Mahsa Malek is an Iranian-Canadian architect, co-founder of 11 x 17, and Design Faculty at University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. She received a Master of Architecture (AP) from Princeton University, where she earned a certificate in the Media and Modernity Program and the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for excellence in design, and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies (with distinction) from the University of Waterloo. Prior to establishing 11 x 17, she contributed to award-winning projects at international firms in Toronto, Vancouver, and New York City. As an advocate for women in architecture, she serves on the executive committee of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), where she organizes the BEAT Talk series.

In 2022, Mahsa co-founded the research-driven design practice 11 x 17 with Alex Yueyan Li. Working across scales from buildings to interiors, furniture, installations and exhibitions,  the studio begins each project with a critical look at materiality, approaching construction as a conceptual tool to examine labor, form, and resources. Their work has been featured in e-flux, Architectural Record, AZURE, and Archinect, and shown at institutions including the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Denver Art Museum. In 2025, 11 x 17 was awarded the Architectural League Prize.

 

Nusrat Jahan Mim is an Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Her research lies at the intersection of urban design, social justice, and technology, with a focus on the politics of the built environment and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Through her work, she critically examines how technology, policy, and spatial design shape marginalized communities’ experiences in cities across the Global South and beyond. At the Daniels Faculty, she teaches courses on politics in urban design, critical computing, and participatory methods, fostering interdisciplinary dialogues that bridge cities, AI, and social equity.

Mim earned her Doctor of Design from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she was a Mellon Fellow and Aga Khan Fund recipient. She also holds a Master of Architecture from Syracuse University, where she was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal for academic excellence, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), where she graduated magna cum laude.

Her research has been recognized with prestigious awards, including multiple ACM SIGCHI Best Paper and Honorable Mention Awards, and has been supported by grants from the Aga Khan Endowment Fund, Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, and Microsoft Research. Her scholarly contributions span architecture, urban planning, and human-computer interaction, with published works in leading venues such as ACM CHI, ACM CSCW, Routledge, and ACM Interactions.

Mim is actively engaged in several collaborative research initiatives. She is currently working with Microsoft Research, the Department of Computer Science at U of T, and UNDP on the politics of AI-generated urban visuals and their implications for cities in the Global South. She is also leading projects on algorithmic bias in urban design, exploring how AI systems shape spatial imaginaries and reinforce historical inequalities. Additionally, her research with BRAC and Harvard University focuses on informal urban settlements and disaster-resilient housing for displaced communities. These interdisciplinary collaborations aim to develop ethical, inclusive, and contextually responsive technological interventions.

Harry is the founder of WAO (Wei Architecture and Objects Ltd.), an architecture and design practice established in 2022. His work focuses on context-responsive architectural design, with particular emphasis on material systems, construction techniques, and tectonic expressions. Through research-driven experimentation, his practice explores the relationship between tradition and contemporary architectural production. WAO was the recipient of a 2024 Canadian Architect Award of Merit.

Harry holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo. From 2014 to 2022, he was a Senior Architect at Herzog & de Meuron, where he held leadership roles on multiple cultural and residential projects. His professional experience also includes work at MAD, NL Architects, and BIG. Harry is currently a lecturer at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo School of Architecture.

SUSA is an architecture studio founded by sisters Suzan and Sara Ibrahim. The practice merges rigorous research with material experimentation, grounding complex forms in social, cultural, and ecological contexts. With roots in Malmö, Baghdad, and Toronto, SUSA embraces hybridity as both method and sensibility—drawing on multiple histories to create relational and evolving forms of care in the built environment.

SUSA foregrounds a contextual approach to design, working across architecture, exhibitions, publications, and public art. Research-led, iterative, and generative, the studio seeks adaptive and meaningful responses to the environments and communities it engages. The practice draws on experience spanning BIG, OMA, Adjaye Associates, and Lina Ghotmeh—Architecture. They lead a collaborative, research-driven, and materially experimental practice grounded in care, joy, and collective authorship.

Suzan Ibrahim is an architect whose work explores fabrication and material design as tools for spatial form-finding. She has over a decade of experience spanning design-to-construction and team leadership, including twelve years as a design lead at Partisans, OMA, and C.F. Møller Architects, alongside extensive experience in project and client management. Her work focuses on material experimentation, soft robotics, and systems-based design, integrating these approaches to develop innovative and adaptable architectural solutions.

Dedicated to teaching, Suzan has lectured and led studios at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and the Architectural Association in London. She holds a Master of Architecture from the Architectural Association, where she studied in the Design Research Laboratory, focusing on material intelligence, full-scale prototyping, and feedback-driven design.

Claire Zimmerman directs the PhD Program in Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto Daniels Faculty. Her current projects include work on industrial architecture, a collective research project on The Costs of Architecture, a co-edited book titled Lines of Property, and a publication project on architectural collage. She has published three solo-authored books (in press: Albert Kahn Inc.: Architecture Labor, Industry), four edited books (most recent: Architecture against Democracy: Histories of the Nationalist International), and many articles, both long and short form. 

She studied at the University of Pennsylvania (B.A., 1985), Harvard University (MArch., 1990), and the CUNY Graduate Center (Ph.D., 2005). She directed Doctoral Studies in Architecture at the University of Michigan (2013-2019), where she co-founded the Equity in Architectural Education Consortium, a resource-sharing group of architectural schools with complementary needs. She has chaired the Committee on Equity in the Department of the History of Art and coordinated a community engagement project at UM, Black Washtenaw County (+$500,000). 

Zimmerman serves or has served on thirty-nine dissertation committees, as primary advisor for eleven. She is the Associate Editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Zachary Mollica is an architect, maker and educator whose work with trees has become a primary reference in alternative wood building futures. Mollica’s work integrates innovative digital methods—particularly 3D scanning—with craft and material knowledge in the pursuit of better natural, social and constructed environments. He joined the Daniels Faculty as one of its inaugural Emerging Architect Fellows in 2022 and will be contributing to wood-focused, hands-on teaching and research at the school.

With collaborators and students, Mollica’s research pursues the development of design and technical tools that intend to spur a re-diversification of wood building methods. Through careful consideration of forest environments and the properties of trees, it seeks to demonstrate new processes that can enable conventionally low-value products of forests to be converted into high-value building components with minimal energy. The approach is best demonstrated by the Tree Fork Truss, a large spanning structure that Mollica led the design and assembly of in 2015.

Before joining the Daniels Faculty, Mollica was Warden of the Architectural Association’s forest campus, Hooke Park in Dorset, England. In leading this unique educational facility and its staff, he was also responsible for teaching M.Arch Design + Make students and was the founding director of the AA Wood Lab.

Mollica regularly appears as a speaker and reviewer at international design schools, and his work has been published widely in both media and academic journals. Besides his work at the Daniels Faculty, Mollica is a consultant to designers, foresters, arts and heritage practices, and educational institutions.

Dr. Daniel Chung is an Associate Professor of Building Science at the University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design and is cross-appointed to the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering. He is a registered architect and professional engineer with over twenty years of professional experience in building design, engineering, and construction. He has a PhD in Architectural Engineering, and his research focuses on energy efficiency, hygrothermal analysis, and verification of building envelopes to develop better performing and more resilient buildings in the context of climate change. Degradation, stochastic, and regression analyses are used to study the probabilistic outcomes and long-term behavior of buildings. In addition to validating novel retrofit assemblies with physical testing, material testing is performed in his lab to explore the hygroscopicity of biogenic materials such as biochars and insulations. Dr. Chung served as an expert participant on behalf of the US in the International Energy Agency Solar Heating & Cooling Programme Task 59/Annex 76: Renovating Historic Buildings Towards Zero Energy. He is currently participating in IEA-EBC Annex 95: Human-Centric Buildings for a Changing Climate. For the 2025-2026 academic year Dr. Chung is a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark hosted by Aalborg University Copenhagen.

Education 

2019 – Ph.D., Architectural Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, US

2006 – M.Arch., Yale University, New Haven, US

2000 – M.S.E., Civil & Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, US

1998 – B.A., Design of the Environment, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US

1998 – B.S.E., Civil Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US

Current externally funded research projects include: 

NSERC Alliance: ReCONstruct: Building Energy Retrofit Solutions for Canada, PI: Michael Jemtrud

New Frontiers in Research Fund – Exploration: Creating Equitable, Resilient and Low Carbon Canadian Community Housing that Enhances Social Welfare, PI: Cynthia Cruickshank

National Research Council Canada: Lost in Translation: Knowledge Translation & Mobilization for Building Occupants and Operators, PI: Daniel Chung

Courses 

ARC480H1F L0101: Advanced Topics in the Technology of Architecture: Building Envelopes: Systems, Responses, and Affect

ARC2014YS: Architectural Design Studio 4 (Comprehensive Design)

ARC2047HF: Building Science 3: Environmental Systems

ARC2048HS: Building Science 4: Building Science, Materials and Construction 2

ARC3410HS: Selected Topics in Architecture and Technology, Past and Future Building Envelopes

Recent Publications & Presentations  

Amiri, A., Jemtrud, M., Chung, D. (2026). A multi-objective optimization framework for analyzing thermal resilience under power outage and varying climatic conditions." Energy Conversion and Management 351: 121013.

Zagar, M., Cruickshank, C., Chung, D., Yassin, K., Papineau, M. (2025). Assessing Residential Deep Energy Retrofit Performance Based on Resilience to Future Weather. Conference Proceedings. 2025 Buildings XVI International Conference, Clearwater Beach, United States of America, Conference Date: December 8-11, 2025.

Baldwin, C., Rowan, K., Dalkowski, T., Chung, D., Cruickshank, C., Malomo, D. (2025). Experimental Evaluation of the Thermal and Hygrothermal Performance of a Double Wythe Brick Energy Retrofit. Conference Proceedings. 2025 Buildings XVI International Conference, Clearwater Beach, United States of America, Conference Date: December 8-11, 2025.

Hilbrecht, R., Baldwin, C., Cruickshank, C., Dalkowski, T., Chung, D. (2025). Exploratory testing of wind driven rain sequences using a pressurized spray rack for hygrothermal modelling. Moisture in Buildings, Proceedings of ICMB25. International Conference on Moisture in Buildings (ICMB25), Guimarães, Portugal, Conference Date: October 23-24, 2025.

Rowan, K., Baldwin, C., Chung, D., Cruickshank, C., Santana Quintero, M., Dalkowski, T., Malomo, D. (2025). Hygrothermal Testing Protocols for Improved Retrofits of Existing Masonry. Conference Proceedings. 14th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC 2025), Lausanne, Switzerland, Conference Date: September 15-17, 2025.

Rudnicki, I., Cruickshank, C., Chung, D. (2025). Assessing the behaviour of a commercial building that has undergone a panelized retrofit in future climate weatherscenarios in Canada. 6th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE 2025), Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 2025.

Zagar, M., Cruickshank, C., Chung, D. (2025). Developing validated building energy and hygrothermal models to assess deep energy retrofits. 6th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE 2025), Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 2025.

Tidwell, P; Malomo, D; Pulatsu, B; Chung, D; Xie, Y. (2025). Timber-based Retrofitting of Unreinforced Masonry: An Experimental Approach to Repair and Reuse. Conference Proceedings. 6th International Conference on Structures and Architecture (ICSA 2025), Antwerp, Belgium, Conference Date: Julu 8-11, 2025.

Liu, J; El-Assaly, M., Garcia Mendez, W., Pulatsu, B., Chung, D., Tidwell, P., Malomo, D. (2025). A lowcost modular timber retrofit for sustainable energy-structural retrofit of masonry buildings: mechanical characterization under diagonal compression. Engineering Structures. 332(119099)

Liu, J., Pulatsu, B., Chung, D., Tidwell, P., Malomo, D. (2025). Structural retrofit of URM pier-spandrel assemblies using an engineered timber cladding systems with thermal insulation: first experimental insights. Conference Proceedings. 14th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC 2025), Lausanne, Switzerland, Conference Date: October 23-24, 2025.

Chung, D. (2024). Examining Climate Change, Moisture Risks, and Retrofits for Historic Wood Framed Buildings Using Stochastic Simulations. Conference Proceedings. Comfort At The Extremes (CATE) 2024 Investing in Well-being in a Challenging Future, Seville, Spain, November 2024.

Babula, E; Malomo, D; Chung, D; Tidwell, P; Pulatsu, B. (2024). Simulating the in-plane failure mechanisms of unreinforced masonry walls with timber-based retrofit. 7th International Symposium on Strengthening Historical Buildings, Diyarbakir, Turkey, September 2024.

Chung, D. (2024). Examining Moisture Reference Years and Future Weather for Hygrothermal Analysis. eSim 2024 IBPSA Canada Conference Proceedings, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, June 5-7, 2024.

Amiri, A., Jemtrud, M., Lavigne, K., Chung, D. (2024). Comparing simulations of deep energy retrofits for a community centre using past and future weather scenarios. eSim 2024 IBPSA Canada Conference Proceedings, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, June 5-7, 2024.

Malomo, D., El-Assaly, M., Liu, J.,…, Chung, D., Tidwell, P. (2024). A sustainable low-cost timber retrofit design for improving structural and energy performance of existing masonry buildings: preliminary results. Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) 2024 Annual Conference Proceedings, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, June 5-7, 2024.

Shen, H., Ho-Von, L., King. T,…Chung, D., Jemtrud, M. (2024). Developing a Building Identification Tool to Support Mass Deep Energy Retrofits. Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 112th Annual Meeting Proceedings.

Osborne, P., Kayed, S., Yue, J.,…Chung, D., Jemtrud, M. (2023). Deep 'climate' retrofit: assessing life-cycle thinking of emission calculators in construction. 2023 AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference: Material Economies, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, October 20, 2023.

Chung, D. (2023). Comparing Historic and Future Weather for Envelope Hygrothermal Analysis. 2023 ASHRAE Building Performance Analysis Conference, Austin, Texas, United States, September 11, 2023.

Chung, D., Wen, J., & Lo, J.L. (2023). Examining the Impact of Stochastic Multi-year Weather and Air Infiltration on Hygrothermal Moisture Risks. Journal of Building Physics, 17442591231163459.

Rieser, A., Pfluger, R., Troi, A., …& Chung,D. (2021). Integration of Energy-Efficient Ventilation Systems in Historic Buildings—Review and Proposal of a Systematic Intervention Approach. Sustainability, 13(4), 2325.

Akkurt, G. G., Aste, N., Borderon, J., Buda, A., Calzolari, M., Chung, D., ... & Leonforte, F. (2020). Dynamic thermal and hygrometric simulation of historical buildings: Critical factors and possible solutions. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 118, 109509.

Chung, D., Wen, J., & Lo, J.L. (2020). Development and Verification of the Open Source Platform, HAM-Tools, for Hygrothermal Performance Simulation of Buildings Using a Stochastic Approach. Building Simulation. 13(3) 497-514.

Chung, D., & Wen, J. (2019). Building Envelope Moisture Transport in the Context of Assembly Aging and Uncertainty. Technology | Architecture + Design, 3(2), 221-233.

Chung, D. (2019). Evaluation of building envelope performance including uncertainty and degradation within a multi-objective optimization framework. Order No. 13813550, dissertation, Drexel University.

Chung, D. (2018). Real-time Measurement of Building Envelopes to Improve U-Value Characterization. Proceedings of the Architectural Research Centers 2018 Conference Volume 2, 36-44

Chung, D. (2017). Improving Energy Modeling Techniques for Historic Buildings using Preliminary Verification Methods. Proceedings of the Architectural Research Centers 2017 Conference, 336-343
 

Current supervised graduate students: 

Ahmed Shoaib Amiri
Gillian Clayton
Sophia Liu
Teresa Han
Ehsan Yavari
Sunny Sun
 

To prospective graduate research students: 

I am seeking highly motivated and hard-working graduate students interested in building science with an emphasis on building envelope research. Work in the lab often includes simulation and physical testing of envelope assemblies. A background in physical sciences, building physics, architectural technology, or engineering is preferred. Support for graduate students is available.