In March, the exhibition “How to Steal a Country” opened in the Daniels Faculty’s Larry Wayne Richards Gallery, transforming the display space at 1 Spadina Crescent into scenes from the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Using scale- and life-size dioramas, vignettes and tableaus, the immersive exhibition reflects some of the research conducted by 2022-2024 Emerging Architect Fellow Lukas Pauer into the role that architecture can play in asserting or suppressing national identity and sovereignty. 

As both the exhibition and his fellowship wind down, Pauer took the time to answer a few questions about the show and the work behind it. “How to Steal a Country” closes on May 14.

“How to Steal a Country,” your research-based exhibition on the role of architecture in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is part of the research and teaching you have undertaken as an Emerging Architect Fellow. Can you elaborate on how the exhibition reflects this work?

My work has been concerned with the histories of space and power in the built environment and their entanglements with the present. On arrival here at Daniels and building upon the findings of my doctoral dissertation, I started developing a series of teaching aids for my students in various formats to allow them to better understand imperial-colonial violence as a pervasive and ongoing reality around the world that is not a historic event but that continues to be manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices and built objects of the everyday.

For example, in a series of input lectures, I shared my theoretical framework and research on many case studies from different sites around the world in which countries presently instrumentalize buildings and infrastructure to project power, to claim authority over people and land. These cases were envisioned as exemplary vehicles for students to acquire and test unconventional skills that most students might not have acquired yet during their studies. In a series of skills workshops, I taught a range of techniques I have employed in my practice and research for students. Consequently, having spent a large part of my fellowship translating my practice and research into original teaching aids in the context of the courses I taught, it felt only natural to also conceive my fellowship exhibition as a teaching aid.

In terms of its medium/format, the aim behind the work remains a didactic-pedagogical one—how do we develop a vocabulary that allows us to visually, materially and spatially describe how authority over people and land is manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices of the everyday?

The title of your exhibition is a provocative one. Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a prototypical case of using built objects to project power and subvert sovereignty or an atypical one?

Many visitors of the exhibition would speak to me about the parallels they saw in the exhibition with what is part of the imperial-colonial history and ongoing present of what is presently known as Canada. For example, one section of the exhibition discusses the forced deportation and naturalization of Ukrainian children. By supposedly “evacuating” Ukrainian children into the supposed “care” of “foster parents” in Russia under the guise of supposed “reeducation” and “welfare services,” the Russian government has sought to make it difficult to preserve their independent post-Soviet Ukrainian identity. Not unlike what happened to many Indigenous local children in what is presently known as Canada, this has led to the assimilation of children, by invalidating their originally identity.

So in terms of its topic, the exhibition applies the aforementioned theoretical framework and analytical techniques for the role of architecture in sovereignty disputes to discuss a very specific context. However, part of the didactic-pedogagical intent of the exhibition is for the visitor to be able to make parallels to other contexts. This is not by chance. Over the past 10 years, I have critically studied how imperial-colonial expansion has been performed architecturally throughout history in ancient, medieval, modern and recent times, as well as still today.

This has led to a comparative theoretical framework and repository of case studies from different sites around the world in which countries presently instrumentalize buildings and infrastructure to project power. This includes but is not limited to the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is not necessarily an atypical case. So there will be subsequent exhibitions and associated publications applying the framework and techniques to other sovereignty disputes. Stay tuned.

What lessons might be learned from your research by either governments or their people about recognizing subversion and protecting sovereignty?

Although recent scholarship alludes to a relationship between space and power as well as the various ways in which power has configured space, many people seeking to participate in the political life of their community still lack the vocabulary to describe how authority over people and land is manifested through seemingly minor or banal practices of the everyday.

We have come up with diplomatic doctrines to respond to soft power. We have military doctrines to deal with hard power. However, policy-makers lack appropriate tools and models that aid the recognition of more hybrid kinds of non-verbal visual, material and spatial interventions. These come above the line of what is commonly understood as diplomacy but below the line of warfare. Within this grey zone, recent practices have instrumentalized many different types of built objects. For example, in the case of the current exhibition on display, Russia has instrumentalized humanitarian aid operations, bank branches and Internet and telephone facilities, as well as child boarding and care facilities to project power.

Such objects capitalize on their ambiguity. They seem to be neither diplomatic nor military in function, which renders their instrumentalization plausibly deniable. A lack of understanding how any object may be instrumentalized for political purposes limits people’s ability and responsibility to contribute to political decisions about the built environment.

One of your conclusions is that “sovereignty is a performative concept dependent on an audience.” Can you elaborate on this idea?

Sovereignty has been a key term for my work. If we untangle the very definition of this concept, which refers to “authority over people and land” and then untangle the concept of authority itself, which refers to “recognized power,” or a power that is being seen, that is being recognized by individuals or a community as being legitimate.

So if power over people and land depends on being seen, on being recognized in order to become legitimate, by definition sovereignty depends on an audience. As such, the very definition of sovereignty is a theatrical, a performative concept. It depends on being seen by a domestic or foreign audience. The hinge that can anchor a claim to authority over people and land to the ground are sovereignty markers, the “facts on the ground.” You can plant a flag or construct a building as a marker of sovereignty, to make a claim in a very specific place, but if you do not document this flag or building in various media such as taking a photo or making a drawing of it, it may as well have never happened.

In the case of the current exhibition on display, these would be the buildings and infrastructure that Russia has instrumentalized to legitimize its claims to sovereignty—the humanitarian aid operations, bank branches and Internet and telephone facilities, as well as child boarding and care facilities. These four case types are each displayed in a niche of the gallery. Not by chance have they been displayed as theatrical prop-like objects to create an immersive experience. These techniques from theatrical set model-making in the design of the exhibition are a nod to the theatricality of claims to sovereignty.

All images, including Lukas Pauer at the opening of “How to Steal a Country” in March 2024, by Harry Choi

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced that the Living Room Collective will represent Canada at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 23, 2025. 

Selected by a Council-designated selection committee, from among the group of five shortlisted candidates, the Living Room Collective will curate the next architecture exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. 

The creative team is led by bio-designer 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.  

Together this group of architects, scientists, artists, and educators will work at the intersection of architecture, biology, and digital fabrication to situate architecture as an integral and supportive component of our ecosystem.  

“It is an incredible honor to have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale,” the Living Room Collective said in a statement. “In demonstrating the possibilities of a collaborative relationship with nature, we look forward to leveraging this global platform alongside national and international partners to engage in a critical dialogue around alternative design practices that can sit alongside contemporary carbon neutral building strategies.”  

Read the full announcement from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

About Living Room Collective   

Andrea Shin Ling is an architect and bio-designer who works at the intersection of design, digital fabrication and biology. Her work focuses on how the critical application of biologically and computationally mediated design processes can move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones. She is the 2020 S+T+ARTS Grand Prize winner for her work as Ginkgo Bioworks’ creative resident designing the decay of artifacts in order to access material circularity. Shin Ling is a founder of designGUILD, a Toronto-based art collective, and was a researcher in the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab, where she worked on Aguahoja I, a 3D-printed bio-material pavilion. She is currently a doctoral fellow at the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at the Institute of Technology and Architecture, ETH Zurich.

Nicholas Hoban is a computational designer, fabricator and educator. He works at the intersection of computational design, robotics, construction and simulation in pedagogy, research and practice. Hoban is the Director, Applied Technologies, at the Daniels Faculty and a lecturer within the Daniels technology specialist program, leading various research and teaching labs while developing curriculum for studios and seminars on advanced fabrication and robotics within architecture. His research focuses on the application of robotics within fabrication and construction, and how we can solve critical problems in geometry through integrated processes. Hoban was a lead fabricator and computational designer for two previous Venice Biennales: for the 2014 Canadian Pavilion for Lateral Office’s Arctic Adaptations and for the 2016 Swiss Pavilion for Christian Kerez’s Incidental Space.  

Vincent Hui is a distinguished professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, imparting knowledge across diverse domains from design studios to digital tools. His pedagogical excellence has earned him multiple teaching accolades, as he delves into the intersections of architecture, fabrication and allied disciplines. With over 25 years of experience, his extensive publication portfolio focuses on design pedagogy, simulation, prototyping and technological convergence, complemented by a rich body of creative work showcased globally. Collaborating with esteemed organizations such as the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) and the Canadian Architecture Students’ Association (CASA), Hui endeavors to empower the next generation of designers, navigating emergent shifts in praxis. Committed to bridging academia and industry, he advocates for experiential learning initiatives and outreach endeavors for aspiring designers. His remarkable contributions have culminated in his induction into the esteemed RAIC College of Fellows.  

Clayton Lee is a curator, producer and performance artist. He is currently the Director (Artistic) of the Fierce Festival in Birmingham, England. He was previously the Director of the Rhubarb Festival, Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Lee has also worked as Creative Producer on Jess Dobkin’s projects, including For What It’s Worth, her commission at the Wellcome Collection in London, England; as Curatorial Associate at the Luminato Festival; and as Managing Producer of CanadaHub at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Lee’s performance projects have been presented in venues across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. He was one of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2023 Artists-in-Residence.  

Banner image from left to right: Andrea Shin Ling. Photo: Andrei Jipa; Nicholas Hoban. Photo: Nazanin Kazemi; Clayton Lee. Photo: Sam Frank Wood; Vincent Hui. Photo: Florencio Tameta.

Hart House Farm is a 150-acre property in Caledon, Ontario, located within the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere buffer zone, in the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Managed by the University of Toronto’s Hart House for a range of outdoor, co-curricular opportunities, this site, and its layered context, was the setting for last term’s Advanced Design Research Studio (LAN3016) led by Associate Professor Liat Margolis.

In the wake of U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation report, Answering the Call: Wecheehetowin, Hart House wanted to consider how the Farm might contribute to realizing the commitments contained in the document. Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) students subsequently researched the environmental and Indigenous-settler history of the Farm to create design proposals and forest management plans that explore its future as a locus for Indigenous-led land-based teaching, research and guardianship training community-engaged programs.

“The goals of this studio,” says Margolis, “were to develop an understanding of the environmental history of the land under a decolonization lens, create a framework of understanding of the Farm as part of a larger landscape mosaic and network of stewardship, and develop a set of values, designs, management protocols and partnerships as part of Hart House’s forthcoming strategic plan.”

In addition, the studio has been featured in the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network (NEBN) report for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the International Coordinating Council of the MAB (Man and Biosphere) Programme.

“This studio led by Liat Margolis is a prime example,” says the report, “of how experiential education within the landscapes of the Biosphere can profoundly shape the learning of the students and provide them with genuine connections to the land and partners within it.”

MLA students in the Hart House Farm Studio on a site visit during the Fall 2023 semester. The dolomite rock formations that span the site consist of fissures, caves and dramatic escarpment cliffs.

The design proposals presented by the MLA students exhibited a possible future for the Farm based on an interdisciplinary and integrated lens of Indigenous-led and community-centered land relations, landscape architecture, and ecological conservation.

Adrienne Mariano and Jessica Palmer, two students who participated in the studio, shared their perspectives in the report:

What did it mean for you to have this experiential learning on the land at Hart House Farms?

Adrienne Mariano and Jessica Palmer: The opportunity for experiential learning meant that our conversations with treaty rights holders, organizations working in the region, and community members were able to be framed within the context of colonial land-based practices that were highly specific to observations on the property at Hart House Farm. Having the chance to frame these conversations with experiences such as walks, fieldwork, and even pond swimming meant that we were actively able to form deeper relationships with the land as we explored it from an academic lens.

What did it mean for you to work with all our studio contributors at the farm and throughout the term?

Mariano and Palmer: Getting all these people together for walks and presentations meant that they were also a part of this learning process, and were encouraged to reflect on how their ongoing work contributes to or works against decolonial land views and practices. Getting these conversations out of the classroom and into the world with working professionals was important because, as students, we often are encouraged to think as changemakers but it takes time to become established in our fields, whereas working professionals can make changes in more immediate ways.

Mariano and Palmer's project focuses on the former quarried areas of the Bruce Trail Conservacy-owned Quarryside Property, which has turned into a series of lush successional wetlands at the base of the Niagara Escarpment.

What does it mean for you to have explored this site from a decolonial lens?

Mariano and Palmer: Exploring Hart House Farms from a decolonial lens allowed us to think more critically about landforms and how they are shaped on a time scale that is so large it is almost incomprehensible to humans. This thinking helps to frame our relationship with the natural world and foster deep respect for the time it takes for cliff faces, rocks, and fossils to form. Comparing these ancient geological forms to the impacts caused by industrial quarrying in the region allowed us to question the impacts of ongoing extractive practices along the Niagara Escarpment and how the University of Toronto can use Hart House Farms to advocate for its protection.

Their project allows Hart House Farm visitors and Bruce Trail hikers the opportunity to experience lush novel habitats in their evolutionary stage, as they continue to mature and expand over time. A system of boardwalks spans slag piles and wetlands, allowing visitors to interact with a landscape that extraction practices have dramatically altered, and through subtle didactic panels at rest points.

What are you excited about / what do you hope to see in the near future, or in the long term?

Mariano and Palmer: In the near future, we hope to see the non-Indigenous partner organizations (especially those who work in conservation) work more actively to support Indigenous-led conservation practices and co-governance models. We are excited about the response from the team at Hart House and look forward to seeing how they incorporate and run with our research in making concrete changes at the property both immediately and in the long term.

Using a series of interconnected trails and boardwalks, their design focuses on bringing people to the areas of former quarrying to learn about the impacts of extraction on these delicate ecosystems. 

The principles and recommendations explored at the final review of the studio by the MLA students, the partners and rights holders, and Hart House Farm staff will be summarized and integrated in the strategic planning for the Farm.

The Hart House Farm studio was supported by and co-created in partnership with University of Toronto Hart House, Waakbiness Institute for Indigenous Health, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN), Niagara Escarpment Commission, Niagara Escarpment UNSECO Biosphere Network, Credit Valley Conservation, Bruce Trail Conservancy and Town of Caledon Heritage Department.

Based at the Daniels Faculty’s Centre for Landscape Research, Parks in Action is a multidisciplinary, multi-year design-research initiative investigating the untapped potential of public and private open spaces in Toronto’s inner suburbs.

It has included a partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning and is funded by the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant, TransformTO’s Neighbourhood Climate Action Champions Program and Environment Canada.

Recently, Parks in Action launched a comprehensive website, parks-in-action.webflow.io, where is outlines and archives its research to date and documents the workshops and exhibition connected to it.

Entitled “Parks in Action: Co-designing Inclusive Open Spaces,” that exhibition (pictured in slideshow below) opened in June of last year and is still on view at the World Urban Pavilion in Toronto’s Regent Park.

The Parks in Action project, writes Associate Professor Fadi Masoud, Director of the Centre for Landscape Research, “underscores the vital role of suburban parks, open spaces and the public realm in Toronto’s climate adaptation and mitigation,” particularly with relation to air pollution, urban heat-island effect and urban flooding.

“One of its primary objectives,” he continues, “is to assess and quantify the social and environmental value of public and private open spaces in the city’s inner suburbs, specifically its ‘Tower in the Park’ neighbourhoods.”

It also “investigates the untapped potential of these parks in suburban communities,” and asks what kind of design and management strategies are needed to reflect the diversity and heterogeneity of the population they serve, as well as how they might be retrofitted to increase their environmental and social performance.

In June of 2019, the City of Toronto launched its first Resilience Strategy at the Daniels Faculty. This strategy identified the overlap of climate risks and social vulnerability in Toronto’s aging high-rise rental apartment towers as “the single most pressing, urgent priority for the city’s resilience.”

Toronto is home to North America’s largest concentration of postwar apartment towers, with vast green spaces, ravines, parks and schools typically surrounding over 1,500 buildings throughout the city.

Over the years, the Parks in Action team has engaged in “Knowledge Exchange” sessions with grassroots leaders, city officials and community members, with members co-creating and distributing risk and opportunity maps (such as maps that illustrate the links between surface heat temperature, air pollution, land cover and tree canopy) to local leaders. Local leaders and climate champions then connected this data with lived experience and existing policy to advocate for neighbourhood change, building a shared language for considering green open spaces’ critical role in residents’ daily lives and long-term health and well-being.

Based on the “Knowledge Exchange” sessions, the Parks in Action team devised a set of Climate Design Action Cards that identify a slate of design solutions to climate change ranging from small and easy interventions to more significant ones that can be enacted or advocated by leaders and residents. The Climate Design Action Cards informed spatial scenarios on prototypical transect cross-sections of Toronto’s inner suburbs, offering innovative tools to engage with local leaders and residents, facilitate engagement, and empower community members to better advocate for local climate action.

Congruently, a series of Community Climate Action Hubs were designed for parks in equity-deserving neighbourhoods. The installations exemplified the project’s commitment to reinventing outdoor spaces, providing environmental education, increasing accessibility and offering spaces for socialization. The first set of installations is currently under construction in various parks in the city. 

Overall, Parks in Action has showcased how building resilience requires a holistic approach that considers public open space as part of the shared infrastructure of climate adaptation. To that end, the design research is shaped by the lived experiences of individuals and communities, highlighting the interconnectedness of social climate action and design thinking.

For more information on the Parks in Action project and to peruse its research to date, visit its site here.

The Daniels Faculty’s Michael Piper, Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Architecture, is among the co-recipients of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s 2023 President’s Medal for Outstanding Housing Research.

Co-won with Janna Levitt, Principal of LGA Architectural Partners, and Samantha Eby, a sessional instructor at the Faculty, the prize was bestowed for ReHousing.ca, an online housing platform the trio co-created.

The award recognizes innovative and impactful research in Canadian housing, and includes a $25,000 prize to fund further knowledge mobilization and outreach.

The ReHousing initiative was developed by the joint academic and professional team to help make “missing middle” housing more attainable, showing “citizen developers” how to transform single-family homes into multiplexes.

Characterized by clear language and easy-to-read drawings that explain various types of multiplex housing as well as a step-by-step guide to how they can be achieved, the website offers options for a range of prospective users, including those looking to get into the housing market, mature homeowners who would like to remain in their homes while earning rental income for retirement, and those aiming to build additional housing for extended family, friends or rent-paying tenants.

“We’re excited that our housing catalogue has received national recognition, especially as all three levels of government are promoting design catalogues as a key approach to realizing small-scale infill housing,” Piper said on behalf of the winning team. “The CMHC grant will help us to expand awareness of the ReHousing project by creating more how-to videos and to share our research further through social media.”

Elements of the ReHousing plan were featured in Housing Multitudes: Reimagining the Landscapes of Suburbia, the 2022-23 Daniels Faculty exhibition that Piper co-curated with Professor Richard Sommer.

Last year, Piper, Levitt and Eby used their research to contribute design analysis to the City of Toronto’s potentially game-changing multiplex-zoning legislation, and they are currently working on a second Toronto commission to study alternative neighbourhood densities.

ReHousing has also been funded by a grant from the Neptis Foundation, an independent charitable foundation that conducts and disseminates nonpartisan research, analysis and mapping related to the design and function of Canadian urban regions.

For more details about ReHousing, click here.

A rendering from the award-winning website ReHousing.ca envisions the addition of secondary housing on the site of a postwar bungalow. Image courtesy ReHousing.ca

On view at the Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) until next June, the exhibition Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts grapples with the absences, erasures and censorships that pervade queer and trans histories, offering alternative forms of documentation, storytelling and memory-keeping that respond to archival gaps and propose strategies for future archiving.

On Tuesday, November 14, exhibition curator Dallas Fellini, who is currently pursuing a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies at the Daniels Faculty, will provide a guided tour of the show, which features works by artists Jordan King, Kasra Jalilipour, Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Kama La Mackerel and Lan “Florence” Yee.

Following the tour, attendees will be invited to walk over to the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent, where curator Fellini and artist King will lead a discussion about their work and its role in trans memory-keeping and resistance.

All are welcome to join both the tour and the talk. The hour-long JHI tour will begin at noon on the 10th floor of 170 St. George Street. The talk, at which lunch will be provided, will commence at 1:30 p.m. in Room 230 of the Daniels Building. Attendees may register here.

Situated at the intersection of trans studies and archival studies, Fellini’s research interrogates the compromised conditions under which trans histories have been recorded and considers representational and archival alternatives to trans hyper-visibility. 

King is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer whose practice is rooted in performance, archival research and intergenerational dialogue. She is currently a Curatorial Practice MFA student at OCAD University, where her focus is on documentary film and multimedia documentation of underground queer performance. 

The JHI tour and Daniels Faculty talk will take place during Trans Awareness Week, established to encourage awareness of and advocacy around trans rights and inclusion and to affirm trans lives and experiences in all their complexity. Trans Awareness Week will be observed this year from November 13 to 17.

The week will be followed by Trans Day of Remembrance and Resilience (TDoRR) on November 20. TDoRR is observed annually to honour the memory of the trans people who have lost their lives as a result of transphobic violence.

U of T will mark both Trans Awareness Week and TDoRR with a range of events and gatherings. For the full programming list, click here.

Exhibition images: Among the works on view in the exhibition Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts are Untitled by Jordan King (top) and Leaving Space by Lan “Florence” Yee (bottom). On Tuesday, November 14, curator Dallas Fellini will lead a tour of the show at the Jackman Humanities Institute before joining artist King for a discussion at the Daniels Faculty. Lunch will be provided. King photo courtesy of the artist, Yee photo by Alexis Bellavance.

The presence of robotics in art, research, design and construction has undeniably changed the way these fields operate and will no doubt play an even bigger role in the future. For more than a decade, the Association for Robots in Architecture has been working to consolidate knowledge in this area, bringing universities together to form a transdisciplinary network of robot users worldwide.

This spring, the Daniels Faculty is pleased to host ROB|ARCH 2024, the Association’s highly regarded biennial workshop and conference, alongside the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, the Design + Technology Lab at The Creative School (Toronto Metropolitan University) and the Waterloo School of Architecture. 

Each gathering aims to bring together international teams of researchers and practitioners to share expertise, foster networks, increase knowledge and stimulate innovation. ROB|ARCH 2024 will consist of three days of hands-on workshops (May 21 to 23) and two days of conference presentations (May 24 to 25). 

The hosting team, which includes the Daniels Faculty’s Maria Yablonina, Zachary Mollica, Paul Howard Harrison, Nicholas Hoban and Brady Peters, has selected the theme Beyond Optimization. Intended as a provocation, the 2024 conference will reflect on the changes affecting the field of robotics in art, design and architecture—and how to respond by shifting priorities and examining the criteria by which we evaluate research. The hosts aim to move beyond technically focused discourse toward inclusive conversations that centre critical approaches in robotics. 

A detailed list of workshops and registration details will be announced in the fall of 2023, and discounted registration fees will be available for students. Conference events will be hosted in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent. 

Dates 

• Workshops: May 21 to 23, 2024 
• Conference: May 24 to 25, 2024 (call for papers deadline: October 16, 2023) 

Visit the ROB|ARCH website and follow @robotsinarchitecture for the latest information. 

For decades, Phragmites australis (pictured above) has ranked among the worst weeds in Canada, damaging the biodiversity, wetlands and beaches of Ontario, Quebec and elsewhere. 

A new guide, co-developed by researchers at the Daniels Faculty and at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), aims to combat this destructive invader—a tall, dense grass that was introduced into North America from Europe in the 1800s and is also known as common reed—by offering “a suite of simple, easy-to-use identification tools” designed to distinguish it from vulnerable native species without relying on expensive, specialized lab analyses.

“Given the importance of Phragmites management in Ontario as a conservation concern,” says postdoctoral research fellow Michael McTavish of Forestry, “we think this tool would be of great use to land managers and other researchers.”

Dr. McTavish is the lead author of the guide, which was recently published in Invasive Plant Science and Management, the online peer-reviewed journal focusing on fundamental and applied research on invasive plants and the management and restoration of invaded non-crop areas.

His co-authors and collaborators include Professor Sandy M. Smith of Forestry and three researchers from AAFC: research scientists Tyler Smith and Robert Bourchier and research technician Subbaiah Mechanda.

“To effectively manage the invasive introduced subspecies of common reed and avoid misallocating resources,” they write, “land managers require practical, reliable tools to differentiate it from the desirable native subspecies. While genetic tools are extremely useful for identification, morphological identification is a valuable complementary tool that is easier [to use], cheaper, available in the field and thus more accessible for many land managers and researchers.”

In the course of the team’s research, a suite of 22 morphological traits were measured in 21 introduced and 27 native P. australis populations identified by genetic barcoding across southern Ontario. Traits were compared between the subspecies to identify measurements that offered reliable, diagnostic separation. Overall, 21 of the 22 traits differed between the subspecies, with four offering complete separation: the retention of leaf sheaths on dead stems; a categorical assessment of stem colour; the base height of the ligule, excluding the hairy fringe; and a combined measurement of leaf length and lower glume length. 

Additionally, round fungal spots on the stem occurred only on the native subspecies and never on the sampled introduced populations. 

“The high degree of variation observed in traits within and between the subspecies,” the researchers conclude, “cautions against a ‘common wisdom’ approach to identification or automatic interpretation of intermediate traits as indicative of aberrant populations or hybridization.”

As an alternative, their “five best traits” checklist offers simple and reliable measurements for identifying native and introduced P. australis. It is most applicable, they note, “for samples collected in the late summer and fall in the Great Lakes region, but can also inform best practices for morphological identification in other regions as well.” 

The full guide as well as the research that led to it is detailed in the IPSM report. To read it, click here.

The checklist, however, isn’t the only weapon in Dr. McTavish’s arsenal against common reed. This past spring, he publicized details about another initiative involving the release of “two old/new adversaries” of P. australis: a pair of European moth species expected to provide effective biological control of the native-choking plant.

“The two European moths, known by their scientific names Lenisa geminipuncta [pictured below] and Archanara neurica, were selected only after extensive safety testing confirmed they were highly specific to invasive Phragmites, meaning that they can only complete their lifecycle on this plant,” Dr. McTavish said. “The caterpillars of the two moths feed inside the invasive Phragmites stems, causing the weed to wilt or die. In 2019, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) approved the release of both biocontrol agents in Canada. To date, over 17,000 insects have been released at 13 locations across southern Ontario.”

According to Dr. McTavish, “early monitoring at the release sites is very promising for establishment and use of this new tool for Phragmites management. The released insect populations have survived over a year at the release points. They have completed their full lifecycle and are causing visible damage to Phragmites plants at several release locations. The research team is now focused on an intensive laboratory rearing program for the caterpillars and on testing release methods using insect eggs, caterpillars, pupae and adult moths.”

The program’s ultimate goal, he adds, “is to use these early ‘nurse’ locations for collection and redistribution of insects to land managers and the public with serious patches of Phragmites. Populations of the insects are still establishing, and initial results are very encouraging. Over time, as the insect populations continue to grow and spread, biological control is expected to become a valuable new component of the integrated management strategy for invasive Phragmites.”

This second, insect-based control initiative is based on a research program that began in 1998 as well as critical support from stakeholders including Ducks Unlimited Canada, MITACS, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, NSERC, the rare Charitable Research Reserve and AAFC.

The research team is an international one led by AAFC and U of T. Other members include collaborators from the University of Waterloo, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada in Canada, Cornell University and the University of Rhode Island in the United States and CABI (the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International) in Switzerland. 

Image of Lenisa geminipuncta moth on a stem of invasive Phragmites by Patrick Häfliger. 

Associate professor Daniel Chung is this year’s beneficiary of the Mayflower Research Fund, an endowment established by a generous donor to encourage and stimulate research in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, and allows for collaboration with other areas of the University.

Chung’s current research examines a building’s envelope—the roof, walls and surfaces that are in contact with the outdoors—to better predict the effects of climate change on buildings.  

With support from the Mayflower Research Fund, he will advance his research on building-envelope performance as it relates to moisture flows and moisture-related damage. 

“If we can more easily monitor moisture throughout the building, not just at the surface, and know what is happening across all facades, like a fit-bit that monitors day-to-day activity, we can attune buildings to have adaptive properties that respond to varying climatic conditions and prevent building deterioration before it becomes an expensive and time-consuming process to address and repair,” he says.

Both a registered architect and a professional engineer, Chung will direct his grant funding, totalling $10,000, to test and develop a new assessment method for real-time moisture-transport behaviour by validating the use of what is known as dielectric permittivity sensors (a type of water-sensitive probe ordinarily used to test the moisture content of soil) to measure and track the amount of water present in the facades of buildings. 

The data collected in this research will be used to demonstrate the potential of the method’s use for in-situ moisture content assessments, and will be leveraged when applying for additional external funding in the coming academic year that will focus on sensing transient three-dimensional moisture flows through multi-layered building envelope assemblies. 

A guarded hot box measures heat flow through building envelope materials. It is currently under construction in Chung's lab, and will be used in the project supported by the Mayflower Research Fund. 

Since its establishment in 2018, the Mayflower Research Fund has supported research across a range of topics, from improving fresh-air circulation in multi-unit buildings (Bomani Khemet, 2022) and the effects of interior light on human psychology and physiology in Canada’s subarctic and polar regions (Alstan Jakubiec, 2021) to advancing research in computational design with a focus on robotics (Maria Yablonina, 2020) and an in-depth study of the design of suburban parks (Fadi Masoud, 2019).

Faculty members with full-time appointments at the Daniels Faculty are eligible to apply.    

A film created as part of Daniels Faculty architecture grad Batoul Faour’s thesis project two years ago is currently on view in a group show at Ottawa’s SAW art centre.

Faour, who has also been working as a sessional instructor at the Faculty since January 2022, graduated from the post-professional Master of Architecture program in 2021. That same year, she was awarded the Avery Review Essay Prize for her treatise on how architectural glass exacerbated the damage from the August 2020 port explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.

Faour’s thesis project comprised both the prize-winning essay and a film that she screened during the final review. The film, titled Shafāfiyyāh, which means transparency in Arabic, is one of the works being presented at SAW in the group show Beirut: Eternal Recurrence.

Co-curated by Daniels Faculty sessional lecturer Amin Alsaden, the exhibition features the work of about a dozen international contemporary artists, its title taken from a text by theorist-artist Jalal Toufic on the philosophical notion of “eternal recurrence.” The show proposes that time and events repeat themselves in an infinite loop—a concept especially resonant in the long-suffering Lebanese capital.

“The participating artists do not necessarily pass judgment about Beirut, its repetitions or how coming to terms with the cyclicality of certain phenomena could perhaps create a new consciousness that might begin to change the course of history,” the exhibition’s curators note. “But to observe their replications is to recognize parallels between a past and a future entangled in a difficult present.”

In her thesis project, Faour examines how both the narrative and material lifecycles of glass are entangled in Beirut’s history and politics.

In her essay and her film, she notes how, after the 2020 explosion, “Beirut’s windows and streets have become palimpsests of broken glass, telling of generational cycles of sectarian violence in a country still ruled by the same warlords who tore the city apart decades ago, erased their traces, and disguised this history in a dysfunctional present normality.”

In addition to disseminating her research among a wider audience, the exhibition, Faour says, is a great example for current students of alumni pursuing “alternative trajectories beyond commercial practice.”

Beirut: Eternal Recurrence, which opened on July 15, runs until September 23. SAW is located at 67 Nicholas Street just north of the University of Ottawa.

Top image of hand organizing pieces of glass: still from film by Batoul Faour. (Below) Exhibition images by Ava Margueritte.