examples across the city. 

Local Red Pine CLT Pilot Project 
In collaboration with the Ontario Woodlot Association and other partners, this initiative explores the use of local conifer plantation wood for cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. By sourcing materials locally, the project aims to reduce the carbon footprint and support local economies. 

Mass Timber Building Science Primer 
MTI has published an open access “Mass Timber Building Science Primer,” authored by Professor Ted Kesik. This extensive guide is designed for professionals at all levels and provides detailed information on mass timber science, materials and construction technologies. 

Cost and Carbon for Commercial Construction in Canada 
MTI is working with Ha/f Climate Design, Entuitive and Bird Construction on a comprehensive report that explores the financial and carbon impacts of various structural systems. The report will highlight the potential of mass timber to reduce carbon emissions while remaining cost competitive. 

Mass Timber Today Podcast 
MTI’s podcast addresses challenges, innovations and trends in the mass timber sector. It features discussions on climate change, embodied carbon and supply chains, with insights from industry experts and practitioners. 

Mass Timber Institute Newsletter 
The newsletter updates on MTI’s research, projects and developments. It serves as a vital communication tool for engaging with industry professionals, academics and the public, and includes an annual virtual conference with The Architect’s Newspaper. 

For more details on the initiatives and recent projects, visit the Mass Timber Institute website. 

Images: 1) Rasoul Yousefpour. 2) Zero Carbon Hybrid Wood Tower Prototype. Courtesy of DIALOG.

Over three days in late 2022, the Daniels Faculty’s  Centre for Landscape Research, led by Associate Professor Fadi Masoud, hosted the first post-pandemic gathering of the Great Lakes Higher Education Consortium, an academic action group dedicated to fostering a more resilient, climate-ready Great Lakes Basin through the study and promotion of “integrative blue-green infrastructure.”

The Consortium had been co-founded in 2020 by the Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR), the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois System. A year later, four other major universities joined the group, which aims to address the region’s most pressing environmental challenges by encouraging regular and impactful collaborations among academics, industry and governments.

On the heels of the 2022 conference, the Consortium released a summary report entitled REIMAGINING WATER II: The Future of Blue-Green Infrastructure in the Great Lakes Basin. The group has also launched a website featuring an interactive map of Great Lakes cities and case studies associated with them.

Together the two resources offer practitioners and policy makers “a clear path” toward developing the kind of region-specific planning and design initiatives that will become increasingly essential as jurisdictions across the Great Lakes grapple with climate-related issues such as the flooding (pictured above and below) that caused an estimated $1 billion in damage this month in Toronto.

“Landscape architects have been at the forefront of designing integrated blue-green systems,” says Masoud. “We work with terrain, water (blue) and vegetation (green) to shape the public realm and urban infrastructure as a foundational disciplinary premise. 

“Climate shocks and stresses, such as urban flooding and extreme heat, remind cities worldwide of the need to integrate dynamic blue-green systems as critical landscape infrastructures. These infrastructures will increase cities' capacity to adapt to climate change. The Great Lakes warrant their unique set of landscape-based urban design standards, as each region’s physiographical conditions and pressures vary.”

The question of the Great Lakes Basin as a unique environment is at the core of the Reimagining Water project and of the RWII report, which cites “the mismatch between policy and technical guidelines for green/blue infrastructure developed on the East and West Coast [of North America] and the specific conditions of the Great Lakes.”

“This disconnect in technical terms,” it continues, “is complemented by a cultural disconnection. Progressive practices in green/blue infrastructure design are suspect here if they haven’t been developed or proven here.”

The 2022 conference, which Masoud co-organized with James Wasley of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, brought 45 participants from academia, professional disciplines, NGOs and government to the Daniels Faculty.

Among the topics they discussed were a vision for the Great Lakes Basin as an ecological unit, the promise of common project types in terms of fostering resilience and the connection between social and climate justice.

All of its findings and more are presented in the report. The work of the Consortium is ongoing and further conferences are planned.

Images of Don River flooding in Toronto by Paul Faggion

Jason Nguyen, Assistant Professor in the history and theory of architecture, is the 2024 beneficiary of the Mayflower Research Fund, the research endowment established by a generous donor in 2018 to encourage and stimulate study in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, allowing for collaboration with other areas of the University where appropriate.

Nguyen’s awarded research project, “Crafting Contracts: Law and the Architecture of Commemoration in Old Regime France,” looks at building practice and the regulatory bodies that structured it during the 17th and early 18th centuries in France. The project considers how reforms in contract and cost management contributed to a reframing of the architect as a civil and commercial figure at the dawn of the modern age.

Beyond its scholarly impact, the research is significant because it provides an historical instance in which debates on labour and project financing helped establish the scientific and institutional grounds on which the profession of architecture first came and continues to be practiced.

“The award means quite a lot, and is a testament to the work that I have been undertaking since my doctoral dissertation,” says Nguyen. “[The award] will help advance the project through one of the last stages of research, which considers how the streamlining of contract documentation abetted the professionalization of the architectural trade during a period of momentous social and intellectual change.”

In particular, this facet of the project examines how the architect and theorist Pierre Bullet (1639-1716) streamlined the drafting, notarizing and filing of legal contracts into professional architectural practice, taking a lawsuit that he and sculptor Philippe Magnier filed in November 1698 against the estate of Jean Coiffier de Ruzé, the Abbot of Effiat, as a starting point.

In that injunction, Bullet and Magnier sought compensation for drawings and models they had completed for the abbot, who had hired the pair to design and build a sumptuously decorated family mausoleum in Paris. When the abbot died unexpectedly in October 1698, he left a mountain of unpaid bills and, ultimately, insufficient direction and funding to see the mausoleum finished. The French court’s eventual decision, which privileged the architect’s contract, stands as a legal precedent in the professionalization of architectural practice.

Remarkably, Bullet had warned of labour and fee disputes in his treatise Architecture pratique (1691). The book included sample contracts as guides for architects to measure decoration and draft expedient legal documents. This move helped to formalize the architect’s civil function as a coordinator of labour and arbiter of taste in an increasingly commercial society. That Bullet’s study unfolded alongside contemporaneous theorizations of the social contract by the philosopher John Locke and habits and customs by the jurist Montesquieu testifies to the period’s broader concerns for legal order and the structures of modern governance.

“Contemporary conversations in Canada about labour rights and the politics of project financing and development have parallels in this formative moment in architectural history,” says Nguyen, who plans to apply his Mayflower funding to research-related travel, publishing, and student training.

“The training will include primary and secondary source documentation, mapping and digital reconstruction of since-lost buildings,” he says.

Nguyen’s broader project, of which this research is a part, is titled Bodies of Expertise: Architecture, Labour, and Law in Old Regime France. 

“Ultimately,” he says, “Bodies of Expertise will argue that the effort to establish a legal category of expertise, rooted in the labour and law of building practice, directly contributed to the professionalization of architectural practice as well as the crystallization of public and commercial culture at the dawn of the modern age.”

Aspects of this research have to date been published in a variety of journals, including Grey Room, Livraisons d’histoire de l’architecture and Oxford Art Journal.

Drawing image: An anonymous drawing, likely after Pierre Bullet, depicts the Mausoleum for Antoine Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis d’Effiat, at the convent of the Filles de la Croix in Paris (c. 1698). The drawing is housed in the Nationalmuseum Stockholm in Sweden.

The Inuusirvik Community Wellness Hub—an award-winning building designed by the practice Lateral Office, which Professor Mason White co-leads with Lola Sheppard—is featured on the cover of the June issue of Canadian Architect. 

“The building opened late last year in Iqaluit’s downtown core and was instantly beloved,” journalist Adele Weder writes in the feature article devoted to the project. “In a community that struggles with social and geographic isolation, the Wellness Hub could turn out to be the town’s most important new building in years.” 

The Wellness Hub is a compact multi-purpose community centre that brings together many services in Nunavut’s capital, such as counselling and daycare facilities, a wellness research centre, a research library, food preparation and gathering spaces.

Inspired by Indigenous vernacular structures, the building’s design was recognized with a 2023 Canadian Architect Award for the Lateral Office team, which includes sessional lecturer Kearon Roy Taylor, as well as Verne Reimer Architecture Inc. 

Professor White has long focused his architectural research on the North—among his projects have been the Canadian exhibition “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15” at the 2014 Venice Biennale, the 2017 publication Many Norths: Spatial Practice in a Polar Territory, and the ACSA Award-winning installation “Contested Circumpolar: Domestic Territories.” 

“For all their years of research, the Wellness Hub is the first completed building for Lateral Office, whose principals hold academic positions at the architecture schools at the universities of Toronto and Waterloo,” Weder writes. “Their practice has long been more focused on raising questions than chasing commissions.”  

Iqaluit is one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada and, as Weder notes, the burgeoning demand for new buildings is both an architectural opportunity and an imperative to design responsibly. 

“There is a wider conversation about circumpolar architectural typology: What is an arctic vernacular today?” says Professor White, Director of the Faculty’s Master of Urban Design and Post-Professional programs. “This building is a response to that question, but it is not the response. We’re just happy that this building can contribute to the wider conversation.” 

Read the full article online or pick up a copy of the June issue of Canadian Architect. 

All photography ©2024 Andrew Latreille. All rights reserved.