17.10.24 - New Emerging Architect Fellows to focus on human-machine co-designing, diasporic movements
The Daniels Faculty is pleased to announce its newest Emerging Architect Fellows: Humbi Song and Anthony Kalimungabo Wako.
Song’s fellowship, which commenced on July 1, will run until July of 2026. Wako’s residency will start in 2025, running until 2027.
The two-year Emerging Architect Fellowship, a non-tenure appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, was established by the Faculty in 2022 to offer early-career architects an opportunity to teach in a supportive environment as well as the resources to develop focused research.
The aim is “to bring new voices and matters of concern to the school through teaching and research,” says Jeannie Kim, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream and Associate Dean, Academic. “We are excited to welcome this new cohort and look forward to the conversations and ideas that will ensue.”
Song (pictured above) holds a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard GSD, Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Her work, she says, focuses on the intersection of architecture, technology and human-computer interaction. She is currently teaching an option studio in the Daniels Faculty’s MARC program.
“Humbi is committed to a humanistic approach to technology that holds space for lived experience and intersectionality,” says Kim. “Her work explores the potential of co-creation and co-design with machines and AI, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between human and machine agency.”
Wako, meanwhile, has been a lecturer in the Faculty of the Built Environment at Uganda Martyrs University, from which he also holds a Master of Architecture degree, since 2020.
“Anthony will be joining us next July,” says Kim, “with an exciting proposal to trace diasporic movements and transnational exchange between Uganda, South Asia and Canada through migrating building and constructional practices that find their imprint on cultural spaces, commercial activity, agricultural practices and other moments of spatial exchange.”
Earlier this year, Wako was awarded a 2024 Graham Foundation grant for his research documenting the socio-cultural encounters of the Ugandan city of Jinja’s built heritage, “a visible but hidden legacy” of generations of immigrants from South Asia, many arriving as labourers between 1895 and 1901 to construct the famed Uganda Railway.
“The contribution of Asians to Uganda’s urban and architectural heritage,” says the Graham Foundation, “is often talked about but poorly documented. This project seeks to rectify this oversight.”
Song portrait by Richard Ashman