On June 11, Assistant Professor Liat Margolis will join a group of preeminent scholars and professionals in the field of landscape architecture to "critically reflect on what landscape architecture has achieved over the last 50 years and present bold ideas for what it should achieve in the future." This discussion will take place as part of the Landscape Architecture Foundation Summit, a one-time historic gathering dedicated to the 50^th anniversary of Ian McHarg’s seminal Declaration of Concern, which heralded landscape architects as key leaders in the environmental movement.

Writes Barbara Deutsch for the Land8 blog:

“Fifty years ago on June 1 and 2, 1966, Ian McHarg, Grady Clay, Campbell Miller, Charles R. Hammond, George E. Patton, and John O. Simonds were convened by the newly formed Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Motivated by a sense of crisis about the environment and its future, they proclaimed the role of the landscape architect as critical to help solve it and drafted and signed a Declaration of Concern outlining a four-pronged strategy to multiply the effectiveness of the limited number of landscape architects and produce more trained people to cope with the future environment they foresaw.”

The Director of the Daniels Faculty's award-winning Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (gritlab) and Co-Director of the Centre for Landscape Research, Margolis was selected as one of 70 “established and emerging leaders” in the field of landscape architecture. As a panelist, her role will include engaging in a debate about landscape architecture’s potential to effect real world change.

For more information, visit lafoundation.org

Associate Professor David Lieberman will be presenting a paper and chairing a panel at the Continuum2016 conference happening June 12^th to 14^th in Nicosia, Cyprus. The event, hosted by the University of Cyprus Department of Architecture and the European University of Cyprus Music Department, intends to further research of the last decade in architecture, music, and acoustics.

At the conference, Lieberman will present the film titled within the Sounds of these Waves, which was edited and composed by Parastoo Najafi (MArch 2016) and produced by the Studio of David Lieberman Architect.

“The three hour film is a series of visual texts as an investigation in time, in thoughts and in dreams as we move through the spaces of discovery and imagining,” says Lieberman. “The texts interweave original musings and the words of Virginia Woolf in her meditations ‘The Waves.’ ”

Later this month, Lieberman will be returning to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna on June 27^th and 28^th to participate in their final reviews as an external reviewer for two of the graduate programs in architecture. His time at the Academy will include participating in post-graduate seminars, advising doctoral students, and continuing research concerned with the birch forests as painted by Gustav Klimt and the properties of the Austrian Spruce tree (a favoured species for string instruments and piano soundboards).

Related:

• David Lieberman delivers keynote lecture on sound, light, and architecture and contributes to an exhibition on hippie modernism
• David Lieberman publishes a chapter in the book Xenakis Matters

• North House to become a permanent installation and research laboratory

Lecturer Hans Ibelings, Lecturer Alex Josephson (PARTISANS), and friend of the Daniels Faculty Eve Lewis (MSc., Urban and Regional Planning 1981) will participate in a discussion exploring the condominiumization of Toronto on June 22 as part of the Luminato Festival. The panel discussion will reflect on the book Rise & Sprawl: The Condominiumization of Toronto. Co-authored by Hans Ibelings and PARTISANS, the new book investigates the emergence of a new pressure-cooked architectural vernacular and posits alternative ways of tackling design and development processes to ensure better architectural outcomes.

Rise and Sprawl: The Condominiumization of Toronto
by Hans Ibelings and PARTISANS

June 22, 2016, 5–6:30 PM, Side Room
The Hearn (440 Unwin Avenue, Toronto)

“While rapid densification is contributing to Toronto’s increased liveliness, the unbridled development of monotonous condo towers is resulting in a significant facelift we may later come to regret,” write Ibelings and PARTISANS. “We are failing to create a cityscape that serves our citizens, let alone a skyline we can be proud of as a legacy for future generations.”

The discussion is part of a series of events hosted by After School + PARTISANS for Luminato 2016 that focus on the future of Toronto in terms of arts institutions, civic infrastructure, architecture and design, and overall cultural and economic prosperity.

For more information, visit Luminato's website.

In March, Associate Professor Brian Boigon lectured at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) as part of the exhibition The Other Architect. The exhibition explored architecture in terms of different collaborative strategies, strange concepts, and new kinds of tools.

From the CCA:

“Brian Boigon ran Culture Lab at the back of a rock club in Toronto from 1991 to 1994. The object of Culture Lab was to intellectually entangle and compress the distance between theory and product—and to ultimately create a new space of interoperability whereby speakers, hosted on stage by Boigon, would be thrown into an unknown social architecture, yielding new speculations about what constitutes cultural production in the transitional years between the analogue and the digital. Boigon’s talk addresses the temporal and social ramifications that led up and into the Culture Lab project and beyond.”

After the talk, Boigon was joined by Joan Ockman and Phyllis Lambert to discuss the internet and social media in today’s context.

“We are barely able to function in the digital and yet there’s a new layer, this social media layer,” said Boigon. “I think this social media layer, despite the tropes of it being superficial and…curiously problematic, there’s something in their networks and meshes that are producing a new kind of social space and temporality and we have to pay attention to this as architects.”

The transcription of the discussion was included in the online CCA publication What the future looked like. To view the publication, visit: cca.qc.ca/what-the-future-looked-like

Thanks to generous donations made by alumni and donors, Daniels Faculty students can apply for grants, fellowships, or scholarships to fund travel and research at sites of interest both within Canada and abroad.

We’ve asked students who received travel awards last year to share their experiences with us. Last week, we heard from Saarinen Balagengatharadilak and Vanessa Abram. Today, we hear from Master of Architecture student Hamza Vora , who spent six weeks conducting research in Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Fez in Morroco, and Tunis in Tunisia with support from the Paul Oberman Graduate Student Endowment Fund.

Why did you decide to go to Casablanca, Marrakesh, Fez, and Tunis, and what did you hope to learn while you were there?
I wanted to study street vendors in North African cities to see the urban condition and context they currently operate in.  I intended to observe the street vendors and public life of the souks (markets) that are still vital part of the old city centres. Morocco and Tunisia both have well preserved and vibrant old city centres where street vendors in the souks are an integral part of daily life.

Tell us about something interesting that you discovered.
I had this idea of authenticity and that the markets would only sell local goods and support the local community. It was a bit shocking to see that majority of the street vendors sold counterfeit goods made in China. This was particularly in the case Tunis. It is a real problem as it has been devastating to the local industries.

How has this travel research opportunity enhanced your academic career?
I got a better understanding of the meaning of public space. It informed some of my decisions for my thesis project. Urban life in these North African cities is very chaotic. It is an organized mess. To comprehend that, you have to experience it first hand.

How will this research inform your future work?
I am still very interested in street vendors and how they contribute to an informal economy. During my research trip I was looking at how they function and negotiate public pace. I still want to continue learning about this and how they contribute to different public spaces.

For more information on Hamza’s research download his report [PDF].

Visit the Current Students section of the Daniels Faculy's website for more information on the travel awards.

From 1991 to 1994, Associate Professor Brian Boigon ran Culture Lab at the back of a rock club, where he would host guest participants with disciplinary backgrounds in architecture, art, film, video, music, comedy, science and fashion. The panel, with Boigon at the helm, would be thrown into an unknown social architecture, yielding new speculations about what constitutes cultural production in the transitional years between the analogue and the digital. Culture Lab themes ranged from Insider Criticism and Weaklings to Dip Sticks.

On March 31, 2016, at 6:00pm Boigon will be giving a talk at the CCA titled "Fucking with Interoperability." He will be addressing the temporal and social ramifications that led up and into the Culture Lab project and beyond.

Culture Lab: Brian Boigon — "Fucking with Interoperability"
March 31, 2016 | 6:00 pm
Centre Canadien d'Architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
1920 Baile, Montreal, Quebec H3H 2S6

RSVP to the event on Facebook.

Most Torontonians may not consider the history of Fort York in its modern context, but the site is rich with stories of disrupted bird habitation, receding water edges, and unsettling warfare. In the Fall semester of 2014, Nicolas Koff and Marisa Bernstein led the third year landscape architecture course, LAN3016: Fort York’s Fluid Landscapes, to investigate the history of Fort York, and to examine how the site could accommodate changing uses.

“Through its key location at the historical intersection of the Garrison creek and the lake shore, the site has over the years been used for sustenance, protection, transportation, recreation and education,” writes Nicolas Koff in the course description. “With each incarnation, the site gained in complexity, culminating in its present multi-layered state.”

The outcomes of this course have continued on into different mediums. The projects were featured on Projexity — a website created by Koff and Bernstein that engages communities in neighbourhood improvement projects. Last May, the duo led a Jane’s Walk focused on research from the course along with and Ya’el Santopinto. More recently, the Fort York narratives developed from the course were transformed into a podcast for Cities Alive. The podcast recounts stories as told by students Kaari Kitawi, Grace Yang, Carla Lipkin, Meaghan Burke, and Rui Felix.

“[The development of] the stories for the students was supposed to get their foot in the door in the design process,” says Marisa Bernstein in the podcast. “It was a way for them to come up with a narrative for the site that would then help guide them through their projects for the entire semester.”

The student projects have been documented by on Projexity, and can be viewed at fluidfortyork.projexity.com

Renderings pictured above (in order of appearance) by Kaari Kitawi, Andrea Linney, Meaghan Burke, and Rui Felix.

Pin-ups have been un-pinned, exams have been written and students are undoubtedly catching up on some much needed sleep. Before shifting into summer mode, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on the past academic year. Here are the six most read news stories of the last 8 months.

6. Architectural Studies graduate Omar Gandhi "one of Canada's most exciting emerging designers," says the Globe and Mail

January 18, 2016

5. View the competition entries and have your say in the redesign of U of T's St. George Campus

October 5, 2015

View the winning design by KPMB Architects, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) and Urban Strategies.

4. #ReadingList: 3 books to read over the holidays

December 15, 2015

3. Photographs by Peter MacCallum document the transformation of One Spadina

June 4, 2014 (updated regularly)

View all One Spadina photos on the Daniels Faculty's Flickr page

2. Multigenerational housing: Daniels faculty and alumni rethink the family home

February 25, 2016

1. 12 things every grad student presenting their thesis should know

March 25, 2015

Thanks to generous donations made by alumni and donors, Daniels Faculty students can apply for grants, fellowships, or scholarships to fund travel and research at sites of interest both within Canada and abroad. The application deadline for this year is March 2.

We’ve asked students who received travel awards last year to share their experiences with us. Today, we hear from Master of Architecture student Saarinen Balagengatharadilak, who spent a month in London, UK last summer with support from the Paul Oberman Graduate Student Endowment Fund.

What did you hope to learn during your time in London?
I was interested in the range of sensibility that architects and planners bring to building in historic contexts. There’s a magic to some places rooted in a rich culture and history that’s reflected in its buildings and public spaces. I wanted to learn how housing, public amenities, and institutions were being integrated with big infrastructural projects, while preserving the “magic”.

Why did you go to London for this research?
The challenges of building for a growing city are super intense in London. Intensification is tied to big plans about infrastructure and moving the masses. Amongst giant transit and development plans is an old city with some of the most beautiful parks, plazas, and monuments, all delicately woven into a continuous fabric.

While the stakes for building in such a complex system are extremely high, there’s a healthy appetite on the part of the people and city to embrace bold ideas. I thought it would be refreshing to see some of the successes and shortcomings of this mentality.

Tell us about something interesting that you discovered.
There are so many moments when you walk through plazas, over or under bridges, or through or between buildings that make London feel continuous. I’ve grown so accustomed to the way infrastructure divides cities (like Toronto). London provided a good wake up call about the potential of infrastructure to be more integrated with architecture and landscape.

How has this travel research opportunity enhanced your academic career?
It’s given me a host of lessons and experiences to pull from. There’s a spirit of social enterprise in London that feels as important as the thriving commercialism.

There was one particular event I remember joining, which brought out the socio-political potential of public spaces. Two artists joined together in a walk of compassion through London to show solidarity with refugees world-wide. It started off with dozens of journalists, other media, and about 80 or so people at the Royal Academy of Arts.

The walk was a few miles and we stopped in a handful of public plazas. I remember each time we stopped, a crowd of curious spectators gathered and we would suddenly swell to close to two hundred people.

While Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor addressed the press, the group engaged in conversation with the people in the plazas. Some even decided to join in the walk. People continued to talk and exchange thoughts all throughout. The fluidity and frequency of public spaces acted as an armature. There was a spirit of hope and conviction in the crowd that seemed to spread naturally as we filled and emptied plazas.

How will this research inform your future work (as a student or otherwise)?
The more time I spent in a park or plaza, the more I became convinced that a place could be as carefully crafted as a building. The most frequented urban projects had an understanding of place relative to everything it sat beside and between. I remember the walk through the view corridors to St. Paul’s as vividly as sitting in the Cathedral garden.

The research, for me, shows the value in intensifying collaborative efforts between the community, city, developers, and design professionals to address sites more cohesively. I’ve grown more optimistic of the potential for more continuous public spaces in our city.

Do you have any tips for students who may be considering applying for a travel grant this year?
If there is something you’re passionate about exploring…put it in words and APPLY!

For more information on Saarinen’s research in London, read his report: Historical Preservation in the Age of Mass Development.

Visit the Current Students section of the Daniels Faculy's website for more information on the travel awards and how to apply.

Thanks to generous donations made by alumni and donors, Daniels Faculty students can apply for grants, fellowships, or scholarships to fund travel and research at sites of interest both within Canada and abroad. The application deadline for this year is March 2.

We’ve asked students who received travel awards last year to share their experiences with us. Yesterday we heard from Saarinen Balagengatharadilak. Today, we hear from Master of Architecture student Vanessa Abram, who spent a total of eight weeks conducting research in Detroit, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo with support from the Paul Oberman Graduate Student Endowment Fund.

What did you hope to learn during your time in Detroit, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo? 
I set out to learn histories of destruction and reconstruction within these cities from 1945 onward.

Why did you choose these cities for this research?
Each of these cities had an important role in wartime production during WWII and each has seen an impressive magnitude of erasure, destruction and material ruin since.

Tell us about something interesting that you discovered.
While in Hiroshima, I met with Mr. Toshikuni Nakagawa from the Municipal Archives where I was shown documentation prepared by Tange Kenzo for the design of 'Peace City Hiroshima' and Peace Park.  Along with this documentation, we went through a number of images that depicted the transformation of the site over the years following the atomic bombing. Tourist facilities and 'Peace Institutions' were among the first buildings to be erected out of the city's ashes. Public housing, as well as health and welfare institutions for both atomic bomb victims and others returning home from their countryside refuge, were to come much later (Tange, Peace City Hiroshima). Photographs of the annual Peace Ceremony held in Peace Park show temporary and precarious housing conditions in the background of many ceremonies, in some cases screened off by a curtain for privacy. Meanwhile, the American Cultural Center was also one of the first buildings to erect itself within the destroyed city. It was, in 1952, "a welcome sight — an oasis in the desert [... amidst] mountains of rubble" (Zqigenberg quoting Abol Fazl Fatouhi, 2004, 94).

How has this travel research opportunity enhanced your academic career?
The opportunity positioned my thesis within a more thorough research framework and historical awareness of my site and thesis topic. It led to me producing a book in conjunction with my thesis that broadened my interests in the subject and enriched the discussion around the architectural project.

How will this research inform your future work?
The research expanded my understanding of the profession beyond traditional limits of architecture to think of construction and destruction as dependent processes; Detroit's expansion, for example, as being a result of it's inner city demolition, or Hiroshima's annihilation as paving the way for opportunistic planning. The project changed the way I was viewing the limits and influence of architecture and design and also exposed me to alternative readings of history. In addition to this broadening of perspective, the research skills I acquired throughout my travel experience will impact my ability to contextualize and frame future projects.

Do you have any tips for students who may be considering applying for a travel grant this year?
Travel grants are a great opportunity to connect with architectural institutions, research groups, and offices across the globe. Take advantage of the experience to learn through local organizations, businesses, and individuals who know the place best!

For more information on Vanessa’s research in Detroit, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo, read her report: The Destruction of Two Cities

Visit the Current Students section of the Daniels Faculy's website for more information on the travel awards and how to apply.