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.

The Potato Plan Collection, a new book edited by Mirjam Züger and Kees Christiaanse, both celebrates Patrick Abercrombie's 1943 colourful diagram of London's many districts and explores its "potential as an analytical tool for contemporary metropolitan territories."  Mark Sterling, director of the Daniels Faculty's Master of Urban Design program, contributed an essay to the book as well as drawings, including a "Potato Plan" of Toronto, which he prepared collaboratively with Sabrina Yuen (HBA, Architectural Studies, 2016).

From the Potato Plan Collection's press release:

Originally drawn in 1943 as part of the County of London Plan, Abercrombie’s ‘Social and Functional Analysis’ poetically illustrates the city as an agglomeration of distinct communities, clusters, and centralities. The Potato Plan Collection comprises 40 Potato Plans from all around the globe, each being a reinterpretation of the original by local architects, urban designers and scholars. As a whole, the collection offers a new perspective on the structure of regional configurations in the urban age.

The recent publication is one of a number of projects that has kept Sterling busy lately. In May, he hosted a delegation of 19 planning and urban design officials from Helsinki, Finland for a talk on the history and current state of urban design and planning policy in the City of Toronto. The group included the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, 12 members of the Finnish Parliament, and a number of members of the Helsinki City Executive Office. He also participated in a conference held in Milan in which he spoke via Skype about the Greater Toronto Area.

A Principal of Acronym Urban Design and Planning, Sterling is an award-winning architect, urban designer and professional planner. He is a leading thinker on new approaches to compact urban form and an innovator in exploring intelligent development scenarios through a variety of approaches to digital visualization. Visit the Daniels Faculty's 'people' page to learn more about Mark's professional activities and research.

New infrastructure has the power to transform the nation. That's the inspiration behind the CanInfra Ideas Contest, which challenges university students, academics, professionals, think tanks, and others to develop new infrastructure ideas for the 21st century.

The winners of this year's competition were announced on May 30th, and a team that included recent Daniels Faculty HBA, Architectural Studies graduates Ji Song Sun and Hasnain Raza Akbar took third place, with an award of $10,000.

The team's submission, "Taking the High Road," proposes highway lanes that can wirelessly charge the batteries of electric vehicles while they are driving. This new infrastructure would help encourage the uptake of zero-emission vehicles on Canadian roads — one of the Government of Canada's goals. The team's design also includes rotating solar panels and wind turbines that would generate electricity from the sun and from wind turbulence created by the traffic.

"As an architectural designer, it was my great pleasure and honor to serve the team for the past several months by helping them visualize the ideas through 3D rhino models, renderings, diagrams, and physical models," said Sun, who participated in a number of architectural competitions throughout his undergraduate career will be joining the University of Calgary's Master of Architecture (Environmental Design) program this fall.

Akbar helped the team create cohesive visuals and focused on design elements of the highways as well as the over all infrastructure.

Other team members include, from U of T: Project Manager Jing Guo, who is currently pursuing a masters degree in applied science; Economic Consultant Benjamin Couillard, who holds a BA and MA in economics from the U of T; industrial engineering masters student Pavel Shmatnik, who led the group's research team, and life sciences graduate Thenvin Giridhar, who created animations. Aliyah Mohamed, a graduate of McMaster University, was the finance and feasibility lead; and Tashi Nanglo, who graduated from the University of Guelph, was the video director for the project.

Above: Team members for the project "Taking the High Road" pictured with Canada's Minister of Finance Bill Morneau

The CanInfra Ideas Contest was presented by The Boston Consulting Group in Canada and sponsored by Brookfield Asset Management, RBC, CIBC, Deloitte, Torys LLP, and media partner The Globe and Mail.

The winning team, "IceGrid: A Renewable Energy Microgrid for Nunavut," from Memorial University in St John's, proposed building "solar- and wind-powered micro power grids to replace dirty fuel-burning systems in rural communities. The IceGrid plan starts with a site in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and would scale to other rural communities across Canada's north."

For more information on the winning teams, visit the CanInfra Ideas Contest website.

What was the most memorable part of your Master of Urban Design degree?
Constantly being exposed to guest speakers and guest critiques provided great opportunities to hear varying experiences, receive advice, and get exposure to diverse perspectives. Becoming acquainted with these guests, who brought real-life experiences and projects, grounded the studio experience and brought extra realism to each project. This made learning and the design process collaborative, which was incredibly rewarding. 

What inspired your thesis topic?
My thesis was inspired by my life experiences and what I have learned as my time as a student and designer. I grew up in the area where my thesis is located and shopped at the very mall in which my project focuses on. Suburban developments, which are characterized by large areas of singular uses and personal vehicles, are no longer sustainable for the environment, or for the people who reside there. The prioritization of certain land uses and transportation modes has propagated this suburban sprawl. Refocusing suburban futures is necessary, and can be achieved by the intensification of existing community nodes, and synthesizing mixed densities, uses, and public transportation. These changes will encourage the suburbs to evolve to better address contemporary ideologies and quality of life. A suburban mall — in this case Markville Mall — has the capacity to become the connective tissue between transportation services and modes of mobility. By increasing the permeability of this site, and adapting it to better suite daily needs and activities, the suburban mall can evolve into a successful and thriving community node.

What advice would you give to a new student?
I would encourage new students to approach their studies with an eagerness to learn and an open mind to take advantage of every experience studying at Daniels will offer. There is something very inspiring about learning and exploring in an environment with peers and instructors with similar interests and goals. The opportunity to grow as a professional is limitless.

What are your plans after graduation?
I am very much looking forward to starting my career as an Urban Designer at IBI Group in Toronto.

::::::::::::::::::::::::

Convocation for #UofTDaniels students was on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

What was the most enjoyable or memorable part of your Master of Urban Design degree?
The one thing that I would always look forward to in our lectures were presentations from guest speakers who were invited in almost every course I took. More often than not, these presentations would focus on particular topics or geographies and completely make me rethink how we view and design urban relationships. I will certainly miss the supportive and extremely knowledgeable professors who have put me on a path to constantly widen my horizon.

What inspired your #thesis?
My thesis topic, Co-Creating the Urban Future, was inspired by an article that I came across while researching on my initial thesis topic of redeveloping the Mumbai Eastern Waterfront. The article discussed the plight of ~14,000 informal inhabitants staying on the waterfront without access to basic amenities and soon to be relocated (read: homeless). In the midst of my vacillation, I realized that informality is a global issue which has failed to garner as much attention as some of other #design challenges. The site in #India provided me the opportunity to delve deeper into the issue and possibly, propose a template which could be modified to local cultures and needs and used in other similar scenarios. I believe the final thesis is reflective of my learning at Daniels as it extensively explores the relationship of urban design to people, culture, and society.

What advice would you give to a new student?
I would recommend that they come with an open mind and actively engage and interact with and their peers and professors. This will provide an immense opportunity to appreciate and learn from different perspectives, thereby widening one’s own horizon. Daniels provides unique opportunities for learning that extends beyond regular classroom teaching.

What are your plans after graduation?
I am looking forward to working as an urban designer in Toronto and contributing to the growth of this beautiful city and Canada as a whole.

::::::::::::::::::::::::

Convocation for #UofTDaniels students is on June 14. This month we are featuring our graduates, including their work, their memories, and their advice for new students. Follow #DanielsGrad18 for more!

The University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design in partnership with The Pritzker Architecture Prize is honoured to welcome Professor Balkrishna Doshi, the 2018 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, to present the public lecture "Paths Uncharted" on Wednesday, May 16, 2018.

While registration is full for this event, there will be a rush line for non-ticket holders, and any unclaimed seats will be made available on a first-come, first served basis. Overflow spaces with some visibility into the hall will also be available. If you are a ticket holder, remember to arrive 10 minutes before the start of the event to claim your seat!

Professor Doshi’s lecture will also be recorded and streamed live on Facebook and Instagram via @UofTDaniels. Following the event, the recording will be made available on the Daniels Faculty’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/UofTDaniels.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Pritzker Prize, and the first time that the international award will be presented in Canada. Its purpose is to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

An architect, urban planner, and educator, for the past 70 years Doshi has been instrumental in shaping the discourse of architecture throughout India and internationally. Influenced by masters of 20th century architecture, including Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, Doshi has been able to interpret architecture and transform it into built works that respect eastern culture while enhancing the quality of living in India. His ethical and personal approach to architecture has touched lives of every socio-economic class across a broad spectrum of genres since the 1950s.

Doshi's architecture explores the relationships between fundamental needs of human life, connectivity to self and culture, and understanding of social traditions, within the context of a place and its environment, and through a response to Modernism. Childhood recollections, from the rhythms of the weather to the ringing of temple bells, inform his designs. He describes architecture as an extension of the body, and his ability to attentively address function while regarding climate, landscape, and urbanization is demonstrated through his choice of materials, overlapping spaces, and utilization of natural and harmonizing elements.

Image, top: Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (photo courtesy of VSF)