Daniels Faculty Lecturer Alex Josephson and his partners in PARTISANS, an architecture and design firm based in Toronto, have partnered with firms RWDI and Maffeis Engineering, as well as Sidewalk Labs, to help create a new “smart awning” design, an experimental new exterior application of EFTE which they hope will create more useable outdoor space in cities with varied climates. Designed through extensive modelling and examination of local weather data, this is the first project in Ontario to utilize EFTE, a material chosen for it’s portability and utility in creating unique forms. PARTISANS says that their deployable “building raincoat” could potentially help to reduce then impact of extreme climate and help create more useable outdoor space in less than ideal weather conditions.

These systems can be attached to existing building exteriors, helping to address the perennial weather problems that impact Toronto. These units are designed to be installed on the exteriors of building entrances, and aim to help create a more comfortable transition from indoor to outdoor space. EFTE as a material is completely recyclable and can be customized to incorporate different patterns that affect light and overall opacity, meaning that this system can be used in a range of different applications and environments.

Josephson, speaking with Sidewalk Talk, said that the team was able to utilize computer modeling throughout the process to  find the best approach. “This is real experimentation where the scientific method meets design,” Josephson said (via Sidewalk Talk).

PARTISANS further describes their prototype tensile structure project in their press release:

Even when the conditions are right to promote vibrant street life, the weather plays a big role in determining how much time people spend outdoors. And while the seasons drive the character of public life in Toronto—from summer days spent on patios, to fall farmer’s markets across the city—it is no secret that outdoor activity is concentrated to the six-month period from late April through October, when the weather is pleasant. For centuries, cities have used architecture to moderate the weather and keep public life active on the street. In the late 1800s, Toronto was filled with a maze of awnings that extended from storefronts and glass arcades to cover alleyways; and many streets throughout the city are still lined with the porched homes that were once a hallmark of Toronto’s residential design.

In Spring 2018, PARTISANS was tasked with helping Sidewalk Labs answer the following question: how does one design an outdoor public space that is comfortable for Torontonians year-round? Toronto is famous for our snowy winters and incredibly humid summers, with temperatures ranging across a 70°F differential throughout the year. While we traditionally think of extreme weather as native to desert, arctic, and ocean climates, Toronto—is located on the edge of Lake Ontario—is an environment where it is only comfortable to be outside for approximately 30% of the year. PARTISANS and RWDI closely studied the wind and solar conditions of Sidewalk Lab’s lakeside headquarters 307 to develop the optimal shape and material design to increase outdoor comfort. The result is a Raincoat that reinterprets Toronto’s formal tradition of awnings and porches through the contemporary lens of responsive weather mitigation.

The project is currently viewable at Sidewalk Lab’s lakeside headquarters 307. Read more about the building raincoat in Archpaper and Archdaily.

A group of interdisciplinary researchers from diverse faculties at the University of Toronto and other instutions have come together to launch 6Place Toronto, a new working group which seeks to examine the intersection of media and architecture in public space. 6Place Toronto was co-founded by Petros Babasikas (Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at Daniels Faculty), an architect and writer whose work focuses on connections among architecture, storytelling, media and public space. The project is being helmed through The Faculty of Information’s McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, and includes Assistant Professor Charles Stankievech, Associate Professor Jesse LeCavalier, and lecturer Mark Sterling from Daniels Faculty, as well as contributors from U of T’s School of Cities.

Over the next year, the group will be conducting series of six “investigations” into various aspects of Toronto’s urban space, offering a deeper understanding of how we interact with places such as the downtown waterfront or Etobicoke’s industrial parks. 6Place Toronto elaborates on their website:

From the Portlands to South Etobicoke, these are contested, iconic, dormant places, currently subject to major speculation and diverse visions for the city of the future. This project investigates urban history, networks, image, building stock, landscape, infrastructure, data and meta-data. Engaging faculty and students in Architecture, Urbanism, Information, Art History, Politics, Anthropology, Media and the Visual Arts, 6PTo’s methods of documentation and dissemination include mapping, lens- and drone-based imaging, drawing, stratography, archival and media research, walks, talks, workshops and seminars. Each of the six investigations is a pilot for an interdisciplinary, layered urbanism and civic broadcast, ultimately testing the potential of Public Space in the North American Metropolis.

One upcoming investigation, "Work/Inventory" is scheduled for March 29-30 and includes a talk by Jesse LeCavelier & Shawn Micallef, moderated by Mark Sterling, as well as a walk and workshop in South Etobicoke. Read more about the work of 6Place Toronto.

Images by:
Timothy Neesam
Mike Falkner
Dieter Janssen

On January 18 and 19, the Daniels Faculty, with support from U of T's School of Cities, convened a group of scholars, academics, and professionals for a  symposium that explored the politics of the smart city movement.

The two-day event allowed for a deep dive into some of the contemporary rhetorics, histories, and politics of the smart city phenomenon. The presentations included lively and thought-provoking discussions on what we actually mean when we talk about “smart cities,” the tensions that this concept or approach to city building creates, and the implications of “intelligent technologies” for architecture and urban design.

Above are some photos from the symposium. For those who weren't able to attend, the video feed of the lectures and presentations are available on our YouTube page.

Click here for the January 18 keynote lecture, featuring Michael Sorkin, Orit Halper, and Jesse Shapins

Click here to view the presentations and discussions that took place January 19

Click here to view more photos of this event

All photos by Yvonne Bambrick.

Speakers at the Urban IQ test symposium included:

Orit Halpern, Concordia University
Jesse LeCavalier, Daniels
Jesse Shapins, Sidewalk Labs
Michael Sorkin, Michael Sorkin Studio, City College, NYC
Richard Sommer, Daniels
Marshall Brown, Princeton, Director CAUI
David Benjamin, Columbia, The Living
Helen Ng, Global Cities Institute
Michael Piper, Daniels
Sarah Williams, MIT, Director, Civic Data Design Lab
Sara Stevens, UBC
David Smiley, Columbia
Shannon Mattern, The New School
Anthony Acciavatti, Yale & Columbia
Gökçe Günel, University of Arizona

Click here for the full Urban IQ Test schedule.

A pair of Daniels Faculty alumni recently received an honorable mention from Eleven Magazine’s “Shaking Up Havana’s Malecon” design competition.

The competition posed a unique challenge: to re-imagine Cuba’s iconic Malecon esplanade road, which runs alongside Havana for five miles, serving as both a key piece of traffic infrastructure and vital defense against flooding.

Participants were required to consider the following priorities in their proposals: “protection in the form of a renewed sea defence, engagement in the form of new cultural social spaces along the Malecon, and identity in the form of resurrecting an old icon back to life and defining a new beginning for Havana in the 21st century.”

Master of Landscape Architecture graduates Xiru Chen (MLA 2012) and Stella Yuan Lin (MLA 2014) received an honourable mention for their submission “Malecon Rhapsody”.

The team explains their innovative and naturalistic approach to the challenge in the project summary: The MALECÓN RHAPSODY addresses Havana’s vulnerability to coastal flooding with a protective ribbon along Malecón. The 8 km-long landscape infrastructure incorporates public space with the storm and wave surge defense systems. This also creates architectural elements, amenities, energy generation stations, and food production hubs that provide the locally needed cultural, recreational, and socio-economic benefits.

Xiru Chen says that their interest in the project resulted from a meaningful trip to visit Cuba. “We were both fascinated by the colorful landscape, passionate culture and complex history of Cuba,” she explains. “The scope of the competition, to create a renewed sea defence, and act as new cultural social spaces, is also very attractive to us.”

She further explains that the process of working on the project helped them to recall the broader thinking learned during their time at Daniels. “This process reminded us of the days when we spent late nights in school working on studio projects,” says Chen. “We both graduated years ago, and the fast pace of real practices rarely allows for deep design thinking. Working on the competition has reminded us of the essentiality of critical thinking in the design process. This award encourages us to remain curious and keep learning.”

Last week, graduate students in the Architecture and Urban Design programs at the Daniels Faculty got a chance to connect with principals and professionals from the architecture and design community, who generously volunteered to share their insight and advice.

With 32 professionals and alumni attending the event, students had an opportunity to share their concerns, ask questions, and receive valuable tips on how to advance their studies and skills to land on their desired career path.
 
“I was really worried about the future and what to expect after graduation,” said Master of Architecture Student Zoha Nekouian. “I asked what firms expect from students and the answers were really relieving.”
 
Students who attended the event agreed that it was a positive and helpful experience.
 
In his conversation with Alex Josephson, Master of Urban Design student Saif Malhas learned that there is no perfect candidate and that your skills will always have room to grow.
 
Master of Architecture student, Weixin Zhao, who is completing her thesis this year, learned to not be afraid of approaching the designers themselves and applying to them directly when looking for jobs. 
 
The one-on-one conversations provided the students with a more in-depth and direct exchange of knowledge and guidance.
 
 "It was nice to have people show interest in what you wanted to do and keep the conversation going," said Master of Architecture student Sky Ece Ulosoy.
 
The Daniels Faculty would like to extend its gratitude to all the professionals, most of whom are alumni, who participated in this event with our students.

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is pleased to announce its 2018/2019 public lecture series: Home and Away.

The Faculty’s stunning 400-seat multichromatic Main Hall in the heart of the Daniels Building is now open. To inaugurate our first full year of public programming in this space, we are bringing together talent and ideas from near and far for a series of discussions and debates on design issues of global importance.

Engaging broad, timely topics — including the Anthropocene, smart cities, the political functions of art and architecture, and new equations of technology and craft — this year’s speaker series connects the wealth of expertise within the Daniels Faculty community with an international, multidisciplinary network of designers, scholars, artists, and curators. As depicted in the Faculty’s lecture series poster, each set of Home and Away speakers are represented by different “game flags,” highlighting the Faculty’s role as an arena for debate and the exchange of ideas on how architecture, landscape, art, and urbanism can effect meaningful change in society today.

Featured speakers include Toronto filmmaker and MacArthur fellow, Jennifer Baichwal and landscape architect Kate Orff (who will be presenting the Jeffrey Cook Memorial Lecture); Daniels Faculty Professor Brigitte Shim and London-based architect Alison Brooks; artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Krzysztof Wodiczko; and Mauricio Pezo and Sofía von Ellrichshausen of the Chile-based art and architecture studio Pezo Von Ellrichshausen.

New faculty member, Associate Professor Jesse LeCavalier will join Dean Richard Sommer, Director of the Public Realm for Sidewalk Labs Jesse Shapins, renowned critic Michael Sorkin, and others in a debate about meaning, implications, and rhetoric surrounding the “smart city” movement — a keynote panel that’s part of the two-day symposium: URBAN IQ TEST.

The Daniels Faculty continues its collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) with a joint presentation of University of Toronto philosophy Professor Mark Kingwell and Princeton University history and theory of architecture Professor Sylvia Lavin, exploring themes raised by the CCA Exhibition: Architecture Itself and Other Postmodernist Myths. We will also be co-presenting a public film screening of the Islands and Villages documentary series, which explores the transformation of architecture in rural Japan. Introduced by CCA c/o Tokyo Curator Kayoko Ota, the documentaries feature Atelier Bow-Wow, Kazuyo Sejima, Toyo Ito, dot architects, and Hajime Ishikawa.

This year’s George Baird Lecture features Chief Planning and Development Officer at Metrolinx Leslie Woo. Associate Professor Georges Farhat and author of Earthworks and Beyond John Beardsley will present the Michael Hough / Ontario Association of Landscape Architects Visiting Critic lecture.

The Daniels Faculty’s Home and Away lecture series is free and open to all students, faculty, alumni, and members of the public. Online registration for each event is required.

Details for all public lectures can also be found on the Daniels Faculty’s website.

If you are an alumni of the Daniels Faculty and would like to receive a copy of the 2018/2019 events poster, please contact John Cowling at john.cowling@daniels.utoronto.ca.

HOME AND AWAY
2018/19 Daniels Faculty Events
1 Spadina Crescent
daniels.utoronto.ca

Oct. 25-26, 2018
WOOD AT WORK 2018
Symposium
Keynotes
Oct. 25: Michael Green, Vancouver
Oct. 26: John Patkau, Vancouver

Nov. 7, 2018
Mark Kingwell, Toronto
Sylvia Lavin, Princeton
A joint initiative with the CCA

Nov. 9, 2018
Film screening: Islands and Villages
With CCA c/o Tokyo Curator Kayoko Ota
A joint initiative with the CCA

Nov. 14, 2018
Leslie Woo, Toronto
George Baird Lecture

Nov. 21, 2018
Brigitte Shim, Toronto
Alison Brooks, London

Nov. 22, 2018
Shane Williamson, Toronto
Marc Simmons, New York

Jan. 15, 2019
Charles Stankievech, Toronto
Ville Kokkonen, Helsinki

Jan. 18-19, 2019
URBAN IQ TEST
Symposium
Keynote: Jan. 18, 2019
Jesse LeCavalier, Toronto / New York
Richard Sommer, Toronto
Jesse Shapins, Toronto
Michael Sorkin, New York

Jan. 22, 2019
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Montreal/Mexico City
Krzysztof Wodiczko, New York

Feb. 5, 2019
Jennifer Baichwal, Toronto
Kate Orff, New York
Jeffrey Cook Memorial Lecture

Feb. 26, 2019
Matthew Davis, Toronto
Barbara Bestor, Los Angeles

Mar. 19, 2019
Georges Farhat, Toronto
John Beardsley, Washington
Michael Hough / Ontario Association of Landscape Architects Visiting Critic

Apr. 16, 2019
Robert Levit, Toronto
Mauricio Pezo and Sofía von Ellrichshausen, Concepción

Apr. 26-27, 2019
NEW CIRCADIA
Symposium

For the second year in a row, a graduate studio from the Daniels Faculty has received ARCHITECT magazine's Studio Prize.

The Studio Prize "recognizes thoughtful, innovative, and ethical studio courses at accredited architecture schools" across Canada and the United States. The Daniels Faculty's Option Studio "Coding Flux: In Pursuit of Resilient Urbanism in South Florida" (LAN 3016) taught by Assistant Professors Fadi Masoud, who coordinated the course, and Elise Shelley is among this year's six winners.

Rayna Syed (standing at right) and Alexandra Lazervski (third from left) present their plans for a southern Florida county that faces flooding challenges, increasing water levels and salt water damage (photo by Harry Choi)

The award-winning studio challenged students to develop design solutions to address increased flooding from rising sea levels and intense storms, such as hurricanes, in South Florida — events that are becoming increasingly common to due climate change.

Writes ARCHITECT:

The responses, which the students presented to Broward County representatives who visited Toronto, ranged from a “freshwater credit” system that incentivizes residents to capture excess rainwater in cisterns on their property to a “flux” zoning code that changes as rising sea levels impact land-use patterns around the county. Yet another proposal considers the county’s western border, which abuts the Everglades wetlands, more as an inland “coast,” with recreational and tourism possibilities, and less as a site solely for real estate development, which might leave the area more vulnerable to sea level rise. Juror Jennifer Yoos, FAIA, lauded the students’ approach to “rethinking how these design processes should be done.”

This was the fourth time Masoud has led a hands-on, pragmatic studio focused on South Florida, and Broward County officials say it was the first time their office had worked with such a studio on planning ideas. They say they welcomed the outside insight, and have begun to incorporate some of the students’ ideas, like flux zoning, into their long-range planning.
 

U of T News covered the student's work in the studio last year, from the start of the term in September to final reviews.

Students who participated in the award-winning studio include: Chaoyi Cui, Marianne Lafontaine-Chicha, Meikang Li, Niloufar Makaremi, Leslie Norris, Natalie Schiabel, Qiwei Song, Zainab Al Rawi, Meng Bao, Chukun Chen, Mengqi Dai, Jessica Guinto, Tania Hlavenka, Joshua Kirk, Alexandra Lazaervski, Ning Lin, Aidan Loweth, Carlos Portillo, and Rayna Syed.

For more information, visit ARCHITECT's website.th Florida" recently received the Sloan Award, a Studio Prize from Architect magazine.

Image, top, by: Qiwei Song, Meikang Li, and Chaoyi Cui

This summer, a team of local Indigenous youth came together at both the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA)’s Bolton Camp to learn about design, filmmaking, and ecological conservation combined with traditional teachings of the land.
 
The inaugural program provided the youth with summer employment and an opportunity to contribute design ideas for the revitalization of the Bolton Camp, a 254-acre site 40 kilometres north of the city at the headwaters of the Humber River, which once provided a summer getaway for low income children.

The summer program grew out of a grant that Associate Professor Liat Margolis, director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Landscape Architecture program; Sessional Lecturer Sheila Boudreau, Senior Landscape Architect at TRCA; and Fred Martin of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto (NCCT) received this year to explore a participatory model that includes the voice of Indigenous youth in the development and design of green infrastructure.

The Bolton Camp presented an ideal opportunity to build on this initiative. TRCA purchased the property, which had long been abandoned, in 2011, with the goal of bringing it back to life as a cultural hub. ERA Architects and Levitt Goodman Architects are currently involved in the master planning of the site. Ideas developed and presented by the youth — Miles Dziedzic, Aron McVean, Ella Kelly, and Avery Hill — will help inform future planning.
 
The pilot initiative was collaboratively developed by the organizers — including Elder Whabagoon, the Daniels Faculty, the Great Lakes WaterworksWater Allies coordinated by Principal Bonnie McElhinny at the U of T's New College, TRCA, and the NCCT — and provided them with an opportunity to connect youth with Elders and knowledge keepers and expose them to new education and career paths in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, film, Indigenous studies, and environmental conservation.

The youth had the opportunity to meet regularly with Elder Whabagoon throughout the program. Daniels Faculty Master of Landscape Architecture student Aaron Hernandez and Master of Urban Design student Dalia Gebran worked closely with the highschool students to guide them through the steps involved in designing for buildings and landscapes. The program challenged thel students to plan a retrofit of two existing cabins and their surrounding landscape, and engage in storytelling through short films.

As TRCA interns, the students were introduced to a range of field work, including stream restoration, benthic and water quality testing, and bee surveying, organized by Lucia Piccinni, Senior Program Manager of Bolton Camp. A remarkable group of mentors (see list below) generously contributed to the program with guest lectures and design reviews, guided site visits to sustainable urban and landscape projects, a First Story tour, and field trips to Kayanase native nursery and the office of Two Row Architect at Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.

The youth compiled their individual ideas for the site into a single plan that included new trees, a bike path, a rain garden, an accessible boardwalk that leads to the water tower, a tipi and sweat lodge, and a turtle-shaped medicine garden surrounding a fire pit. Ideas for the cabins included a clever way of connecting interior space with the surrounding landscape to provide additional programmable area and gathering space, while preserving the heritage structure of the iconic cabins.

On August 16, the youth met at the Daniels Faculty to present their designs for the site, as well as short films they created about the project with the guidance of filmmaker, Jamie Whitecrow. Together with Elder Whabagoon, they also unveiled a name for the new program: Healing of a Flooded Valley, or Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag (Flooded Valley Healing) in Anishinaabemowin (Manitoulin dialect).

Pictured standing in the photo above (left to right): interns Miles Dziedzic, Aron McVean, Ella Kelly, and Avery Hill; Elder Whabagoon; Lucia Piccinni (Senior Program Manager, Bolton Camp), Sheila Boudreau, TRCA; Associate Professor Liat Margolis, filmmaker and artist Jamie Whitecrow; Aaron Hernandez, and Dalia Gebran.

Special thanks to supporting institutions and mentors: LACF, Dean Richard Sommer (Daniels Faculty), Dean Robert Wright (Faculty of Forestry), Principal Bonnie McElhinny, (New College), Cal Brook (Brook McIlroy), Doug Webber, Mark Palmer, Andrew Palmer (Greenland Consulting Engineers), Urban Watershed Group, Matthew Hickey (Two Row Architect), Terence Radford (Trophic Design), Danny Bartman, Joe Loreto  (Levitt Goodman Architects), Trina Moyen and Shak Gobert (Bell & Bernard), James Bird (UofT),  Kahentakeron Tyrone Deer (Kayanase Nursery), Michael Etherington, Yvonne Battista (DTAH), Heather Broadbent (Bolton Historical Society), Heather Campbell, Janice Quieta (ERA Architects), Emily Rondel, Christine Furtado, Amanda Yip, Kate Goodale, Jennifer Ouimette, Eric Bender, Elizabeth Wren, Colin Love, Chris Bialek, and Stephanie Perish (TRCA), Nick Reid (Ryerson Urban Water), David Atkinson (Ryerson), Alex Gill (Ryerson Social Ventures Zone), Kristina Hausmanis, Ruthanne Henry (City of Toronto), Marcia McVean (TDSB), Olivia Magalhaes, Marc Ryan (Public Work).

In Toronto, the waiting list for subsidized housing has surpassed 90,000. On this front, Canada's largest city is not unique — building new affordable homes is a challenge faced by municipalities around the world.

How can cities to create affordable housing that avoids many of the pitfalls of that past? Writer John Lorinc interviewed professionals in the field — including the Director of our Master of Urban Design program Mark Sterling and alumnus Drew Sinclair (March 2007) — to identify "six key design principles that should be considered if the next generation of social housing is to be successful." The article can be found in the September issue of Azure.

A principal at Acronym Urban Design and Planning, Sterling is an advisor on the Lawrence Heights project in Toronto. The 40.5 hectare complex operated by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation is one of the largest mixed-income projects in Canada. Plans include both subsidized and market units, which, Lorinc writes, will help prevent the type of isolation common to social housing built in the past. Visit KPMB's website to view its designs, with Page + Steele IBI Group, for the first phase of the project. KPMB is the firm of Bruce Kuwabara, BArch 1972; Marianne McKenna; and Shirley Blumberg, BArch 1976.

Flexibility is also a key to the success of new affordable housing projects. "Many traditional affordable-housing complexes were highly inflexible, both in terms of design and with the restrictions imposed on the uses of open space at their bases," writes Lorinc. He points to a proposed project in Hamilton by OFFICEArchitecture with SvN Architects and Planners aims to change that.
 

Drew Sinclair SvN's managing principal, says the idea is to allow owners to purchase "lots" or "bays" and assemble apartments of varying sizes (studio to three-bedroom) rather than limit residents to a series of pre-configured floor plans. In addition, the building will be constructed with modular walls and concrete columns instead of sheer walls, enabling owners to add to or subdivide their units as their life circumstances change. The modularity gives households making as little as $25,000 a year the opportunity to buy in.
 

Pick up the most recent copy of Azure to read the full article. Its September issue focuses on urbanism and asks "what makes a city livable and inclusive for all?"

Image, top: Lawrence Heights redevelopment project rendering by KPMB, the firm of Bruce Kuwabara, BArch 1972; Marianne McKenna; and Shirley Blumberg, BArch 1976.