“It is commendable when a design student tackles a tough building typology, and exceptional when the author discovers real invention within that typology. The developer-driven world of mid-rise residential housing requires just such invention and new thinking.”

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.

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

Architects and urban planners have been working with residents of high rise towers built in the 1960s and 1970s in Toronto to determine how to bring life and much needed neighbourhood amenities to the empty parking lots and unused green spaces at their base.

One of the results — after a decade of research and community outreach (h/t Graeme Stewart, MArch 2007) — is a new approach to zoning dubbed Residential Apartment Commercial (RAC) — which would allow for farmers markets, restaurants, small businesses, and artist spaces, among other uses that were previously not permitted. The goal is to increase the livability of the neighbourhoods — creating places where neighbours can easily walk, meet, interact, find employment, and build community.

According to Globe and Mail architecture critic, Alex Bozikovic, “The idea is that the spaces between the towers, which belong to no one in particular, will no longer be vacant and arid.”

What would these new spaces look like? To find out, Bozikovic took a stroll around some 1970s apartment blocks in Mississauga with Associate Professor Michael Piper. An architect and urban designer, Piper has been studying the design of tower neighbourhoods with his students from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Writes Bozikovic:

We parked my car in the lot of one 28-storey white-brick tower to check out the commercial offerings – a hair salon, a convenience store – which seemed to be doing fine; in Mississauga, unlike in Toronto, they're allowed by city bylaws. Nearby, a flying-saucer-shaped medical building perched between driveways and bent pines. It was nobody's idea of a shopping paradise, but it seemed to work. "This is the sort of precedent we need to be looking towards," Piper said.

But when we tried to visit the building next door, there was no walkway – and the driveways, just a stone's throw apart, didn't connect either. This sort of dysfunctional site planning is typical. "While these buildings, in their design … aspire to have a big public space that's open to everyone, these sites are chopped up into small pieces," Piper explained. Combining driveways and parking lots makes a lot of sense, but good luck bringing together different landlords or condo boards to make it happen.

Piper warned that simply applying urban design ideas typical to downtown Toronto would not likely be successful.

"These sites are very resistant to the current formulas," he told Bozikovic. "Rather than resort to the city-centre type of urban form, we should seek to create liveable spaces that suit the people who live there rather than enforce an outside vision on them."

Visit the Globe and Mail’s website to read the full article.

Photo, top: by Jesse Colin Jackson (MArch, 2009). Jackson's Radiant City series focused on Toronto’s tower apartment neighborhoods.

Associate Professor An Te Liu is working with Daniels Alumus Graeme Stewart (MArch 2007) to brighten up Kensington Market.

Writes Dave LeBlanc for the Globe and Mail:

What do you get when you mix the following? An architect with a particular interest in “tower renewal” – the science of reskinning 1950s-1970s buildings to be more energy efficient – who also works at one of the city’s top heritage firms; a world-class sculptor who has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Shanghai, Los Angeles and New York; a condominium board filled with artists, educators, architects, engineers, writers and other creative types; and a wall that didn’t exactly look good after some much-needed structural repairs.

You get a new gateway to Kensington Market on the east wall of the Kensington Market Lofts at 160 Baldwin St.

“This will be his biggest public piece,” said Stewart of Liu’s design. A professor in the Master of Architecture program at the Daniels Faculty, Liu has been engaged in sculpture and installation work that explores issues of funtion, occupation, and cultural coding in the domestic and urban realms since 1999. A principal at ERA Architects, Stewart was a key initiator of the Tower Renewal Project, which examines the future of Toronto’s modern tower neighbourhoods, and a founding director of the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal.

Writes ERA on their website:

While not a tower renewal project, there are several aspects that have been informative for tower renewal endeavours. This has included:

• Detailed thinking about construction sequencing without displacing residents.
• Instituting a best practice approach to recladding of existing assemblies that takes into account long term durability, fire protection, improved insulation, and continuity of vapour barriers.
• Showing how an initially functional imperative can be leveraged to provide a design approach with additional meaning for the residents and the community.

Visit the Globe and Mail’s website to read the full article by Dave LeBlanc.

Image, top: Artist An Te Liu once painted a postwar bungalow ‘Monopoly green’ as part of the ‘Leona Drive Project’ in Willowdale, Ont.

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.

As Toronto grows, so too does the need to better plan for family-friendly density: 80% of the city’s new housing, constructed between 2006 and 2016, has been buildings of five storeys or more — with most units designed for single people or couples. But that hasn’t stopped families with kids from living in high-rise homes.

Sessional Lecturer Julie Bogdanowicz, an architect working as a Senior Urban Designer at the City of Toronto, recently co-managed a study on planning for children in new vertical communities. One of the outcomes of the study was draft guidelines, which tackle the issue at three scales: the neighbourhood, the building, and the unit. They were approved by City Council this month.

“During our research we found that there were already thousands of children living in vertical communities, and not just downtown, but in Toronto's other urban centres,” says Bogdanowicz. “Families are choosing to live in dense areas because they are prioritizing quality time with their family over long commutes. They love the convenience and amenities in their neighbourhoods, but they all told us that they need more parks and social spaces. They also need all the community services and facilities that are meant to come along with new development, like child cares and schools. So we need to get better at vertically integrating these uses into the base of residential buildings. The North Toronto Collegiate Institute is a strong example of this typology."

“It was really exciting to work closely with the team at Hariri Pontarini Architects,” said Bogdanowicz. “Through the architectural testing work we drilled down and analyzed how a functional family unit could work and what elements were required. Then we looked at how the shared spaces of the building could be re-imagined to support the social life of the building. So when you move through your lobby, towards the amenity space, there are opportunities to introduce social spaces or views into amenity spaces where you get to see what your neighbours are up to. We are trying to move away from the pristine white couch lobby space that people are too intimidated to use.”

Toronto has a legacy of housing families vertically, she says, adding that their research included case studies from the St-Lawrence neighbourhood and 150 Dan Leckie Way in City Place, a new social housing project by KPMB Architects, in which Shirley Blumberg (BArch 1976) innovated on Le Corbusier's skip-stop typology to produce large, livable two-storey units.

“One of the a-ha moments for the team was listening to faculty member and architect John Shnier's experience during our designer consultations,” Bogdanowicz says. “He demonstrated how his condo was flexible enough to transform from a refined bachelor pad to family home through flexible partitions. One big take-away for me was that we should move away from shear wall construction and start thinking about residential floor plates as blank slates that can transform over time. This would truly address sustainability objectives and future-proof our cities through a flexible housing stock.”

The City’s research was recently covered by CityLab, the CBC, and Urban Toronto. The guidelines put forward that 10% of units in a building should have at least three bedrooms, and that 15% have two bedrooms. They also provide guidance around public spaces, access to the outdoors, wider corridors, amenity spaces, storage, and more.

“Our Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat has been very proactive in advocating for families in vertical communities and it seems like the industry is ready for the challenge,” says Bogdanowicz. “New census data revealed that there is a baby boom underway downtown. The millennials are having kids and they want to stay in their neighbourhoods. Currently families are making do with their living conditions, but we know we can do better so that all families can thrive in vertical communities.”

Join the conversation #GrowingUpTO

Photo, top from U of T's Bring Our Children To Work Day at the Daniels Faculty

A number of Daniels faculty and alumni were recently named part of “30 Canadian Architecture Firms Breaking New Ground” by Azure Magazine. The list was created to celebrate Canada Day and was the third in a series of “best and brightest” lists.

“Some of our choices are studios that are fresh out of school and have yet to complete an entire building; others have won international competitions that will see their work realized on the other side of the world,” writes Azure. “At every scale they share a drive (some might call it an obsession) for pushing architecture to the limits in terms of technology, innovation and beauty.”

Omar Gandhi Architecture founded by Omar Gandhi, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Honours, Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program (project pictured above)

“With a second office now in Toronto, the studio is bringing and adapting rural sensibilities within an urban context. Says Gandhi: “I want my aesthetic to change constantly.” Last week, the firm took home a People’s Choice AZ Award for Rabbit Snare Gore.”

Studio AC, founded by Sessional Lecturer Jennifer Kudlats and Andrew Hill

“Principals Jennifer Kudlats and Andrew Hill are alums of KPMB Architects, where they first met. Running their own studio since 2015, they are now finishing up three residential renovations that express their taste for clean lines, wide open rooms, natural wood finishes and large doses of natural light.”

Office OU, founded by Sessional Lecturer Nicolas Koff and Uros Novakovic

“Earlier this year Office OU won a major masterplan competition for Sejong City (shown). The 190,000-square-metre site has been mapped out to house administrative buildings and five national museums that sit among manicured and natural landscapes, including terraced rice fields. When completed in 2023, the project’s impact is expected to shift South Korea’s cultural focus from Seoul to Sejong.”

Hapa Collaborative, where Sarah Siegel (MArch 2006) is an Associate

“Along with Nick Milkovich Architects and Matthew Soules Architecture, Hapa is responsible for the new Vancouver Art Gallery Plaza (shown), a $9.6-million renovation of the popular 4,197-square-metre square. The project, which had a soft opening on June 22, is already adored by locals. Its most defining feature is a tricolour mosaic of asymmetric tiles. In Canadian cities public squares can be few and far between. This plaza’s dramatic upgrade gives a new face to the entire downtown core.”

Public Work, the Landscape Architects for One Spadina

“Public Work is one of the key players envisioning plans for a 400-hectare waterfront site in Toronto. Called the Port Lands, the massive project has just received a financial injection of $1.25-billion from three levels of government. It is the largest redevelopment project of its kind in the history of Toronto, and it is expected to transform the postindustrial area into new neighbourhoods and parks, while providing a necessary flood barrier.”

Polymétis, founded by Sessional Lecturer Michaela MacLeod and Nichola Croft

“When Polymétis won the Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners, a year-long scholarship, they used the funds to visit 20 international sites that take a design approach to reclaiming waste sites within cities. We’re excited to see how Polymétis finds ways to apply this knowledge for cultivating public spaces out of wastescapes.”

Office of Adrian Phiffer, founded by Lecturer Adrian Phiffer

“The firm makes little distinction between art and architecture. Their competition entries have ranged from imagining Guggenheim Helsinki as a giant purple barge to a winter warming hut that lends out orange blanks to keep ice skaters warm.”

JA Architecture Studio, founded by Sessional Lecturer Nima Javidi, Behnaz Assadi (MLA 2008), and Hanieh Rezaei (MUD 2004)

“Now under construction is Duple Dip, a minimalist house in Toronto’s westend that from the exterior looks like a chapel. Inside, the sparse interior connects four outdoor spaces.”

Partisans, founded by Sessional Lecturer Pooya Baktash and Lecturer Alex Josephson

“The early success of Partisans hasn’t meant they have rested on past laurels. Among other large-scale projects the studio is working on is the rebirth of Union Station, Toronto’s central rail hub. The station is now undergoing a massive expansion that will see it double in size, mostly by digging underground. The project is expected to be completed in 2018.”

Woodford Sheppard Architecture, founded by Taryn Sheppard (MArch 2010) and Christ Woodford

“A number of WS projects signal a change for the region [St. John’s in Newfoundland]. In particular is the firm’s ambitious concept for The Bridge, a building that responds to the recent expansion of Newfoundland’s offshore oil industry and the need for both housing and office space. If built, the project would provide a campus that acts as a buffer zone between industrial and residential areas.”

Public City Architecture, a merger between Peter Sampson (BArch 1999) Architecture Studio and Plain Projects Landscape Architecture

“Making winter fun is one of the PCA’s main preoccupations. Their latest social engagement effort appeared on a public ice rink in Winnipeg last winter: a giant “crokicurl” game that mixes the rules of the tabletop board game crokinole with the physical scale of a curling rink.”

For the full article, visit Azure's website.

U of T’s expertise in cities runs deep with urban research taking place on all three campuses in disciplines including (but not limited to) public health, social work, engineering, urban planning, law, and of course, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.

To showcase the wealth of research, teaching, and engagement in this area, the University created Cities@UofT, a new website designed to increase the visibility of its urban initiatives. One of the features of the website, the Cities Blog publishes posts written by professors across campus about their work.

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, Fadi Masoud (MLA 2010) recently wrote about his research on coastal cities that “reclaim land” from oceans and lakes in an effort to meet housing, industry and recreational demands.

Caofedian in Bohai Bay: One of the world’s largest Land Reclamation Project. Image Credit: Developing the Littoral Gradient Atlas (Masoud / Ryan)

“Coastal plains comprise about 8% of the surface of the Earth, and are among the world’s most densely populated and most industrialized areas,” writes Masoud. “Today about half the world’s population lives within 100 km of the coast or an estuary, where eight out of the ten largest metropolitan regions are currently situated.”

But this expansion comes at a cost. According to Masoud, sand (an important component in the development of new coastal land) is “the second most consumed natural resource on the planet,” and new densely populated coastal communities face increased challenges due to climate change.

Qianhai reclaimed land near Shenzhen, China. Image Credit: Developing the Littoral Gradient Atlas (Masoud / Ryan)

Masoud has been working with MIT professor Brent Ryan and other collaborators at the MIT Leventhal Center for Advance Urbanism to develop an online atlas of coastal development projects (now in beta phase). And given that land reclamation continues (Masoud writes that in China “at least 11 coastal provinces and 39 coastal municipalities are carrying out decades-long land reclamation projects supported by the central government”), the team of researchers are exploring how to address the challenges such coastal developments face. Could they be designed to be more adaptive and resilient, less costly, and to allow for more affordable housing in the mix?

Toronto land reclamation by Sarah Ko — one of the 36+ International case studies of urban districts built on reclaimed land drawn and analyzed by Daniels Students.

Though not a seaside city, Toronto has a history of land reclamation of its own. The above map by Daniels Faculty student Sarah Ko shows waterfront development closer to home. Masoud taught a seminar this past semester in which students looked at global case studies of urban districts built on reclaimed land throughout the centuries.

Feature image at top: Development on Bohai Bay near Tianjin. Image Credit: Matthew Niederhauser and John Fitzgerald: Future of Suburbia Exhibition – MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism

Visit the Cities@UofT Cities blog to read Masoud’s article “Developing the littoral Gradient — Urbanism on reclaimed land.”

Follow Cities@UofT on twitter

Daniels Faculty undergraduate student Victoria Cardoso was part of the winning team in the “Towers on the Ravine, 1967-2067: Transitioning to Net-Positive Biophilic Urbanism” competition, which took place in May. Her team members included York University graduate students Alex Gatien, Assaya Moustaqim-Barrette, Kiana Javaheri, Nick Brownlee, and Steven Glass.

The competition, launched at the 2017 Ontario Climate Symposium May 11 & 12, asked students to envision the transformation of the tower neighbourhood north of Finch on Kipling Avenue into a resilient and environmentally and socially sustainable community.

The winning proposal included a focus on honouring indigenous history; strategies for addressing the projected population increase; the formation of a local community land trust to develop, fund, and manage public spaces; recognition of emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles; and the reintegration of a ‘lost’ stream  with the neighbourhood’s commercial and public spaces.

A number of other Daniels Faculty students participated in the competition. They included: Master of Landscape Architecture students Catherine Howell and Stacey Zonneveld; Master of Architecture students Zoal Razaq, Shou Li, and Xiaolong Li; and undergraduate students Adaeze Chukwuma, Feng Le, Tian Wei Li, and Yujie Wang. Images from Howell, Li, Razaq, and Zonneveld’s proposal (Alisa Nguyen was also part of this team) are pictured above.