The Daniels Faculty is thrilled to participate in EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation and Technology, which opens at East Harbour (formerly the Unilever soap factory) at 21 Don roadway in Toronto’s Port Lands this Thursday, September 28.

Inspired by the United Nations Development Programme’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the 10-day expo, produced by the Design Exchange, will explore the future of architecture and city-building through a variety of participatory programming, talks, and experiences.

Intended to spark discussion and debate about how we understand and envision the city as it prepares for ensuring growth, the Daniels submission to EDIT entitled, Where is the big picture, Toronto?, is a large, detailed 25-foot-long “fun-house mirror” of a future Toronto looking south to the lake from Steeles Avenue. Produced by a team of faculty and students, it asks how we might best capture the experience and future hopes of the city’s heterogeneous citizenry.

From the project description:

What picture of Toronto do those who imagine its future hold in their mind’s eye?

One would think that in the age of Google Earth and Big Data, there would be some big pictures that might help more people see, or begin to understand, a vision of their city beyond the specific lens of their own experience or self-interest — pictures that might place the parts of the city we believe are important within a more complex whole, pictures that might illuminate where individual decisions and actions are taking us, so that we might begin to imagine how to achieve something better.

A great city, like a great book, painting, or piece of music must be constructed. At the Daniels Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design we consider the city from many angles. Ultimately, we believe there should be competing pictures of our urban future, pictures that can inspire vision and stimulate meaningful debate. The image we have constructed is a work-in-progress, a fun-house mirror of a future the city is already building. This is the first in a series of picture/provocations our school will produce aimed at asking:

What’s missing?

WHERE IS THE BIG PICTURE, TORONTO?

Stayed tuned…

EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation and Technology runs from September 28 to October 8. The 10-day expo includes 150,000-square-feet of exhibition space and 100 speakers in an abandoned factory. Visit http://editdx.org for more details.

In 2016, Ontario landscape and industrial design students were challenged to redesign the exterior space at Artscape Youngplace, a popular community cultural hub in Toronto. The competition, organized by the Ontario Tire Stewardship (OTS), asks participants to find new life for old tires, and has taken place in different locations since 2011. It’s a project that Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Elise Shelley has been working with the OTS over the past six years to help organize.

Daniels Faculty students, who have since become alumni — Tom Kwok, Leonard Flot and Andrey Chernykh — won the landscape design portion of last year’s competition and were on hand on September 19 to celebrate the realized design. The project features new durable paving surfaces, improved site furnishings, and a series of spaces using poured rubber in a way never before seen in Canada: they are surfaced specifically for chalk drawing, informal and performance art, extending the artistic mandate of Artscape into their new outside space.

Joining the students from the winning design teams were Councillor Mike Layton; LoriAnn Girvan, Artscape COO; Andrea Nemtin, Inspirit Foundation President & CEO; and Artscape Youngplace tenants and community members.

Interesting in seeing the newly designed outdoor space for yourself? Visit Artscape Youngplace at 180 Shaw Street in Toronto’s West Queen West neighbourhood near the intersection of Queen and Ossington.

Photo, top: by Andrew Miller/Awesome Photography

This summer, a group of students worked together to tackle issues of sustainable and affordable housing through straw bale design. Master of Architecture student Sarah Hasan writes about the first project undertaken by the new University of Toronto student group: Future-Living Lab.
 
Future-Living Lab consists of architecture students at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design; U of T’s Department of Civil Engineering; and Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science.
 
Earlier this year, the students set off to design a 1000 square feet home in Callander, Ontario. The design brief provided by their client called for affordability, ease of construction, and sustainability within the home’s environmental context. The students researched and consulted with multiple design and engineering firms before settling on a Structurally Insulated Panel (SIP) system that uses straw bale as the main insulation material.
 
In August, the group acquired building permits and held a build workshop where interested students gathered and assembled the SIP’s. This process consisted of layering clay and straw bale in specific proportions within pre-fabricated wooden formwork. In the upcoming weeks, the panels will be lifted up into position to form the house walls.
 
The Future-Living Lab aims to continue fostering collaboration among students from different disciplines for a common goal. Going forward, the group also hopes to have an influence on the future of dwelling through ongoing research and design projects.
 
You can view their website at: Futurelivinglab.ca
 

Congratulations to Associate Professor Alissa North and students from the 2016 Option Studio: Ravine Re-Create. The studio (LAN 3016) has received the 2017 Sloan Award, also known as ARCHITECT Magazine's Studio Prize.

The ARCHITECT Studio Prize recognizes thoughtful, innovative, and ethical studio courses at accredited architecture schools. Ravine Re-Create was a cross-disciplinary studio in landscape architecture, urban design, and architecture that explored how “rivers and ravines could be repositioned as living and dynamic systems within a city.” Working with the City of Toronto, Evergreen Brick Works, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), students in the studio envisioned and developed innovative design ideas to inspire targeted catalytic solutions of change.

Writes Nate Berg for ARCHITECT magazine:

The Don River and the Humber River weave through the heart of downtown Toronto, but they’re often regarded as separate from the urban life of the city. Associate professor of landscape architecture Alissa North has studied rivers for years, and she argues these two in particular are more than just visual assets. The city government has developed a draft strategy for how to address the rivers and the surrounding ravines. Students worked with the city to build on that plan and develop design ideas for implementing it.

Through mapping, hydrogeological studies, and digital and physical modeling, the students analyzed the rivers as systems, and considered the environmental, social, infrastructural, and economic roles the two waterways could play in broader civic life.

Visit ARCHITECT’s website to read more about the award-winning studio, including projects by Andrew Hooke, Kangning Zhao, and Hannah Soules.

And congratulations to all of the students who participated in the studio:

Andrew Hooke, Rachel Salmela, Tianjiao Yan, Zhoufan Wan, Yuan Zhuang, Anna Varga-Papp, Stephen Brophy, Asuka Kono, Leonard Flot, Kangning Zhao, Kamila Grigo, Christina Boyer, Hannah Soules, Xinyu Hao

Stay tuned: more images from the studio will be posted soon!

Image, Top by Andrew Hooke

Two recent Master of Landscape Architecture graduates from the Daniels Faculty — Zhuofan Wan and Tianjiao Yan — received Honor Awards in the Analysis and Planning Category from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). A total of 28 winners were selected from 295 entries, representing 52 schools around the world.

Zhufan Wan’s project, Desert River Water Conservation, looked at the conservation of water in desert rivers. Tarim River, in China’s Taklamakan Desert, which has "only 50mm precipitation/year, but 2000mm evaporation/year ” was the site of her project. She investigated “water-balance and water-saving strategies to restore the degraded desert river, by balancing the desert river’s resilience and humans’ water demand.”  Associate Professor Robert Wright was her adviser.

“The environmental sensitivity is impressive,” said the 2017 Awards Jury of her work. “It’s very, very responsive to its setting in a really harsh climate.”

View Wan’s full project description here.

TianJiao Yan’s project, Reviving the 30 Meters, confronts the negative effects of China’s Three Gorges Dam. Writes Yan, “The construction of the hydroelectric station has displaced over 1.24 million residents and led to immense ecological degradation.”

Using Yunyang City as a testing ground, Yan’s project seeks to “transform the negative human disturbance into opportunities for ecological productivity and economic development that are both synergetic and resilient.” Assistant Professor Justine Holzman was her advisor.

The 2017 Awards Jury called Reviving the 30 Meters “A really strong project from analysis level through the planning down to site-specific proposals.”

View Yan's full project description here.

Wan and Yan, and other winners, will receive their awards at the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Los Angeles on Monday, October 23, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The September issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM) features the winning projects and is available for free viewing here.

Images (top & bottom) by Tianjiao Yan; Image (middle) by Zhuofan Wan

Updated: March 17, 2022

In order to minimize uncertainty and disruption to students, staff, faculty and university communities, U of T will maintain COVID-19 vaccination and masking policies until at least the end of the current term.

Resources for all Daniels community members

All members of the Daniels community should familiarize themselves with the following resources before coming to campus.

Building hours (all times listed below are Eastern Time)

The Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent is open during regular business hours between Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and is accessible by fob 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Office of the Registrar and Student Services

Virtual support

Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

In-person support

Monday to Friday, 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Wednesdays 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Workshop

The workshop is open Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The assembly room is fob accessible after-hours.

Digital Fabrication Lab

Monday to Friday, 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Eberhard Zeidler Library

Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Friday, 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. - 5 p.m

IT Help Desk

In-person support is available Monday to Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

To receive assistance from IT staff, one must first create a ticket. Tickets are tracked to ensure your questions are answered in a timely manner, and to monitor ongoing issues so that we can continue to improve our service.

North and South Borden

The Borden Buildings are open during regular business hours Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, and are accessible by fob 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Earth Sciences Building

The Earth Sciences Building will be open during regular business hours Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is accessible by fob 24 hours, 7 days a week with fob access after-hours.

UTogether

UTogether is the main resource for the latest updates and FAQs from the University of Toronto: utoronto.ca/utogether.

UCheck

All members of our community who enter U of T campuses this winter must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and will be required to upload proof of vaccination via UCheck. UCheck must be completed every day, before arriving on campus.

Daniels Faculty COVID-19 FAQs

The Daniels Faculty will continue to update and add new answers to FAQs as the term progresses: Daniels Faculty COVID-19 FAQs.

Current Students

If you are a current student with an urgent need, please contact the Office of the Registrar and Student Services (ORSS): registrar@daniels.utoronto.ca.

COVID-19 Updates for Students

Resources

COVID-19 Updates for Students

Mental Health HUB – student mental health resource
NAVI – Your Mental Health Wayfinder
Good 2 Talk Student Helpline 1-866-925-5454 – professional counselling, information and referrals for mental health, addictions and well-being.
My SSP for U of T Students (support available 24/7) 1-844-451-9700 – immediate counselling support is available in 35 languages and ongoing support in 146 languages
St. George, Health and Wellness Centre

Faculty and Staff

Daniels faculty, librarians, and staff should be in conversation with their supervisor to confirm plans for winter 2022. Please reference UTogether’s Resources for faculty, librarians, and staff for answers to FAQs and the HR & Equity COVID-19 Main page.

Special Note

The Province and the University will continue to monitor the public health situation and its potential impact on Provincial and University health related policy. Changes will likely occur as the province and its municipalities adjust to new data about the virus. Under these circumstances, please be advised that changes to the delivery of courses, co-curricular opportunities, programs (including clinical programs or opportunities) and services may become necessary during the academic year. The University thanks its students, faculty and staff for their flexibility during these challenging times as we work together to maintain the standards of excellence that are the hallmark of the Daniels Faculty and the University.

Banner image: A mural by Nipissing First Nation artist Que Rock adorns the north facade of the Daniels Faculty at 1 Spadina Crescent. (Photo by: Harry Choi)

The presidents of Toronto’s four universities – the University of Toronto, OCAD University, York University and Ryerson University – have teamed up for a new initiative called StudentDwellTO to tackle one of the biggest issues facing post-secondary students in the Greater Toronto area: affordable housing.

The initiative brings together nearly 100 faculty and students from the four universities to take an in-depth look at student housing in the GTA. The Daniels Faculty is thrilled to have faculty and students participating in this project.

This follows a previous collaboration between the four universities: a massive survey of student travel behaviour, called StudentMoveTO, which revealed that long daily commutes for students – many of whom live far away where housing is more affordable – were leading to lower campus engagement and in some cases limiting students’ class choices.

StudentMoveTO and StudentDwellTO are parts of an initiative by the presidents of the four universities aimed at improving the state of the city-region – and, in turn, the experiences for university students in the GTA.

“This is another example of how the impact of our collective efforts can be far greater than the sum of individual contributions,” says Professor Shauna Brail, U of T’s presidential adviser on urban engagement and director of the urban studies program.

Given the number of post-secondary students in the GTA – more than 180,000 spread across the four universities alone – studying the basic issues facing our students as they live in and navigate the city is critical, says Brail, who will be U of T’s representative for StudentDwellTO’s steering committee.

StudentDwellTO will look at housing affordability from a range of perspectives, bringing together disciplines including architecture, art, education, engineering, environmental studies and design, geography, psychology, real estate management and urban development and planning.

The two-year initiative will have heavy research and advocacy components, and the researchers will collect data using a variety of research methods that include:

• wide-scale focus groups and accompanying surveys to draw out narratives surrounding students’ lived experiences,
• interactive website and community arts programming and communication tools, and
• interactive maps to develop affordable housing strategies.

The subject matter will also be incorporated into experiential learning courses, across all four universities and various disciplines, to propose and test solutions to the student housing experience and crisis.

Along the way, researchers will collaborate with government, non-profit, private sector and community partners in the GTA.  Each university will hold public events, including affordable housing charrettes, to get a wide range of input on solutions.

Image, top: by Suhaib Arnaoot, from his Master of Architectrure thesis titled Responsive Social Housing

By Josie Northern Harrison, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Shift Magazine

On August 19, the Shift Magazine launched its sixth edition titled SHIFT06. The theme for the issue explored social issues around art and architecture produced within and about Toronto (otherwise nicknamed "The 6"). The issue was conceived as an assessment of Toronto, documenting some of its good sides and bad sides. To start, Phat Le and I each wrote short letters to Toronto in lieu of the traditional Letter from the Editors.

“I’m here to let you know, how thankful I am for you [Toronto],” writes Phat Le. “You opened your doors for both my parents during the Vietnam War, and allowed them to create a safe space for my sister and I to live.”

The issue is organized into two sections (the good and the bad). For “the good” section, the articles considered topics like the city’s monuments, Drake’s album cover, quirky city flâneurs, and the haunting bells of the TTC subway. Monique Lizardo took Drake from his original Views cover album (depicting him sitting on the CN Tower) and resized his figure to scale (shown below). Emily Suchy wrote an article arguing that monuments can be subjective and unintentional, which was supported by an illustrated map of the Shift team’s personal monuments in Toronto.

A Visual Analysis of Drake, Human Scales, and the Question of the “Views” Album Cover, 2016,  by Monique Lizardo.

Toronto is an amazing city, but it does have flaws, so we felt it was necessary to vent our frustration about Toronto’s shortcomings in the second half of SHIFT06. Eddy O’ Toole compiled a collection of messages to illustrate the longing and struggle someone might experience when studying in a new city. Irina Rouby Apelbaum created a series of sketches about 665-669 Spadina Ave — the former undergraduate studio space — to capture the stressful and quirky home that we’ve left. Najia Fatima sketched a series of vignettes illustrating the dilemmas she encountered when touring her Muslim mother around Toronto.

Similar to SHIFT04, this issue was printed using the risograph method, which reduces the cost of printing by only printing with one colour at a time instead of the CMYK and similar processes which combine colours to achieve a specific hue. However, we differed this print by using gold ink on 80lb vellum paper with a saddle-stitched bind (instead of red and blue on a lightweight paper). By using a thicker paper, we maintained the publication’s lo-fi aesthetic, but created an object that feels more substantial.

As a goodbye to the former undergraduate studio space, SHIFT06 was officially launched on August 19 with a very successful send-off event at 665-669 Spadina Avenue that featured local bands Luna Li, The Ferns, Tange, Lover's Touch, and Westelaken. If you couldn’t make it out to the event, you will still have opportunities to pick up a copy at Clubs Fair on Wednesday, September 6, or you can send a message to uoftshiftmag@gmail.com or Shift’s Facebook page and arrange a time to meet. If you’re interested in joining the 2017-2018 Shift Team, send an email introducing yourself and your interests to uoftshiftmag@gmail.com.

Contributors to SHIFT06:
Monique Lizardo
Emily Suchy
Eugenia Wong
Chester Coxwell
Eddy O'Toole
Irina Rouby Apelbaum
Josie Northern
Najia Fatima
Phat Le
Benjamin de Boer

Shift Editorial Team:
Phat Le, Co-Editor-In-Chief 
Josie Northern, Co-Editor-In-Chief
Emily Suchy, Senior Publication Editor 
Chaya Bhardwaj, Publication Editor 
Najia Fatima, Publication Editor 
Ceylin Oz, Publication Editor 
Sonia Sobrino Ralston, Blog Writer 
Alexandra Spalding, Blog Writer
Regina Arcia-Martinez, Illustrator 
Jess Camarda, Illustrator
Eddy O’Toole, Layout Designer 
Eugenia Wong, Layout Designer 
Monique Perez Lizardo, Social Media 
Gianina Ann Ramos, Social Media 
Jasper Choi, Digital Manager 
Lillie Wang, Web Designer

Earlier this year, Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Studies student Jan Doroteo was awarded first prize for the Berkeley Essay Competition — an endowment established by the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Winning the Berkeley Prize has given me a sense of agency to investigate architecture that I find inclusive and considerate, and the confidence to determine what I value as 'good' architecture,” says Doroteo about winning the prize. “In my future career, I hope to practice architecture through words, writing, analysis, and exploration.”

The essay, titled “The Little Pinoy Sari-Sari Store: Of Otherness and Belonging in a Global Diaspora,” explores the importance of small convenience stores in the Philippines and more specifically in Filipino ethnoburbs in Toronto.

From Doroteo's essay abstract on the Berkeley Essay Competition website:

“[Sari-Sari Stores] are numerous, found in many cities worldwide, and aesthetically unexceptional. Yet I've come to declare these stores as a legitimate, if not symbolic and rhetorically impactful, architectural type with a program that isn’t just commerce. They are significant as safe-spaces of ‘otherness.’ They allow Filipinos to exercise their ethnic identity in the complicated and contradictory way that it functions as neo-colonial subjects.”

Since 1999, the Berkeley Essay Prize has asked questions critical to the discussion of the social art of architecture. This year, a total amount of $25,000 USD was spread out among one First Prize, one Second Prize, one Third Prize, and one Fourth Prize Winner, and two Honorable Mentions. Semifinalists for the Prize are invited to submit proposals for funding to travel to an architecturally-significant destination of their choosing to participate in a hands-on service-oriented situation.

Visit the Berkeley Prize Essay Competition website to read Doroteo's essay.

When Isaac Seah started his Honours Bachelors of Arts degree, Architectural Studies at U of T in 2015, his goal was to land a summer job at an architecture firm by third year. This summer, his goal became reality when he was offered a placement at Perkins+Will. During his first two years at U of T, Seah held positions at the GRIT Lab, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery, The Varsity, and Shift Magazine. He also co-founded a start-up called Placey — a virtual reality visualization tool for architecture. Each of these positions provided an opportunity for him to use his skills in design and computer science, topics he enthusiastically writes about for his personal blog on LinkedIn. Honours Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies student Josie Northern Harrison (HBA 2017) met up with Seah to chat about his summer job at Perkins+Will, the value of extracurricular activities, and the benefits of creating a start-up.

Tell me about your summer job at Perkins+Will.
My summer internship encompasses a lot of different aspects of architecture; it’s a way for undergraduate students to explore the design industry in general. I’ve been involved in designing a donor wall (a wall that recognizes donors and alumni), and I’ve helped with feasibility studies for higher education buildings. For these studies, I mapped out the spaces for programs in a building to figure out what activities we could fit into a certain space. For example, sometimes I analyze how many labs can fit onto the third floor of a building. We go through multiple explorations based on the programmatic requirements that the client gives us. The exercise is very similar to one of the second year architecture studio courses, but this project is much more technical in the sense that we have to follow code requirements and the structure of a building. For the studio course, we were asked to design a study space that reflected the architectural qualities of the Goldring Centre and Robarts Library. From there, we identified the programs we could fit onto the site, and we were given height requirements, as well as different site conditions that we had to respect.

What inspired you to apply for a summer job at Perkins+Will and how did you go about it?
I was offered my summer position at Perkins+Will because of my start-up called Placey, which I created with Amin Azad and Freddy Zheng. Placey is a virtual reality visualization tool for architecture. To develop our start-up, we participated in the U of T Entrepreneurship Hatchery program last summer. The program allows students to spend a summer developing a product, and if it’s good enough then you are allowed to present your idea to potential investors. We developed a prototype, and went through a series of exercises to identify who our target market would be. We eventually found that our potential clientele could be architecture firms.

We went through 16 weeks of pitch presentations. Every two to three weeks, we would pitch our idea to seasoned entrepreneurs, professors, and other people well-versed in pitching strategies. As we pitched to more people, we became more relaxed and more organic in our presentation. There were several firms interested in listening to our pitch, and Perkins+Will was one of the companies interested in collaborating with Placey. After we presented, the representative from Perkins+Will asked me to send in my resume to be considered for the co-op placement.

Out of all the firms that I researched, Perkins+Will offered a developed research environment. They are highly involved in technological pursuits and research which they publish in their own journal. For example, they often collaborate with Autodesk and create computational tools like space plan generators. My minor in computer science allows me to better appreciate these research efforts. Perkins+Will has that vision and direction of innovation. They serve as practitioners of the architecture field, but try to innovate and bring in people from computer science, materials engineering, and other fields as well. That was something that I got really excited about because it offers an opportunity to imagine practicing as an architect while keeping an active interest in research.

You’ve worked with the GRIT Lab, The Varsity, and Shift Magazine. Did these positions help you with what you’re working on now and maybe what you want to work on in the future?
For Shift I was a Website Designer; for GRIT Lab I helped develop the Performance Index; and for The Varsity I was a Website Developer. There are many different types of architects; for example, you could emphasize the arts aspect, or you could emphasize the technology and optimization aspect like Norman Foster. My involvement with different groups at U of T allowed me to have a taste from these different perspectives. The experience at the Entrepreneurship Hatchery was eye-opening because it helped me understand the potential for computer science, and how helpful programming is to every single field of study. Shift Magazine was my entry into understanding the community at the Daniels Faculty, and how we could perceive architecture through an arts and humanities lens. With the GRIT Lab, I explored the technology perspective: how we assess the performance of green roofs and what kind of tools we can develop to explain this information to the industry. The Varsity pushed that thinking a little further, but it was less about architecture and more about the graphic design, and it was a campus-wide organization, which exposed me to some aspects of organizational thinking.

What advice do you have for Daniels students?
I would highly recommend the Entrepreneurship Hatchery program to anyone who has a chance to do it. The Hatchery experience helped me to adopt a more systematic way of thinking, defined my public speaking skills, and exposed me to the business mindset that explores the value of a product. It’s especially effective for architecture students because we are essentially in a service industry: we have to respect our client’s wishes while convincing them to choose the wisest option without too much pressure.

For the first-year students, I would encourage them to explore the diverse and established ecosystem of research going on at U of T. Those research avenues are places where you can learn about ideas relevant to architecture. If you’re willing to be exposed to these topics early on in your education then you’ll be in a very good position to realize that architecture is more than just drawing a section or a perspective. Architecture can become very exciting when we think about how we can integrate different fields like computer science, engineering, biology, and visual studies. My advice is to go to other faculties and explore the different majors and minors that the school offers.