Winter 2012 Thesis Reviews Booklet

KAMYAR ABBASI OMAR ALJEBOURI KhATEREh BAHARIKHOOB MAX BERG RENÉ BIBERSTEIN NAThAN BORTOLIN ChRiSTOPhER CHAN ShAhROOZ CHEGINI STEPhANiE CHENG OLiviA CHEUNG PEGGY PEi-Chi CHI SONG DENG ANA ESpINOSA TAD FRANKLIN SiROUS GHANBAR ZADEH ShAY GIBSON ZAChARiAh GLENNON SiLviA GONZALEZ JESSiE GRESLEY-JONES LEhRAN HACHÉ BERNARD HAU JOANNE HO NiChOLAS STEvEN HOBAN hAShEM HOSSEINI-MOUSAVI PEi-TiNG HUANG ShANA HUSBAND AARON JACOBSON KAThERiNE JARNO KAMYAR KHOZEIMEH JADE KWONG ALEXANDER LAGOUDELIS MARiO LAVORATO PiNG-YA LEE wENwAN LIANG hAN LIU MO LIU

XiN LIU FiONA MACIVER BiTA MAHJOUBI SARA MASSAH RYAN MCCLANAGHAN SARAh MILLER STEPhEN NG wiLLiAM ORR RiChARD pApA TERESSA pEILL T. JARED pUMBER ThiLANi RAJARATHNA SONiA RAMUNDI NASTARAN RAZAVI ChESTER RENNIE ERiKA RICHMOND CLARA ROMERO PATRiCiA SILVA SANTALLA STEvEN SOCHA MOhAMMED SOROOR ARNE SURAGA MAhSA TAYEBI FAR RAShPAL THIND TRiSTAN THOM NOEL TROXELL AXEL VAN CHEE XENiYA VINS STACiE VOS SARA VOSSOUGHI ChRiS WANLESS BEN WATT-MEYER ChARLES WELLFORD DILLARD SEvEN XIRU CHEN ALEX YANG SAMAR ZARIFA

THESIS REVIEWS WINTER 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Ana da Silva Borges, Daisy Lyman, Zita da Silva D’Alessandro, Annette Nyga, Callayna Pasternak, and Katrina Groen for their essential coordination and administrative support in the Thesis program this term. And to Maxim Batourine, Yuri Lomakin, Joseph Stewart, Johnny Bui, and Steven Beites for support in computing and facilities. Also, thank you to Dale Duncan for communications and assistance with supporting graphic material, including this booklet. Finally, thank you to Dean Richard M. Sommer and Assistant Dean, Administration, horatio Bot for guidance on the Master of Architecture program’s recent evolution.

INTRODUCTION we are very pleased to present this provocative roster for the winter 2012 Final Thesis Reviews. On April 17 -19, 2012, our newest soon-to-be graduates of the John h. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, in all of our three programs — Master of Architecture, Master of Landscape Architecture, and Master of Urban Design — will present and defend their speculations to a group of external and internal guest critics and a large faculty audience.

Seventy-one students, whose varied work we will be contemplating, have engaged in a range of thoughtful inquiries about our contemporary environment. Seen as a whole, their projects offer simultaneously a snapshot and a reflection on the constellation of issues paradigmatic of our current urbanized world. They reveal new possibilities, provide uncharted directions, and in the process they expand the limits of our complex, diverse, and interrelated disciplines. we look forward to three stimulating days of rich discourse, varied perspectives, and new revelations.

Mason White Director, Master of Architecture Program Jane Wolff Director, Master of Landscape Architecture Program Carol Moukheiber Director, Master of Urban Design

THESIS ADVISERS, WINTER 2012 George Baird Adrian Blackwell Brian Boigon Aziza Chaouni Sandra Cooke John Danahy Georges Farhat Robert Levit David Lieberman An Te Liu Liat Margolis John May Laura Miller Peter North Carol Moukheiber gerardo paez alonso Pina Petricone Marc Ryan Barry Sampson Elise Shelley Brigitte Shim Mason White Shane Williamson Jane Wolff Robert Wright

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THESIS FINAL REVIEW GUEST CRITICS, WINTER 2012 Kenny Cupers is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture and 20102011 Reyner Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo, where he teaches architectural history, theory, and urban studies. His work focuses on the social agency of architecture and the uses of urban space.

George Dark is a partner at Urban Strategies, where his practice concentrates on urban landscape design. He also serves as Chairman of the Board at the Evergreen Foundation of Canada.

Leo deSorcy is the Manager of Urban Design in North York. He has worked for the City of Toronto since 1988 and has been in the North York office since December 1998.

Vanessa Eikhoff is an associate at PLANT Architect’s Toronto studio. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she worked previously at Olin Partnership.

Suzanne Ernst is a landscape architect, photographer and artist. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Rania Ghosn is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Her research is at the intersection of geography, power, and technological systems.

Robert Glover, MCIP, RPP, MRAIC, OAA is a Partner and Associate in the Toronto based firm Bousfields Inc. Helena Grdadolnik is the Public Art Coordinator for the City of Mississauga where she manages public art installations in a variety of media and is involved in the pilot program to create a Culture Node in Port Credit.

Pat Hanson is a founding partner of the award-winning practice gh3, based in Toronto.

Paul Hess is an Associate Professor of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto.

Gary Hilderbrand is a principal at Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architects and an adjunct professsor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

M Arch Thesis Reviews fall 2010

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John Hillier is a partner in the multidisciplinary design firm Du Toit Allsopp Hillier. His practice is focused on urban design, and he leads DTAH’s waterfront public realm design for Toronto’s Central Waterfront in joint venture with West 8 of Rotterdam.

El Hadi Jazairy is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. His research analyzes contemporary patterns of urbanization investigating in particular extraterritorial zones, after-sprawl conditions, and shrinking cities.

Keith Krumwiede is Assistant Dean and Associate Professor at the Yale School of Architecture.

Jimenez Lai is an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and Leader of Bureau Spectacular. His first manifesto, Citizens of No Place, is published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. In 2012, Lai became a winner of the Young Architects Forum / Architectural League Prize.

David Leinster is a partner at the Planning Partnership and serves on the City of Toronto’s Public Art Advisory Committee, the City of Ottawa’s Urban Design Review Panel, and the Regent Park Design Review Panel.

Karen Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Ohio State University and author of the forthcoming book Graphic Design for Architects.

Marie-Paule Macdonald is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo. Recent published projects include Emptiness and Imagination in Informal Architectures, London in 2008, and Voids and Residues in La Demeure.

Nina-Marie Lister is an associate professor of urban and regional planning at Ryerson University, a visiting associate professor of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and principal of the ecology and planning consultancy PLANDFORM. Paula Meijerink is co-founder of SE BUSCA/WANTED (SB) and director of the landscape architecture programme at the Université de Montréal.

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Adam Nicklin, until recently a principal at du Toit Allsopp Hillier, has just formed his own landscape design consultancy in partnership with Marc Ryan. He has worked as landscape architect and urban designer for over ten years in the UK, USA and Canada.

Erkin Ozay is an architect, and a Lecturer and Aga Khan Program Research Fellow at the GSD Department of Urban Planning and Design.

Yekta Pakdaman has an M Arch II from the GSD with few years of experience in architecture practice in NY at Rafael vinoly and polshek architects; later she moved back to Canada and received an MBA from Queens. Since, she has been in business development / proposal management roles in general contracting companies (currently SNC Lavalin). She is an elected member of Harvard (GSD) Alumni Council and has been invited to reviews at RPI and Pratt.

James Roche is Director of Parks, Design and Construction at Waterfront Toronto and has taught extensively at the Daniels Faculty.

Lorenzo Ruffini, O.A.L.A. is Strategic Leader, within the City Strategy and Innovations Division, for the City of Mississauga. He is currently the lead person overseeing the Inspiration Lakeview development process.

Lola Sheppard is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Waterloo and a founding partner of Lateral Office. She is an editor of Bracket 2: Soft Systems (Actar, 2012).

Drew Sinclair is an architect, urban designer and Principal at regionalArchitects, He is a graduate of the Master of Architecture program, and a former recipient of the Canada Council Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners.

Beau Trincia is an environments designer at IDEO. Etienne Turpin, Ph.D., is Walter B. Sanders Research Fellow, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan.

Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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pROJECTS

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10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78

KAMYAR ABBASI OMAR ALJEBOURI KHATEREH BAHARIKHOOB MAX BERG RENÉ BIBERSTEIN NATHAN BORTOLIN CHRISTOPHER CHAN SHAHROOZ CHEGINI STEPHANIE CHENG OLIVIA CHEUNG & JOANNE HO PEGGY PEI-CHI CHI SONG DENG ANA ESPINOSA TAD FRANKLIN SIROUS GHANBAR ZADEH SHAY GIBSON ZACHARIAH GLENNON SILVIA GONZALEZ JESSIE GRESLEY-JONES LEHRAN HACHÉ BERNARD HAU NICHOLAS STEVEN HOBAN HASHEM HOSSEINI-MOUSAVI PEI-TING HUANG SHANA HUSBAND AARON JACOBSON KATHERINE JARNO KAMYAR KHOZEIMEH JADE KWONG ALEXANDER LAGOUDELIS MARIO LAVORATO PING-YA LEE WENWAN LIANG HAN LIU MO LIU

80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136 138 140 142 144 146 148

XIN LIU FIONA MACIVER BITA MAHJOUBI SARA MASSAH RYAN MCCLANAGHAN SARAH MILLER STEPHEN NG WILLIAM ORR RICHARD PAPA TERESSA PEILL T. JARED PUMBER THILANI RAJARATHNA SONIA RAMUNDI NASTARAN RAZAVI CHESTER RENNIE ERIKA RICHMOND CLARA ROMERO PATRICIA SILVA SANTALLA STEVEN SOCHA MOHAMMED SOROOR ARNE SURAGA MAHSA TAYEBI FAR RASHPAL THIND TRISTAN THOM NOEL TROXELL AXEL VAN CHEE XENIYA VINS STACIE VOS SARA VOSSOUGHI CHRIS WANLESS BEN WATT-MEYER CHARLES WELLFORD DILLARD SEVEN XIRU CHEN ALEX YANG SAMAR ZARIFA

Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE AS A VIABLE COMMUNITY KAMYAR aBBASI, MLA The expansion of cities and new towns towards their outer periphery has made it possible for more people to live in and encounter those active industrial areas that once were only permitted in areas outside of the city where cheaper and larger lands were available. A review of the public discourse on industrial sites demonstrates several environmental and aesthetic concerns about the industrial impacts on the residential and natural environment. Since the 1960s, many communities began to adopt planning standards and environmental regulations to control industrial activity and industrial estate development. While site control guidelines eased some public concerns, they created land use patterns with undesirable consequences where vast amounts of greenfield land were consumed for industrial development, and undermined landscape functioning over large areas .

More integrative and environmentally sensitive planning and design of industrial landscapes presents a fascinating challenge for landscape architecture, which has demonstrated unique approaches to improving quality of life in open spaces.

Leaside Industrial Business Park, located east of the historic neighborhood of Leaside, is one of the oldest and closest business parks to Downtown Toronto.

The site provides an exceptional opportunity for landscape architecture intervention due to its complex interwoven fabric of industrial, residential, and retail uses, and its adjacency to the natural corridor of Don River Valley. Today, in the face of increased global competitiveness, free trade, the recession, and the decreasing emphasis on industries that comprise the old economy, old industrial parks like Leaside have slid into decline. Furthermore, as the City of Toronto develops its public transportation system, this employment area may soon be under even more pressure by future high-density-seeking developments. So here lies the question: Can this declining industrial park be retrofitted in a way that will allow it to evolve with the specific needs of its surrounding community and future development requirements, while sustaining its historic territory as an active employment area?

Advisor: robert wright & gerardo paez alonso Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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(DIS)PASSIONATE: THE STORY OF A MURDERER OMAR ALJEBOURI, March text image sound a large scale theatrical interpretation of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (dis)passionate occupies itself with authorship in mediating

If he, Richis, had been the murderer and were himself possessed by the murderer’s passions and ideas, he would not have been able to proceed in any other fashion than had been employed thus far, and like him, he would do his utmost to crown his mad work with the murder of the unique and splendid Laure.

This last thought appealed to him especially. Because he was in the position to put himself inside the mind of the would-be murderer of his daughter, he had made himself vastly superior to the murderer. For all his intelligence, that much was certain, the murderer was not in the position to put himself inside Richis’s mind - if only because he could not even begin to suspect that Richis had long since imagined himself in the murderer’s own situation. This was fundamentally no different from how things worked in business - mutatis mutandis, to be sure.i

i Patrick Süskind. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. (New York: Penguin, 1987), 204.

Advisor: an te liu Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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A CALL FOR UTOPIA DAHAB ISLAND AS A PROTOTYPE FOR URBANISM AFTER THE ARAB SPRING KHATEREH bAHARIKHOOB, MUD

The Arab Spring, also known as “Arab Revolution” or “Arab awakening,” is a term that describes a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world. As the movement gained momentum in Arab cities throughout the Middle East and North Africa, monuments became rallying points, public squares became ‘change squares,’ political theatres, and cities-within-cities. From a distance, these ‘occupied’ and re-appropriated public spaces became “spectacles of defiance,” inhabited by vast crowds; closer up, these spaces became utopias.

Protesters’ collaborations to build temporary cities in the squares, streets, and roundabouts functioned well for a protest but will not help the long-term process of building democratic dialogue in the scale of the city.

Dahab island is a prototype for imagining these collective urban spaces for the current residents and the people who are protesting against the state and want to make this utopia. The situation the inhabitants of Dahab island currently face places them in a vulnerable position because of their constant fear of being displaced by the Cairo government. Therefore, they call for a utopia where they negotiate with these utopia seekers and the government to build an urbanized city in the middle of the island. Hence, the “street” becomes the city and its intersections with the existing villages offer people new ways to interact with and through urban space.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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SURFACE OF PERCEPTION MAX bERG, March

“This is a system through which we try to take the preexisting as a quality that we use for our own purposes, transforming it into our own energy, as in the martial art technique of aikido.”

-Jacques Herzog So what to do with the Bickford Center? The old high school is falling apart before our eyes. It is true that it was never spectacular to begin with. But there was always promise. Its relationship to the site and its arrangement around a central court had hinted that the public school might aspire to something greater. So what type of rejuvenation should we then imagine for it? We might augment the existing environment and so facilitate new ways of learning. Or is there a more pressing social hole to fill? The present form could also be amenable to transformation, maybe for mixed-use income-geared social housing, with solar panels on the roof!

All of the above are noble projections, and yet they seem increasingly absurd in this age of austerity. With public sector budgets now calibrated to the barest of necessities, who will be picking up the tab for architecture? For now it seems that our imagined transformation must be less public and more palace.

The site will be transformed into the corporate headquarters of a currency trading corporation. From this collision the central challenge arises. The struggle is to assimilate the desirable elements of the existing building while obscuring its strong local association with 1960’s social infrastructural expansion. The chosen architectural strategy is a process of intense resurfacing. It is one of keeping the bones intact while altering the physiognomy. It is architecture as plastic surgery.

Explorations are conducted through the variation of reflection, translucency, and degrees of opacity across the applied surface. Each intervention involves the collapse of several realities (e.g. past & present) upon the plane. Our attention becomes focused on the surface of perception.

Advisor: SHANE WILLIAMSON Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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SIX NATIONS CITY RenĂŠ Biberstein, MUD

In its substance, this project is a new town development on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford, Ontario. Rapid population growth has forced the band council to engage in large-scale, centrally-planned urbanization for the first time. However, far from conventional platting, this alternate design for the development attempts to deal with the wider issues of reconciling nature and suburban growth, as well as generating urban form for a rural population. It draws on the form and functions of the landscape, as well as the urban traditions of the Six Nations. The former includes the positions of topography, water, farmland and forest, while the latter is the historically evolving form of the Iroquoian town.

The project has implications not only for the Grand River territory, but also for the potential future urbanization of other aboriginal communities and the way in which all urban dwellers in southern Ontario deal with the history and substance of the land we inhabit.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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HARVEST DISTRICT NATHAN BORTOLIN, MLA

Since the late 1960s, cities in the industrial region around the Great Lakes have suffered from job relocation to other parts of North America and the world. The subsequent exodus of residents has left behind many neighbourhoods in conditions of neglect, to a degree perhaps most pronounced in Detroit, Michigan. This project considers such conditions as full of potential for creating unconventional spaces as cultural centers for current residents, which can attract future reinvestment. The project concerns reuse of infrastructure and resources—namely land, rainwater, and employment seekers—within some of those neighbourhoods on the near east side of Detroit, close to its downtown, where over 400 acres of vacated properties and blighted buildings lie largely unused. A city with a complex history, now with vast stretches of vacated land, Detroit is in a unique position to redefine its form and structure as an urban centre, even as its population continues to decline.

Detroit’s landscape once featured creeks, forests, and wetlands, which were cleared so as to accommodate a fast-growing population, mostly during the automotive boom of the early twentieth century. Through depopulation and abandoning of infrastructure, accelerated after the riots of 1967, the city’s natural landscape features are re-emerging, and natural systems can play a role in facilitating one of the city’s emerging modes of production: farming. Rainwater collection, food production, and reuse of abandoned structures and spaces are the main tools to be used in growing and harvesting the potential of the near east side. Influenced by the nearby presence of the commercially successful and culturally significant Eastern Market as well as local community gardens, this project aims to carve an open space framework and renewed creek watershed from a network of vacant lots to create a productive district to draw visitors from around the city, the surrounding suburbs, and elsewhere.

Advisor: SANDRA COOKE Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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RE-INDUSTRIALIZATION TORONTO CHRISTOPHER CHAN, March

The cultivation of a manufacturing precinct serving the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is vital to the support and growth of both the industry and region, despite the trend of de-industrialization associated with major North American cities in recent decades. The existing state of manufacturing in the GTA must shift towards a new culture of manufacturing driven by an urban incubation building type. One ambition of this building type is to harness/maximize for industry benefits that are specific to Toronto’s urban area. Another is to re-position industry in light of debated and expected shifts in energy and transportation futures. The revitalization of manufacturing within Toronto’s urban conditions ultimately adds stability to the urban employment structure, and diversity to urban social space.

Advisor: bARRY SAMPSON Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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CAR-REDUCED COMMUNITY A NEW LIVING EXPERIENCE FOR FUTURE SHAHROOZ CHEGINI, MUD

People tend to live in the suburbs because of its lower property values or its higher living standards. Public transportation is an available option for commuting yet people still use “private cars� instead. In such a car-dominated community, a considerable amount of valuable land is dedicated to cars. Imagine taking all the land and space taken up by cars and using that space to provide more public amenities such as parks, playgrounds, and gardens.

This research is a study of a medium-density suburban community that tries to give preference to the pedestrian and increased walkability. Public transportation and amenities are within a walking distance of all residential units in this residential community.

The community, located in Lakeview, Mississauga, is designed for people rather than cars. It is a community where residents have a higher quality of life. It is a place where the air is cleaner and the children are safe. People are living healthier lifestyles because they are encouraged to walk in a pleasant and convenient environment.

Advisor: JOHN DANAHY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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URBAN RUDERALS RECLAIMING VACANT SITES THROUGH NATURAL PROCESSES stephanie cheng, MLA

Ruderals are resilient systems that adapt to disturbance, and sustain and reclaim themselves with the most minimal means. In cities, ruderals take on two forms: the pioneer plant species that colonize vacant lots, cracked pavements and railway corridors; and the social pioneers that occupy these spaces and advocate for adaptive reuse and land reclamation. By reclaiming vacant lots and designing them to facilitate the growth and capture the benefits of these micro-ruderals, fragmentation would be re-linked one piece at a time.

This thesis aims to solve the issues of ecological and social fragmentation in large cities through the natural revitalization of vacant lands and railway corridors. It challenges the conventional method of redevelopment of these lands by proposing a more community-driven, ruderal approach that allows these sites to naturally evolve and connect to form an ‘urban wilderness’.

Advisor: PETER NORTH Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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RUBBER SOUL Olivia cheung & joanne ho, March

As inhabitants of the disruptive and differentiated urban environment today, founded on the principles of the money economy, we, as subjective beings, are not able to cope with it mentally, and cannot expect to exist in such conditions without developing adaptive mechanisms. Our current method of coping involves the continual build-up of psychological protective mechanisms from the external — the exclusion of the environment — as a means of preserving our subjective, identity-preserving qualities. Protective mechanisms, however, have manifest beyond the cognitive to spatial strategies.

The onset of modern knowledge, specifically modern science, has increasingly bred a culture of fear and distrust of externalities, since potential threats they harbor have been made known. Knowledge, it seems, has taken precedence over experience. This has resulted in the modern individual’s drive to control (manage) the “harmful” environment by creating spatial means of containment, methods which allow us to “be” in the environment without having to be in the environment, making distance between the individual and the environment in order to bring them together. The controlled and “comfortable” interior environment of the modern urban edifice is one such example.

Together, these methods of psychological and biological containment are breeding increasingly isolating ways of living — a condition detrimental to the notion of society. Perhaps urban existence can be achieved through means that allows us to respond to the environment without denying it, and one that operates on an inherently subjective-instinctive rather than rational level.

Advisor: mason white & john may Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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phyto-PV green roofs

food source

manuer as fertilizer

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food source

compost soil

surplus

animal barn

cafe

green houses

children’s garden

transportation

restaurant forest energy

algae bioreactor museum

blackwater as heat source

public washroom

heat

heat

double digester

school

compost

playground & gym compost soil

solid waste as fertilizer

liquid waste

wetlands

compost soil

food source

clean water

biofilter

community garden greywater

blackwater as heat source

domestic washroom

algae pond

surplus energy for homes

waste to power

trash

NET PLUS URBAN PARKS THE FUTURE OF RESPONSIBLE LANDSCAPE PEGGY PEI-CHI CHI, MLA

This thesis transforms urban parks into Net Plus energy ecosystems where communities work collaboratively to maintain their self-sustaining parks. This is a reaction to the budget cutbacks for Toronto’s urban parks and society’s irresponsible consumption of energy. The proposal intends to strengthen the value and responsibilities of urban parks while creating productive and decentralized energy (park eco)systems. In strengthening the significance of these urban parks, their fate may not be compromised by municipality’s cutbacks. Retrofitting urban parks into Net Plus parks would require a fraction of the current budget for operation and maintenance. The prototype for this project will focus particularly on High Park to illustrate how this type of metamorphosis can occur.

Advisor: PETER NORTH Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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Agro-Hydro-Park A NEW VISION FOR PERI-URBAN CONDITION IN CHENGDU, CHINA song deng, MLA

Chengdu has a long history of hydraulic civilization which dates back to the construction of Dujiangyan irrigation system in 256 BC. Since then, the Chengdu Plain has been a good example of how agriculture, water infrastructure, and human settlement could go hand in hand. However, the harmonious relationship has been threatened in the past two decades as unprecedented urbanization took place. As the city grew at a rapid speed, a series of environmental and social issues has emerged such as water pollution, flooding, loss of farmland, and the disintegration of old villages. These are strongly manifested in Chengdu’s peri-urban area where agricultural society meets the urban area.

The thesis intends to give a new vision to Chengdu’s peri-urban condition, trying to answer the question: As the urban expansion is inevitable, how can we ease the tension between urban and rural in a sustainable way? The design starts off by critiquing the greenbelt system, a solution that is proposed by the city to solve the urban/rural dilemma. Due to its arbitrary shape, neglect of natural features, and lack of consideration to specific context, the greenbelt failed to fulfill its objective, which was to preserve agricultural land and green space on the urban periphery as the city grows. In this case, the thesis argues that the existing greenbelt needs to be replaced by an alternative system of “ecological infrastructure,” which is structured by Chengdu’s river networks. The design part of this thesis took place on the northwest of the urban periphery in Chengdu. It serves as a demonstration project showing how the Agro-Hydro-Park as “ecological infrastructure” could integrate farming practice, water management, and public open space in the flood plain, thus keep agriculture and the village on site to connect economically and socially with the new urbanized area.

Advisor: GEORGES FARHAT Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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AGUA URBANA: URBAN WATER

MAGDALENA RIVER, MEXICO CITY ANA ESPINOSA, MLA

In a period of 40 years, Mexico City has eliminated or buried infrastructure and reconfigured and erased 83km of its rivers putting them into pipes and burying them under roads. The few rivers that are left open in Mexico City are not integrated into the urban space; on the contrary, these rivers have become open sewers filled with garbage and waste water.

TThis thesis proposes to study the rehabilitation of the Magdalena River located in Mexico City and its ability to act as a catalyst for city regeneration, which includes the rethinking of rivers or environmental systems as part of the urban environment. It explores the idea of urban river rehabilitation as a new paradigm for the regeneration of cities and the idea of building a more sustainable relationship between nature and the urban environment.

This project explores the territory that is created between water and civic space and lies to rest the idea that rivers are environmental threats that have to be hidden. It rethinks the way water has been managed in the city, reevaluates the relationship between rivers and the urban environment and the benefits that these systems bring to the urban space.

Advisor: ELISE SHELLEY & gerardo paez alonso Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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farming waste

rethinking the urban nutrient/waste cycle

TAD FRANKLIN, March

We need a new protein source. The current practice of livestock farming is damaging the natural environment, wasting vast amounts of resources, and is ultimately a danger to our health and future food security. It’s also brutally inhumane.

Insects are the obvious solution. They provide more protein using less resources.

Their cultivation is humane, yet incredibly efficient. They mature and reproduce in a matter of weeks.

Sure, they look weird. But so do lobsters.

At the same time, we create massive amounts of bio-waste, both municipally and commercially. As government and corporations strive to responsibly process the vast quantities of organic waste produced, and keep these valuable resources out of landfills, insect husbandry can play a key role in the waste to nutrient cycle.

Building on previous explorations of this subject, this project looks a cross a range of scales at the new infrastructural landscape made possible by the linking of urban micro-livestock farming and existing bio-waste streams, and the efficiencies and opportunities created therein.

Hungry, anyone?

Advisor: aziza chaouni Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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urban daylighting in garrison creek “GREEN AND CITY, BLUE AND GREEN� sirous ghanbar zadeh, MUD

The purpose of this thesis is to create a collection of innovative prototypes of possible developments incorporated with productive urban landscape along the buried Garrison Creek. It is based on research and the investigation of diverse potential contexts where a network consisting of existing open spaces and designed ones is created. This network is capable of being scattered and improved in the future, and allows for potential large-scale expansion in order to create a dominant, or at least competitive, production of various types of urban landscape features. Each site plays its quality characteristic as a piece of puzzle, creating models where these pieces meet each other result in environmental, social, and educational benefits. Three primary benefits include sustainable urban development, open space expansion, and urban agriculture. Different aspects of design and research were covered during the process of the project to provide adaptive landscape features for specific situations and locations (different sites based on existing identities, functions and potential elements that could be engaged with a flexible and appropriate re-action). These sites could respond to as many urban factors as possible, which engage with that particular situation.

Advisor: MASON WHITE Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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fourth world six nations SHAY GIBSON, March

On February 28, 2006, members belonging to the Six Nations reserve began an occupation of a proposed 40-hectare subdivision on the outskirts of Caledonia, Ontario. Their protest was in response to the further encroachment of settler territories near Six Nations and the need for the Canadian Government to respect their treaty rights. Their rights, outlined in the 1784 Haldimand Treaty, granted Six Nations land rights to a 3,900 sq km piece of land 6 miles deep on either side of the Grand River Valley. This piece of land, called the Haldimand Tract, was granted to Six Nations for their loyalty to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War and was intended as a space for their settlement. The Haldimand Tract was promised to Six Nations for their use and benefit forever, but since then they have lost control of over 95% of their territory and now reside on a reserve south of Brantford, Ontario.

Since the initial granting of the Haldimand Tract and territorial loss, Six Nations has been isolated from direct access to the kinds of infrastructure that has driven economic growth within Southern Ontario, and the ecology of the land, which would have supported traditional livelihoods for Six Nations members, has been dramatically altered as a result of Canadian settlement. The landscape of the Haldimand Tract, like Six Nations, has suffered under a regime of colonialism, which has forced them into economic structures that are alien to their culture, changing their traditional social structures and practices. But as Six Nations has changed, so has Canada, and perhaps it is time to present an alternative to the current struggle and honour our agreements. The aim of this thesis is to present a future vision in response to the current injustices by decolonizing the Haldimand Tract and envisioning new relationships between the built world, ecology, and culture within a territory informed by traditional Iroquois practices.

Advisor: adrian blackwell Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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the flying car city: day 394 to 1986 zachariah glennon, March

typically, when presented with a visionary urban project proposal it is shown as a complete picture, an idea that has already reached maturity. this thesis looks at perhaps the most well-worn version of the visionary urban proposal, the flying car city. the flying car and its urban context have been the subject of fantasy in various formats since before the automobile was first mass produced. from Eugene Henard to Frank Lloyd Wright to Ridley Scott and Luc Besson, the impact of the flying car on the city has been presented to us in countless ways, but generally as something that has already occurred, not something that is occurring. this project takes as its subject matter the beginning phases of the transition from road vehicle to sky vehicle, from the early zoning by-laws to the initial developments and sky-dwelling pioneers.

Advisor: mason white & john may Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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HYSTERICS OF THE UNCANNY SILVIA GONZALEZ, March If we eliminate from our hearts and our minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, we shall arrive at the House-Machine and look at the question from a critical and objective point of view, healthy (and morally so too) and beautiful in the same way that the working tools of instrument accompany our existence are beautiful.

We must fight against the old-world house whose wretched roofs, still persist, an inexcusable paradox, whose basements are still damp and cluttered up, whose attics are full of dust. We have acquired a taste for the purity of air and clear daylight. A house whose roof is removed and replaced by a garden, its cellars filled in and its first floor open to the park, its horizontal windows and terraces encouraging the ceaseless flow of light and air.

The ornamental excess of the old-world house is the essential overplus, the quantum of the peasant; the modern house’s lack of ornament is a sign of intellectual power. In a highly productive nation ornament is no longer a natural product of its culture, and therefore represents backwardness or even a degenerative tendency.

Ornament is of a sensorial and elementary order, as is colour, and is suited to simple races, peasants and savages.

The actual needs of the dwelling can be formulated and demand their solution.

We must fight against the old-world house, which made a bad use of space. We must look upon the house as a machine for living in or as a tool. A house whose rooms are designed simply with the object of providing as convenient receptacles as possible for things that fill them, and thus each room invited just what was suited to it. The neat array within which possessions maybe placed becomes a beautiful figure which owns a separate charm.

The house will no longer be an archaic entity, heavily rooted in the soil by deep foundations, built firm and strong, the object of the devotion on which the cult of the family and the race has so long been concentrated.

Advisor: BRIAN BOIGON & LAURA MILLER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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RETHINKING SPRAWL: A TOOLKIT FOR CHANGE JESSIE GRESLEY-JONES, MLA “Circle over London, Buenos Sires, Chicago, Sydney, in an airplane or view the cities schematically by means of an urban map and block plan. What is the shape of the city and how does it define itself? The original container has completely disappeared. The sharp division between the city and the country no longer exists.

As the eye stretches towards the hazy periphery one can pick out no definite shapes except those formed by nature: one beholds rather continuous shapeless mass, here bulging or ridges with buildings, there broken with a patch of green, or an unwinding ribbon of concrete�

Lewis Mumford (1961)

Advisor: sANDRA COOKE Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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DISTANT EARLY WARNING REVEALING CANADA’S INVISIBLE LANDSCAPES THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING LEHRAN HACHé, MLA Canadian identity, to a large degreee, has been shaped by concepts of “the north.”

We have collectively accepted the idea of a vast expanse of pristine wilderness within our reach, but that is a false and constructed reality. Canada is still rich with environmental resources and the countless services they provide, but there is no area on this planet that hasn’t been affected by the industrial nature of humans.

Both the physical footprint of industry and the associated pollutants released are increasing at dramatic rates north of the 49th parallel in a landscape already scattered with toxic legacies. On of these toxic legacies is from the abandoned remnants of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line. The DEW line, Mid-Canada line and Pine-tree line were each part of a massive military initiative to build radar monitoring infrastructure across Canada. Their purpose was to relay Distant Early Warning of a cold war attack on North America. The cold war may be over but the need for monitoring is greater than ever before.

Both Canada’s enviromental monitoring efforts and relay of information to the public are inadequate. The vast physical scars of industry, and the landscape of pollution surrounding us remain largely invisible. This thesis questions what it would take to make these conditions visible.

A nation-wide monitoring network with a focus on public dissemination of knowledge has been proposed. Building upon the extensive DEW network, a new system of communication for both local and national environmental data flows will be created and become a part of the Canadian landscape.

Advisor: robert wright Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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50

[re]generating planes

a new interactive and generative territory in the mojave

bernard hau, March The airplane has long been recognized as a symbol of contemporary globalization, having helped shape the world in many different ways socially, culturally, politically, as well as economically. Its ability to defy gravity and compress spacetime has provoked senses of liberation, fostered people’s imaginations, altered our perceived notions of physical distance, and brought the world closer together in many opportunistic ways that would have otherwise been impossible.

As valuable as this industrial product may be, the useful lifespan of a multi-million dollar commercial aircraft typically averages between 25 to 30 years, upon which it will be retired to one of several large aviation boneyards in the southwestern American deserts. In addition to an abundance of cheap, unpopulated lands, these warm and arid regions provide the ideal physical conditions for the perpetual storage of these obsolete artifacts, transforming the desert landscapes into areas of landfills.

The small, unincorporated community of Mojave, situated ninety miles north of Los Angeles at the intersection of two California state routes and several railway corridors, is home to a substantial aerospace sector and one of the world’s largest commercial airplane cemeteries. Known as the Silicon Valley of Aerospace Development, the Mojave Air and Space Port is also an authorized civilian launch site, the first commercially licensed inland spaceport, and the first spaceport to be certified for horizontal launches of reusable spacecrafts. In recent years, many startup companies have sprung up with the intention to create a space tourism industry, and it is anticipated that sub-orbital spaceflights will be made available to the public commencing as early as late 2012.

As space tourism becomes an increasingly popular and affordable reality, the Mojave Air and Space Port will become a visitors’ destination. Already bordered by high-speed transportation activities that animate the site in all four dimensions, this thesis introduces a spatial framework that captures the vitality of this sublime otherworldliness through capitalizing on the desert’s natural conditions as well as through resurrecting and incorporating the boneyard’s defunct industrial artifacts into a new interactive and generative territory.

Advisor: carol moukheiber Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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correspondent to flows nicholas steven hoban, March

Hood River Oregon has become a mecca for the sport of windsurfing and kitesurfing, since the discovery of the area situated along the Columbia River Gorge. The high velocity winds are created by a pressure differential, as the westerly winds flow easterly over the cascade mountain range and accelerate in the deep cut of the Gorge, creating steady 35 mph winds throughout the day.

The county of Hood River is situated along a line of counties that comprise the greatest number of wind farms in all of Oregon. With some of the strongest wind flows, current restrictions and public opinion have stopped the development of wind farms in Hood River County.

Can a building become enigmatic of the sport and the forces captured during the performance, integrating both passive and active systems to harness the wind?

This thesis proposes the integration of wind generating systems through a form that is expressive of the dynamic conditions of the Columbia River Gorge.

Advisor: shane williamson Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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shifting edge hashem hosseini-mousavi, mla

Located on the edge between land and water, coastal communities are very sensitive environments since they have to relate and respond effectively to both terrestrial and aquatic terrains. In this context my thesis question is: How flexible should this edge be in order to accommodate ongoing change while contributing to the enhancement of urban life instead of altering, degrading, and/or eliminating it?

The town of Stratford is the third largest and the fastest growing municipality in the province of Prince Edward Island. Once a suburban context functioning as a “Bedroom� community to Charlottetown, Stratford has enjoyed a wide range of opportunities to build upon and grow in a civic scale as an urban entity. However, its proximity to global ice masses, low lands and gentle gradient, unprotected shoreline, and the un-programmed vicinity of its urban fabric and human activities to water edge have consistently rendered the linkage of its eroding landscape to the Atlantic Ocean to be a serious concern.

This concern is of particular importance as we are gradually experiencing the impacts of sea-level rise, the threatening consequence of global warming.

My thesis focuses on a process-based ecological strategy which transforms the coastal region into a green protective zone for the town. This green zone delineates the boundary for development and, based on a phasing strategy, will direct and shift some of the existing housing toward uphill. This hybrid approach stabilizes the shoreline through aquaculture-based solutions while enhancing the safety and quality of the housing and public realm. Needless to say, this approach, as it evolves over time and adapts to dynamic and alarming environmental conditions, will engage people’s experience throughout their life.

Advisor: jane wolff Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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URBAN PLAYGROUND Pei-ting huang, mla

Laneways in many parts of Old Toronto have become residual spaces of an outdated form of urban design. It has been estimated that there are more than 24,000 laneways in the City of Toronto, and these laneways have become sterile and ubiquitous spaces that serve as nothing more than driveways for private automobiles. Toronto’s urban fabric needs to change to promote a higher quality of living filled with many experiential qualities. Laneways present as the opportunity for these changes to take place.

Urban Playground is a thesis that attempts to explore the forgotten and underutilized spaces of laneways in Toronto and how these spaces can transform to become part of a greater urban experience. The urban experience for the modern pedestrian is fast-paced, and most of the time involves moving from destination A to destination B. How often do we slow our footsteps to discover what is there around us? Or could it be that there is just not much in our environment to work with?

Humans are playful by nature, and we are constantly seeking things in our environment to intrigue ourselves with. My thesis uses laneways as a platform for playful and creative experiences to take place in an urban setting. Many laneways already exhibit urban creative expression such as graffiti art, but other times the expression may be in the form of tagging or vandalism. How do we design to encourage the former over the latter? By looking at one case study of a neighbourhood in Toronto, this thesis explores how small-scale interventions in laneways can potentially bring great urban benefits for a community and enrich our day to day experiences.

Advisor: john danahy Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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GREYWATER RECYCLING IN INDUSTRY SHANA HUSBAND, MLA The industry sector is the most wasteful user of water. High production demands can mean high water usage and discharge that results in damage to the landscape from a local to a global scale.

It was once commonplace for our industries to dump byproducts into our watersheds and their procedures were something to be ashamed of. We now have technologies, practices, and the wisdom to handle these processes differently so that they can be daylighted and celebrated instead. Innovative greywater recycling that uses the landscape is one way we can do this, bringing people, the environment, and industry together.

Advisor: ROBERT WRIGHT Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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waterfront

university hospital

retreat suburb suburb

suburb suburb

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retreat aaron jacobson, March

Cleveland’s hierarchical organization is rooted in obsolete, Fordist modes of production. As industries and their workers flee the city, the typological and spatial constitution of housing in Cleveland is left incapable of responding to economic reality. In this climate, to what end can, or should, Cleveland’s resurrection be imagined? Demolition, paradoxically, may be poised as the city’s most potent measure for re-generation. As such, architecture must accept and promote a new paradigm: The space of the city must be designed not strictly for productive output and growth, but for the simultaneity of growth and decline.

Cleveland’s vitality no longer depends on access to a port; rather, it depends on access to vacant land. Therefore, the industries of de-densification will dictate new social / spatial / and economic formations.

My proposal examines the spatial and behavioral logic of the ‘urban retreat,’ a center for agricultural production, strategic deconstruction, water therapy, and recreation, beside the decanalized streams where dense inner-city blocks once stood.

Advisor: robert levit Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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L’Aquila 25km

Poggio Picenze

Barisciano

Prata Dansidonia

San Pio Delle Camere

Calascio Castelvecchio

Caporciano

Carapelle Calvisio Calvisio

Capestrano

Navelli

Collepietro

Bussi sul Tirino

Popoli

0

62

CITTĂ€ DIFFUSA katherine jarno, mud

Cities and landscapes change, continuously. In size and character. They appear and disappear; they become important and less important. They flourish, they become ruins. Nothing is fixed, no matter how hard we sometimes try. Change seems one of the very few constants.

- Bjarke Ingels Cities are growing and the world’s population is becoming predominantly urban.

These are well known facts. However, as some cities are growing rapidly, other ones are shrinking at the same pace. As the word’s population is rising, new buildings and infrastructure will be needed, which will require energy, material, resources and land. The focus today is therefore on reducing new constructions and optimizing existing ones. Within the potential of the existing urban fabric, the shrinking cities offer the possibility of new identities, new existence, and new life styles.

Since the 1960s, in Italy, just like in Japan, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, many rural communities have been suffering from a drastic demographic decline to the point of threatening their existence. Today, 2,200 abandoned villages are casting shadows over shrinking municipalities as population decline throughout the country is menacing many regions. In 1996, 2,831 municipalities, mostly concentrated in mountainous Italy, were considered by the government at risk of extinction. In 2006, the numbers were raised to 3,556, which is 42% of the total 8,100 Italian Municipalities. Legambiete predicts that in 2016, the numbers will rise up to 4,395, from which 1,650 municipalities could completely disappear if no measures are taken.

This thesis investigates the potential of 12 close-by shrinking communities located in the province of Aquila, Abruzzo by turning them into a Diffused City, a strategy aiming to encourage economic and service interdependency rather than antagonism. By taking advantage of individual communities existing profile, resources, and needs, each of the cities are implemented with an action aiming to, first, stop the shrinkage process and, second, diversify local economy.

Advisor: david lieberman Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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under 50 m2 PUBLIC SPACES

kamyar khozeimeh, MUD

There are several abandoned extra small parcels in Toronto. These lots are emerged due to several reasons like land subdivisions, new streets interrupting the city grid, easements and passageways. These small lots, distributed around the city, make a network of golden small pieces of land which cannot be sold by the owner and are not being maintained either. Regarding to the land price in Toronto, there is a significant amount of forgotten potential in the City and the thesis is a try to find these extra small and convert them to spatial pockets for public activities.

The thesis process has three main steps: Macro: Finding these lots Mezzo: Categorizing lots Micro: Defining possible uses as solutions and designing selected sites

Advisor: george baird Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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expounded house jade kwong, March

This thesis operates intimately in fictional space and in the extended concepts of intangible places. It delves into the profoundly subjective pages of a novel written

by Michael Ondaatje and attempts to delineate narrative space into a tectonic inquiry and an architectural expression, which stops or provisionally rests, in the stillness of a house.

Approximating forensics, Expounded House makes deductions and conjectures into the reading of and the consciously assimilated portions of experience from Anil’s Ghost. The relationship of text to spatial construction is one that montages prose with pivoting landscapes and a vast sequence of history, invention and monologue that characterizes and transcribes space into material form. The deliberation and design of this house is carefully adapted for Anil Tissera, the forensic anthropologist and fictional protagonist. This is an architecture that subsists in propinquity and continuous dialogue with the novel.

Advisor: brian boigon & laura miller Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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A GREEN ROOF OASIS IN THE HEART OF U OF T ALEXANDROS LAGOUDELIS, MLA

This Thesis will explore the opportunity to implement a green roof program at the University of Toronto. Never in the past (with the exception of the West Donlands) has there been a movement of an institution as a whole, or a designed plan of a collection of buildings to be retrofitted with green roofs and facades. I am aiming to create a prototype that will provide the area with all the ecological benefits of green roof landscape architecture, especially runoff reduction and urban heat island effect reduction. In addition, one of the main goals of the system I am aiming to design is to create an aesthetically attractive site that stores and maximizes water consumption when it is abundant but conserves it when it is scarce.

Advisor: JOHN DANAHY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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some assembly required

quickspace modular solutions mario lavorato, March

In 2011, the Government of Canada announced that there is over $100 billion in investment planned for a range of projects in Northern Canada (the North). These projects, headed by international industry leaders such as Shell Canada, Rio Tinto Mining, Esso, and DeBeers Canada as well as the Government of Canada, are planned for Canada’s three territories as well northern Quebec and northern Newfoundland and Labrador.

QuickSpace Inc will attempt to respond to the demand created by a growing industry to offer on-demand spatial solutions for a variety of needs. It will attempt to reconcile the deficiencies of two separate systems and create a hybrid design that will offer a level of variability that currently does not exist in the market.

QuickSpace will use the Shipping Container as a rigid and geometrical base with SIP components to offer greater flexibility in design while still offering superior thermal resistance for cold climates.

My focus will be on attempting to respond to the growing need for housing by creating a modular system that can be implemented throughout any northern climate. My test site is Iqaluit. My test users are its people. Many urban planners suggest that modern dwellings inadequately reflect certain traditional cultural values of northern aboriginal and a as a result these designs are unable to meet the needs of a transitioning nomadic, unself-conscious culture to a settled, selfconscious way of life. Current housing standards used in the North have been designed to sustain only one ethnic group — the Euro-Canadian southerner.

Quickspace Modular Solutions, will attempt to reconcile these deficiencies.

Advisor: pina petricone Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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SONIC HYDROLOGIES ping-ya lee, mla

SONIC HYDROLOGIES investigates the potential for sound and light to reveal the dynamics of hydrologic and hydraulic systems in the landscape. The physical principles of fluid mechanics and wave motion are classified into a taxonomical matrix and encoded in a choreographed narrative of a river and its watershed. Through the exploration of water-related auditory and optical phenomena, spatiotemporal typologies are translated into a sequence of sensoria which enhance perceptual awareness of ecological flows.

In urban areas, where surface (hydrologic) drainage systems are altered and intercepted by engineered (hydraulic) infrastructure, water flows invisibly and inaudibly underground. The erasure of surface drainage patterns and the burying of water infrastructure precludes the possibility for urbanites to develop an experiential understanding of how the hydrologic and hydraulic water systems function and support life in the city.

To facilitate the interpretation of urban water systems, SONIC HYDROLOGIES proposes the merging of hydraulic instrumentation with the articulation of public space through phenomenological typologies.

Advisor: liat margolis Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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under the manhattan bridge wenwan liang, mla

While Manhattan Bridge, with its seven automobile lanes, two subway tracks, plus additional bike and pedestrian lanes, provides a gateway across the East River from lower Manhattan into Brooklyn, this 6855 feet long, 120 feet wide infrastructure creates huge, odd, underutilized space underneath.

This project addresses the potential of a huge abandoned space that is ignored in the urban context, and explores the possibility of reclaiming abandoned urban spaces and transforming them into new public spaces that unite the surrounding neighborhoods and organize various flows while providing a refuge for residents, workers, and tourists.

Advisor: jane wolff Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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from the flats to the hills

creating a new vision for the false creek flats, vancouver han liu, mla

This thesis explores the potential of landscape infrastructure to generate synthetic and sustainable systems for the re-urbanization of post-industrial port lands in North America. It uses landscape approaches to reclaim the False Creek Flats, a former bustling port/industrial land, which is now a post-industrial brownfield.

The design aims to develop a lively, flexible topography-based urban form that reconditions industrial, residential, commercial, and recreational uses, while simultaneously integrating associated connective infrastructures into the natural system. .

Advisor: jane wolff Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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laguna di venezia resistance to distinction mo liu, mla

This thesis aims to discuss the existing issues, challenges, and perspectives of future development of the Venetian Lagoon. The project intends to explore the potential opportunities for reconsidering the use of landscape infrastructure to adapt and sustainably transform the Venetian Lagoon. A prototype for landscape reclamation has been developed, which provides a vision for the future and a resilient resolution to the conflict between water and land.

Advisor: john danahy Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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redistributing mobility xin liu, mla

The thesis will design landscape for the improvement of the mobility systems in Chinatown, Flushing, New York City. The research direction will mainly focus on studying the mobility (human, freight, existing transport infrastructure, etc.) on the site. The different context of circulation systems between Asian modes and the North America context forms many conflicts, interplays, and unique phenomena.

For example, the car culture of North America and the commercial/touristic attraction of Asian immigrant neighborhoods create huge demands for parking lots, but the high density of buildings, which is typical for Asian cities and sites even in North America, have resulted in even more shortages of parking spaces and wayfinding issues. These phenomena can be viewed as both challenges and opportunities to create some experimental strategies for effective and efficient human based circulation.

Flushing Chinatown is a central transit hub of Queens borough, which brings tremendous commercial opportunities, along with overburden transit systems, chaotic disturbance to the residents, and sanitary issues. Pedestrian volumes on Flushing’s Main Street are about 70% higher than those found on Regent Street in Central London.

The design intention is to redistribute mobility spatiotemporally through landscape solutions in Flushing Chinatown, based on the research of mobility studies and other economic and social aspects. They will be organized as a network solving mobility issues, also improving commercial environments, which are the main driven forces behind mobility issues. The existing open space systems and streets are the main carriers of the network.

Advisor: john danahy Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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prairiescape fiona maciver, mla

We need a sustainable alternative to the all pervasive, ubiquitous turf. The prairie offers such an alternative. Designed in an ecologically aesthetic manner, the prairiescape does not attempt to conserve, restore, or preserve an historically favoured ecology, but creates a contemporary landscape that adapts to natural changes in the environment including human intervention.

Located within the North American Great Plains, the Thorncliffe neighbourhood in Calgary is the test site for this proposition. It is a first ring suburb, which offers a unique opportunity to introduce this new prairiescape, because unlike the urban core or new development it is experiencing declines in population, income, and investment, and is in need of regeneration. The landscape transformation allows for a rebranding and cultural shift to take place within the community. Through the design and management of streets, lanes, greenways, and front yards, this thesis will explore the development of awareness, knowledge, and care for our environment through ecological and aesthetic terms.

Advisor: elise shelley Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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deconcentrated public housing bita mahjoubi, mud

More and more people in Toronto are finding it harder and harder to afford housing and there is a high demand for affordable housing. With very little new social housing or affordable housing being developed in Toronto, the total number of people on the Housing Connections centralized waiting list for social housing is growing. The total number of people waiting for subsidized housing in Toronto is 152,081, which is over five per cent of the population. This number includes 30,756 children under the age of 17 and 14,011 single parents.

Moreover, The City of Toronto as the Canada’s most populous city is a focal point of development, growth, and urbanization. The Growth Plan forecasts 3.08 million people and 1.64 million jobs in the City of Toronto by 2031. It is therefore essential to consider public housing sites as an opportunity to provide affordable housing and accommodate population growth. Also, they have the opportunity for redevelopment; in many cases, over the years after these public housing projects were built, they fell into disrepair as governments stopped maintaining them.

This thesis seeks to develop a set of new design methods regarding public housing development and revitalization. The purpose of this study is to critique the current redevelopment plans, which promote gentrification, loss of public housing on site at a time when it is badly needed, and the loss of public land resources. The main goal is to eliminate these issues in this proposed redevelopment plan. The main theme that links all of the elements of the plan together is the importance of striving for diversity as a key organizing feature and the importance of tackling the problems of isolation, stigma, and barriers. The strategy is based on deconcentrating the public housing beyond its current boundaries, and integrating it with the existing surrounding city fabric through infill development. This is what will make a public housing area a successful and special place.

Advisor: adrian blackwell Thesis Reviews winter 2012

85

ETHNIC CITY, ON THE STREET SARA MASSAH, MUD

This thesis aims to leverage the immanent development of a public transportation corridor/street in Toronto to create multivalent public spaces that enhance the interaction of Toronto’s diverse and multicultural population.

The Eglington Avenue east-west transportation line – currently mired in local politics – cuts across the entire city. Eglington Avenue interfaces with 10 immigrant clusters; as such, it is home to a diversity of programs and services associated with different cultures. With improvements to public transportation, the opportunity exists to strategically capitalize on local public spaces.

This project proposes a variety of transit stations consisting of folded spaces with different structures within ethnic neighbourhoods at crucial locations along the street. These spaces not only provide a foundation for successful urban communication by maximizing public contact but also create new typologies for that street.

In these spaces, connecting transit service and its attendant infrastructure to public programming adds new approaches for the public realm, which maximizes the likelihood that people living in an area will use transit not just to commute.

Advisor: CAROL MOUKHEIBER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

87

INHABITION: EXPLORATIONS IN MODERN DOMESTICITY RYAN MCCLANAGHAN, March

A set of spatial rules creates the framework for a series of investigations for new domestic space and the architecture of the interior. What are the latent possibilities in reinterpreting the ordinary and developing new architectural events out of the familiar? The home is identified as a site where new interactions between the human behaviors of the occupants and the architecture of the home emerge.

Advisor: BRIAN BOIGON & LAURA MILLER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

89

BUILD IT BACK POST DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION STRATEGIES FOR THE MENTAWAI SARAH MILLER, March

Build it back addresses issues of permanency in a seismologically unstable and remote site. The Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, many hours by ferry across the Indian Ocean from mainland Indonesia, sits on the edge of an active fault line. Due to unyielding forestry laws and a combination of factors that lend stigmatization to this community, reconstruction plans that address a seismic event and tsunami that ensued on October 25, 2010 have yet to begin. This thesis responds to the event by exploring the potential of rebuilding through the examination of natural resettlement patterns in the temporary living situations and utilizing them as the catalyst for residential reorganization.

Advisor: AZIZA CHAOUNI Thesis Reviews winter 2012

91

THE SOUTH ROSEDALE SYNTHESIS STEPHEN NG, March

The South Rosedale Synthesis asks if a liveable, socially empowered, and equitable Toronto can be resurrected from the ashes of income polarization and systematic economic segregation. Can the immanent critique of the relentless transformative powers of developer interests and face value concerns of disingenuous neighbourhood organizations be “judo thrown� and instrumentalized to synthesize a socially equitable, vibrant, mixed income neighbourhood out of a homogeneous, exclusionary and elite enclave?

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

93

GENERIC WILLIAM ORR, March

In 2005, riots erupted from the banlieues of Paris. This event brought a new picture into view: there is a void beyond the well-known form of that city in which millions of people suffer, not so much from discrimination as from total exclusion. They are simply not part of the recognized state of affairs we call “Paris.� This architectural project responds to the event by laying down a generic structure. In every case, the generic affirms that truth which the event first drew from the void.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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EVERYTHING COUNTS IN SMALL AMOUNTS RICHARD PAPA, March

In an attempt to rectify an affordable housing crisis and out-of-control squatting, the City of Toronto has decided to start leasing what it calls “leftover space.”

These spaces have been designated undesirable, undevelopable, or underutilized

by City Council. Similar to the rules and approach of camping on Crown Land, occupiers are allowed to camp (urbanely) 21 days in these designated spaces. This new form of housing has spawned a new economy dependent on these urban campers.

Pay-per-use “hygiene huts” and kitchenettes, “power peddlers,” and “electricity splitter” businesses have sprung up to serve this new community. These spaces, to this point considered dead space, have become filled with the bustle and activity of an outdoor market. However, what are most visually intriguing are the pod-like structures that line the streets, hang from infrastructure and fill the alleyways.

Advisor: BRIAN BOIGON & LAURA MILLER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

97

INTERMEDIATE LANDSCAPES TERESSA PEILL, MLA

In truth, no one can exactly predict what will emerge from the tree as it deteriorates and its offspring grows over time, but much can be expected.

- David Leatherbarrowi Void, absence, yet also promise, the space of the possible, of expectation.

- Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió ii Cities are always in a state of economic, political, social, and physical transition.

This is the multi-scalar cycle of growth and decline. Design is most often limited to only half of this cycle; from growth to decline. The percentage of void industrial land in Montreal, Quebec has steadily increased; today these large urban voids are the temporal, spatial manifestations of the process of decline. The Turcot Yards is Montreal’s largest void site in close proximity to the downtown core. Bound by a major transportation infrastructure corridor, escarpment and canal, the site is a vast, vacant ground plane of monumental scale without significant use for the last five decades. In the absence of an economic driver as prevailing force for change and without a determined end use development goal, this thesis will investigate design as process rather than fixed outcome or development in the intermediate timeframe of decline. This thesis will explore design as framework to reconnect the site to the city as well as people to the site.

i David Leatherbarrow, “Unforeseen Beauty” Weiss/Manfredi: Surface/Subsurface. Ed. Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. 11. ii Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió, “Terrain Vague.” Anyplace. Ed. Cynthia Davidson. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995. 120.

Advisor: MARC RYAN Thesis Reviews winter 2012

99

EVERY INSTANT OF IDENTITY...

T. JARED PUMBER, March

Here, architecture is a tool used to engage its audience with gravitational effects of the physical world. Here, architecture’s relationship with the surface of the earth is portrayed in a massive construction, which addresses the earthbound condition and resulting datum in the context of sound, which is the tie that binds aurality to edifice.

The means by which massive bodies materialize has been the subject of investigation. A machine derived from Manfred Schroeder’s quadratic residue diffuser has provided an innovative fabrication methodology, which continually produces physical instantiations while functioning as an end in itself as a pseudo-random sound diffusing surface.

This machine and its products correspond to a theoretical framework that intends to elucidate every instant of identity upon a digital procedure, emphasizing immediate life-world actions as opposed to eventual consequences. Each subsequent product assembles onto its predecessors, constantly forming a common artifact.

Personal anxieties rooted in an excessively computerized practice have resulted in this process, which privileges material instance and corporeal identity in lieu of computational iteration while subtly revealing digital origins.

Advisor: DAVID LIEBERMAN Thesis Reviews winter 2012

101

Shock.Experience.

Encounter.Confront.

Provoke.Surprise.

Mask.Disguise

Disturb.Defamiliarize.Catalyze.

Experience.

Transient.Witness.

WITNESS THILANI RAJARATHNA, March

Numbness We are mentally distant from the world around us, in a state of inattention. Our ‘senses’ have been domesticated through a systematic process, caused by ‘shock.’

Shock “Under extreme stress, the ego employs consciousness as a buffer, blocking the openness of the synesthetic system, thereby isolating present consciousness from past memory. Without the depth of memory, experience is impoverished.”

“Someone who is ‘past experiencing’ is no longer capable.”

Erfahrung.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

103

RETAIN SONIA RAMUNDI, March

The history of Toronto’s ravines traces our collective relationship with nature. Originally the ravines were a source of fuel, food, water, and pleasure, but since the 1800s, we have polluted, channeled, buried, dumped, and logged most of this network. Very little has been done to either preserve or engage our 10,500 hectares of ravine in a meaningful way. Instead we have bridged, fenced, and bypassed the landscape making both locals and tourists entirely unaware of their presence.

This thesis aims to rehabilitate the ravines so they are once again part of our city by proposing a new pedestrian infrastructure that is both accessible to the public and introduces new cultural and recreational possibilities. By linking and connecting this phenomenal landscape with the existing built environment including transit infrastructure, not only is a new vantage point introduced, but new possibilities for circulation and erosion control are set forth that have broader implications and applications throughout the ravine.

Conceptually, the incision proposed is the manipulation of an existing infrastructural typology found in the ravine: the retaining wall. This concrete element is transformed from wall, to path, to architecture, while registering the existing sublime landscape, and addressing issues of erosion and programme. Reconnecting the public both visually and physically to the ravine also ensures that Toronto’s early history is retained and remains part of our collective memory.

Advisor: BRIGITTE SHIM Thesis Reviews winter 2012

105

BIO-FIXATION OF CO2 USING MICROALGAE MISSISSAUGA HOLCIM CEMENT PLANT NASTARAN RAZAVI, MLA The Holcim Canada Cement Plant in Mississauga is one of the emitters of greenhouse gas in the Greater Toronto Area, emitting about 900 kilotonnes (kt) annually.

My strategy is to harvest algae near to power plant to reduce carbon dioxide and produce biofuel. In this process, flue gas transfer from power plant’s smoke stack emissions to the microalgae ponds, Algae pond and photo bioreactor facilities provide an optimal environment for algae growth, by providing enough light and nutrients. After reaching enough density, the algae are harvested from the photo bioreactor and then transported to the biofuel production station in the city. The algae will be harvested and its oil will be extracted to be used as biofuel.

Advisor: ROBERT WRIGHT Thesis Reviews winter 2012

107

MARMORATON: RES PUBLICA CHESTER RENNIE, MLA The Marmoraton mine is a site that has been transformed by cycles of industrial use and forgetting. These cycles have created a sublime landscape because everything on the site is a witness to the transformation of objects by other objects that extend far beyond the site. This site is where cities come from, you can read it in the pit and crush.

The site will change. Its next transformation, into a pumped storage project, will bear the evidence of causation and removal daily. Water will be drawn and returned from the 550 ft. deep pit based on the fluctuating production and consumption of energy distributed across an entire province of objects.

This project is about making Marmoraton public.

Advisor: MARC RYAN Thesis Reviews winter 2012

109

ESCULENT URBANISM IMAGINING AN URBAN AGRICULTURAL LIFESTYLE

ERIKA RICHMOND, MLA Toronto sits atop Canada’s best farmland, yet we import over 60% of our produce. Urban agriculture has the potential to contribute a significant amount to Torontonian’s diets and revitalize Ontario’s farm heritage. However, currently urban agriculture must insert itself into leftover and in between spaces, competing with development for land and sun.

What if new developments integrated urban agriculture into plan, and production permeated every surface? What would an urban farming community look like, and how would it function? Esculent Urbanism explores the networks and nodes that would support significant food production in Toronto through the case study of Lawrence Heights, a housing project slated for revitalization.

Advisor: ELISE SHELLEY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

111

ANOMALOGY

THE POTENTIAL OF FORMAL ANOMALIES IN THE URBAN FABIRC CLARA ROMERO, MUD

Anomalies in the urban fabric, whether if they existed prior to city formation or accidentally appeared due to human intervention, have an inherent potential to constitute meaningful spaces.

Historically, cities were located around certain types of geographical features (ravines for irrigation or transportation, mountains for defense) and consolidated around specific civic constructions (defensive walls or churches for shelter). When colonial cities industrialized, rapidly overgrowing their military or agricultural functions, the regularity and repetitiveness of their logic hindered the spatial structure of the social functioning of the city.

The extraordinary circumstances of singular elements in the territory, such as natural or infrastructural systems, set boundaries to the spread of an otherwise endless urbanization process. The standardized logic of urbanization confronting an edge condition produces a set of anomalous solutions, which in fact reinforce the entity of the edge. The result is that anomalies are not isolated accidents, but rather a piece of a network of interconnected exceptional situations. However, generic urbanization occasionally finds a way to override or conceal the specificities of anomalous fabrics, erasing ‘the place’ and wasting its potential.

I explore the nature of this network of anomalies and study what the urban design strategy should be to uncover its significance. The city of Toronto has served as urban sample to set Anomalogy; the area around the Escarpment edge will be used to test my tactics.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

113

RE-CATALYZING ABANDONED PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE REVIVING THE ICONOGRAPHIC SIGNIFICANCE OF OBSOLETE PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE THAT ONCE DEFINED THE IDENTITY OF THE CITY PATRICIA SILVA SANTALLA, March Adaptive Reuse typically approaches old buildings as physical resources to be repurposed. A more profound problem is the obsolete iconographic content they embody, which if not appropriately reinvested with meaning can remain as a negative reminder of past significance and, thus diminished cultural value. Obsolete public infrastructure that has played a catalytic role in the economic and social development of the city and, thus, become an icon of its spirit of place during a past era magnifies the significance of this problem of reuse. If left in a state of neglect it can become a negative catalyst, causing decline of surrounding neighbourhoods, even diminishing the identity of the city itself. If simply redeployed for its land and use value, it can disappear into the normative fabric of the city, losing both its latent cultural significance and positive catalytic urban potential to future generations.

This design thesis investigates how obsolete urban infrastructure can be reinvested with catalytic energy that will renew its cultural and social significance to the city and, thus, renew its iconic value. It uses as design vehicle the abandoned rail lands and elegant nineteenth century railway station that once constituted the prime entry route over the mountains into Bolivia’s seat of government, the city of La Paz.

Advisor: BARRY SAMPSON Thesis Reviews winter 2012

115

GROUND CONTROL STEVEN SOCHA, March High rise condos are purchased specifically for their peace, quiet, and anonymity by those who seem to not care about tenants more than two floors above or below them. Life in the condo neighbourhood is eventless, constituting the perfect background into which one can merge invisibly. It is not that we don’t care about the person who lives ten floors below us, it is that we live in a world that discourages engagement by putting obstacles and barriers in our way. The functional efficiencies and seriality of the modernist slab tower have intensified the isolation of the individual down to a cell. This planner-and-developer-driven model has left little room for architectural reconsideration of the basic premise of high-rise housing.

The dominant mode of collective urban living, the condominium, has failed to replicate the intensity of urban street life beyond its lobby door.

While the bases of most condo towers were designed specifically to enliven the street and provide the perfect setting for social interaction, most visitors to condominium neighbourhoods will notice a conspicuous lack of it. The effect has been the feeling of the unsustainable suburbs invading the downtown core, that of a vertical gated community. We must radically reconfigure the condominium as we know it, accommodating programs spanning multiple levels, across multiple buildings, and even multiple neighbourhoods. To reconfigure the condominium, we must bend the street into the sky.

Advisor: MASON WHITE & JOHN MAY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

117

AN INFORMAL OPPORTUNITY: DE-MARGINALIZING CAIRO’S INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

MOHAMMED SOROOR, March The on-going revolution in Cairo has undeniably signaled the need for change.

President Hosni Mubarak and his regime ruled Egypt for over three decades, until January 25th 2011, when the Egyptian people rose to defend their beliefs.

Although there were positive outcomes, the Mubarak government failed during its reign to acknowledge and address social, economic, and political issues that have been slowly tearing the country apart. Social disparity, urban and economic inequalities, and government negligence are few examples of why the Egyptian revolution came to be, and continues to this day.

One voice finally getting a chance to be heard was that of Cairo’s informal settlers.

For years they have suffered through marginalization, government negligence, and socio-economic exploitation. Yet, as these settlements provide a living environment for the majority of the Greater Cairo Region, they are a front-running candidate as a viable option for Cairo’s future growth. The hidden potentials of informal settlements will only rise to the surface when they are perceived as such.

This thesis is focused upon questioning the extent to which architecture can operate as an agent of informality, to address the lack of a social and basic service infrastructure within informal settlements. The proposal supposes that a revitalized social unity may arise from the re-invention and implementation of infrastructural systems, ones that will aid in the de-marginalization of informal settlements, obtain a level of autonomy and independence from formal infrastructures, and contribute to Cairo’s communities.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

119

DIALECTICAL RUIN ARNE SURAGA, March In the second half of the twentieth-century, the debate surrounding the ruin and the monument was able to jump the division between traditional forms of memory creation (the monument) and those of the industrial and post-industrial era. This expanded the idea of the unintentional monument to include previously unconsidered works and allowed for a more in-depth consideration of the theme of musealization and monumentalization in an era when considerations of time and collective memory were beginning to accelerate.

Beginning with the questions that Alois Reigl posed in the late nineteenth-century in relation to the understanding of the monument as part and parcel of society’s collective unconscious, through to the debates by Andrea Huyssen who sees the stagnation in the development of collective memory by contemporary society as a danger to future generations, the debate is wide-ranging and varied in terms of its scope as well as the solutions suggested to address the fundamental issues at its core.

The context is the Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, Canada, a contentious part of the automobile infrastructure of the city since its construction in 1955.

It functions as a critical artery that runs through, and provides access to, the very core of the city, while at the same time becoming a physical barrier to the waterfront. The Gardiner was part of a larger plan to provide access into the city for a car-oriented culture in the nineteen-fifties, but the latter-portions were opposed vocally by those living within the city centre.

The legacy of the Gardiner is therefore wrought with a deep discourse that to this day brings vocal debate surrounding its future in the life of the city. It becomes the localized context for testing ideas surrounding the creation and exploitation of the unintentional monument based on the premise of the expressway losing its critical function as a feeder for the automobile into the city. By using a site that has such inherited notions of use and specificity, the challenge becomes the appropriate reinterpretation of the infrastructure in its context.

Advisor: BRIAN BOIGON & LAURA MILLER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

121

CHAIN OF PUBLIC SPACES IN SUBURBAN TORONTO MAHSA TAYEBI FAR, MUD Toronto is sometimes described as a “city of neighbourhoods.” It seems an odd description, since nearly all cities contain neighbourhoods, but it is intended to imply that Toronto’s neighbourhoods are especially varied and distinctive.

The Greater Toronto Area contains a heritage of nearly 2,000 post-war concrete residential tower blocks located throughout the region. The presence of this remarkable collection of modern housing represents an architectural, planning, and construction legacy unique to North America.

The regulation for towers open spaces were simple: the more open space associated with a building, the greater the height allowance resulting in the’ “tower in a park” sites as seen across Toronto. Decades later, much of the space associated with the concrete towers lies vacant while residents are forced to travel away from their neighbourhoods for food, services, or amenities. Access to major public transportation routes is often poor, as is the environment for walking or cycling.

These large spaces can be better used in service of their communities.

One solution to the problem of disconnection between different neighbourhoods of the city could be solved with the creation of chain of public spaces. The public realm is the only space in the city that provides opportunities for public interaction. The dialogue between people in the city suggests the health of the city. The city can use its public space as a powerful design tool by creating landmarks with public art, establishing neighbourhood identity, encouraging social mixing, and encouraging the highest level of design in the most deficient neighbourhoods.

Designing a chain of public spaces as the physical and communicative nodal points of city life not only brings back life to dead ends of the city, but also creates both physical and mental connections between separated urban fabrics of the city. In my thesis, I will focus on Toronto’s suburbs and try to identify three different sites with special common characters and define a model of chain of public spaces to be applied in these neighbourhoods. At the end I will go through a detailed design of one of these sites.

Advisor: GEORGE BAIRD Thesis Reviews winter 2012

123

DABBAWALA CITY RASHPAL THIND, March The Dabbawala lunchbox delivery system (MTBSA) is an informal operation in the city of Mumbai, which carries with it a unique and local “logic.” This system organizes and navigates the city while making spilt-second judgments and routes its daily operations in a stepwise and timely manner. As the process unfolds within the confines of a congested Mumbai, it unconsciously generates a local urbanism. By studying the Dabbawala operation in detail, it becomes evident that the governing “logic” has potential implications on the current and future states of the city. By further analysis, it becomes clear that Dabbawala “logic” can provide an informative development structure to current states of informal habitation.

Thus, embedded in Dabbawala “logic” there is an informal yet strict operational and management structure that has the ability to re-tool architecture; so as to redevelop and re-organize informal settlements in Mumbai

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

125

AN ORANGERY FOR THE PRINCE OF SOUBISE TRISTAN THOM, March And so it had precisely the effect that both architect and patron had imagined, though perhaps the rapturous reception had eclipsed even the greatest of all possible expectations. Word of M. de Rohan’s most spectacular and novel Orangery clung to the lips of all of Paris, passing from one to all in what would seem like an instant. Its grand dome, beckoning out to the Rue du Quatre Filles, would incite endless intrigue among those who passed by. Within good society, any excuse was made to obtain a more intimate viewing; no connection to Monsieur too tenuous if it promised the vague hope of an invitation within. How splendid in such a building, the fortunate visitor would remark, was the submission to man of nature and the seasons! How utterly pleasing was the defiance of inclement climes upon trespassing into its temperate domain, as though a world apart! Transported from some far-flung corner of the globe to the very seat of Civilization, how utterly resplendent these noble trees became! How inestimably their supreme beauty glorified this already great home and its namesake! And in the fairer seasons, at the height of their splendor, as the sweet smell of orange blossoms did cling to the noses of lingerer and passerby alike, how utterly transported one would be!

Who but the most noble and elevated among men could justify such a magnificent display? Yes, the Orangery contributed inestimably to the peerless regard now enjoyed by its most enlightened and beneficent patron, who was, it need scarcely be said, pleased beyond measure. So too did the young architect find himself a man transformed, contented, as he was, to reap the generous praise and ever-more generous commissions both so rightfully bestowed upon him.

Advisor: AN TE LIU Thesis Reviews winter 2012

127

IMPROVING THE EVERYDAY PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE NOEL MUD The typical urban pedestrian experience in Toronto is not focused on the pedestrian at all. The focus is on individual architectural components [the buildings] along a prescribed path [the sidewalk] associated with and bounded by imaginary boundaries [the property].

The focus on built form creates a problem. The pedestrian experience is lost. The individuality, the uniqueness of the neighbourhood within the public realm is diminished. It is diminished because built form is not a product of the individual. Built form is the product of groups, of corporations, of everything that is not the individual.

One unique item that is being lost in the pedestrian experience is the pedestrian.

As the public realm of urban populations grows, the individualities, the unique idiosyncratic qualities of the pedestrian experience diminish.

This thesis promotes possibilities for the individual. It provides opportunities for unique experiences within the everyday pedestrian experience. It provides possibilities for the implementation of art in the public realm.

Art provides opportunities to participate, educate, recognize, remember, engage, think, enjoy. While the City of Toronto has mandates through Policy, the Public Art Program and the City of Toronto Public Art Collection to incorporate art in a broad sense, these entities need more clearly defined objectives to ensure that art is implemented in ways that benefit the various definitions of the urban experience.

In order to implement art in the public realm that will improve the everyday pedestrian experience, additional criteria must be incorporated into policy before an improved public realm can come to fruition. A concentrated focus, providing a gallery nested in the everyday, needs to be programmed and systematically integrated into the Avenues study, into the network of the City itself.

A framework of diagrams, a guideline for imagining possibilities, must be shown within the policy to take art out of the perception of it being a mandated 1% obligation and thrust it into the real-world context of art which benefits ourselves, our communities, and our everyday pedestrian experiences.

Advisor: JOHN DANAHY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

129

PARADISE LOST AXEL VAN CHEE MLA Ka-ne and Kanaloa were great travellers. They tracked the islands for awa*, for it was bitter and very astringent, but when crushed and mixed with water it becomes a liquor, and everyone loved it. They journeyed along the coast of O’ahu and came to Kalihi.

At Kalihi were fine awa roots, and they dug them up to prepare for chewing. When the awa was ready, Kanaloa went to collect fresh water but there was none to have. So he said to Ka-ne, “Our awa is good, but there is no water in this place.

Where can we find water for this awa?”

Ka-ne turned and said to him, “there is indeed water here.” He gathered his staff in his hands and stepped onto the hardened lava. He brought his staff up, and with great force, struck the rock and pierced through the core. Out of the hole sprang crystal water with which they made the awa. The gods, contented by the awa, laid down and slept. And the place is known as Ka-puka-Wai-o-Kalihi (The water door of Kalihi) to this day. * Kava plant, Piper methysticum

Advisor: PETER NORTH Thesis Reviews winter 2012

131

LAUNCH XENIYA VINS, March Started as a military missile test range in 1955 under the USSR government, Baikonur Cosmodrome is the first and largest operational space launching facility in the world. It is a birthplace of the most significant space achievement to date – a human in space.

Caught in the midst of political and geographical governance, Baikonur now faces an uncertain future. Owned by Kazakhstan, and leased by the Russian Federation until the year 2050, Baikonur has a status of a City of National Importance for both countries. With a construction of their own Cosmodrome underway, Russia will consider terminating the lease and handing the operation of Baikonur over to Kazakhstan. Currently, Kazakhstan has no prominent space program and no trained personnel to operate Baikonur. Complete termination of any launching activity from the cosmodrome would render the immense infrastructure and facilities of the site obsolete in less than 10 years.

This thesis takes a strategic and visionary approach for the site’s unique occupation as an International Space Research Centre. Baikonur will become a place for countries to collaborate in peaceful space exploration. The project also zooms in on specific strategies to address existing historical, active, abandoned, and destroyed facilities, while linking the everyday life of its occupants with the life of the rocket.

Advisor: MASON WHITE & JOHN MAY Thesis Reviews winter 2012

133

DIAGNOSTIC + THERAPEUTIC MICRO-ENVIRONMENTS STACIE VOS, March As the frequency of global pandemics continues to risei our collective health in the twenty-first century will increasingly depend on the physical and virtual apparatuses used for tracking and identifying infectious diseases within the urban context.ii This thesis proposes an architecture capable of managing, i.e. diagnosing and providing therapy, the ailments of air travel through sensing and actuating operations.

Airports have become the frontlines of disease control as a result of our global connectivity. This is becoming evident in the prevalence of biometric scanners for temperature detection, airport quarantine rooms and on-board health checks. The effectiveness of these measures however is mitigated by the necessities of efficiency in airport flow and profitability, and more importantly by the complexity of disease detection in large, dense, migratory spaces. An intervention at the scale of the mobile individual, the body, rather than one’s collective enclosure, is opportune for preventing the spread of diseases: personal devices can anticipate the conditions when one is most likely to become infected and respond to provide preventative properties. In an increasingly infectious world, rather than resorting to surgical facemasks we can seek relief through responsive and chic micro-environment apparel. The prototypical medical gear responds to biosensor data through a process of mutation taking on a more complex form – one that responds to immediate health and cultural pressures.

The thesis builds on current trends in wearable computing, along with the increasing proliferation of self-monitoring health initiatives, biosensors and electronic hobbyist tools in customizing everyday life. As ubiquitous technologies become more adept at sensing elements invisible to the human eye and performing this function invisibly, to what extent do we desire a visible representation and form of these operations? I argue for an integration of systems designed to enhance the perception of our milieu. i Future Agenda. “Global Pandemics.” 2011. ii Hilary Sample. “Biomed City.” Verb Crisis. Ed. Mario Ballesteros. New York: Actar, 2008.

Advisor: CAROL MOUKHEIBER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

135

DE ZONE ED SUBURBAN TRANSFORMATION MEETS DIVERSITY SARA VOSSOUGHI, MUD This thesis project is a critique of the intensification strategies that are arising in response to growth and transportation plans within the former suburban regions of today’s metropolitan Toronto. More specifically, it is concentrated on Yonge Street’s rapid transformation pattern in the North York area. Looking at Yonge Street in North York today, there is a homogeneous type of development that is very much developer driven and works best in accordance to city zoning and regulations. This thesis is concerned with the economic downturns that have taken place subsequent to development and the negative impact they have had on the neighborhood.

Today’s suburbs are home to a number of different groups with various cultural backgrounds, including many new immigrants, which presents as an opportunity to challenge homogeneity. Immigrants bring great innovative ideas with them to Toronto, and they transform their living environment rather than adapting to a suburban way of life. Capitalizing on such innovative ways of thinking can result in increased variety and opportunity. Introducing de-zoning, and simplifying the zoning process and regulatory framework, would allow for different and innovative development schemes to merge into intensification patterns. In addition, the economic and social outcome of this movement would allow the settled ethnic neighborhood in the region to fulfill their cultural needs and prepare the groundwork for newcomers in Toronto.

Advisor: CAROL MOUKHEIBER Thesis Reviews winter 2012

137

PROPOSAL FOR AN UNENDING SURFACE POWERED BY ADS AND EGO: A POP MACHINE CHRIS WANLESS, March

A SURFACE OF CONTINUAL BECOMING, GENERATING A SPECTACLE OF IMAGE, SYMBOL, COLOUR AND FORM FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES TO REPLACE ITSELF. THE MORE YOU LOOK AT IT THE FASTER IS DISAPPEARS Architecture has, for better or worse, gone POP! It has become about the production of images, forms, brands, and personas as much as it is about buildings. It participates in mainstream culture to drive both its own production and the dissemination of the identity/brand of its patron. This thesis is focused on interrogating contemporary architecture as essentially a POP media.

The power of POP as an operative method lies in its ability to both reinforce the dominant culture and/or utterly subvert it. Understanding contemporary architecture as such reveals its dual role as a spectacular commodity and critical artifice.

The tension between the two will form the site for an iterative exploration into architecture’s potential for POP.

Advisor: ADRIAN BLACKWELL Thesis Reviews winter 2012

139

CAUSE AND EFFECT

EXPERIENCING THE CITY-MOUNTAIN THRESHOLD BEN WATT-MEYER, MLA

The city of Bogotá, Colombia, is defined by the Sierra Oriental, its eastern hills.

Over the past half century, rapid population growth has caused the horizontal expansion of the city outwards from the base of the hills. Despite steep topography and the designation of the Sierra as forest reserve, the past decades have seen significant occupation of the slope by both private development and informal settlements. In recent years, the politics of the forest reserve boundary have come to the forefront, highlighting the reality that a line on a map is not enough to control urban growth and protect the unique environmental and cultural characteristics of the Sierra Oriental.

A local design initiative, with support from the city planning department, is proposing to create a public landscape corridor stretching the entire 35 km length of the city’s eastern edge. This corridor is an ambitious project that traverses the most highly contested terrain of the city. What could act as a catalyst for its realization?

This thesis proposes to create new experiences at the urban edge that allow for the perception of the complex urban and environmental systems at play at the citymountain threshold. Simple yet strategic interventions that provide access and create public space at the boundary will give momentum to the city’s corridor project and spatially define the edge of the city.

Advisor: LIAT MARGOLIS Thesis Reviews winter 2012

141

NEU! SALEM CHARLES WELLFORD DILLARD, MLA By some accounts, nearly twelve percent of the earth’s surface has been claimed as the territory of historic preservation regimes. Buildings, districts, landscapes, cities and even entire regions are made untouchable by the politics of preservation.

Ill-equipped to manage the necessary growth and change required and intrinsic to cities, preservationist are turning our cities into consumable containers of nostalgia at best, and are a significant threat to our cultural autonomy, at worst. This thesis project is an interrogation of the preservation model as a means of managing the urban landscape and creating culture.

Salem, founded by German Moravians in 1750 in the US state of North Carolina began as a utopic experiment based on the productivity of the land and the progressive ideals of its founders. Wildly successful at first, Salem soon came to be, along with it’s twin city Winston, one of the most important economic and industrial centres of the American south. However, the pressures of twentieth century urban renewal provoked a regressive backlash in Salem and helped convert the site into a now failing living history museum called Old Salem.

Recognizing the economic infeasibility and cultural adolescentization of “Old Salem,” this thesis proposes an alternative strategy of re-urbanization incorporating the design of the Piedmont Triad Research Park, the largest planned urban research park in the United States. A two-pronged approach of urban infill and infrastructural landscapes provides the urban structure for a revitalized Salem and the larger metropolitan region of Winston-Salem.

Advisor: GEORGES FARHAT Thesis Reviews winter 2012

143

ABOVE 100KM/H LAND RECLAMATION AT HIGHWAY INTERCHANGES

SEVEN XIRU CHEN, MLA Cycling, jogging, wandering, exercising.

Woodland, wetland, grassland, meadow field.

Where would one take part in such activities, where would one find such sceneries?

Highway interchanges create unique spaces that amalgamate movement and people. These spaces therefore represent an important place in the city. However, they pose aesthetic harm, physical and social obstacles into the surrounding neighborhoods, and they cause problems regarding the city’s other infrastructures: cycling routes, and pedestrian connections — most of the interchanges are considered the city’s armpits.

This project proposes a park at the interchange of Highway 401 and Allen Expressway in Toronto to demonstrate that through the intervention of landscape, the conventional mono-functional transportation infrastructures, occupying a large portion of city land, can be reclaimed and reprogrammed more efficiently as an urban public realm.

Revitalizing the wasted lands at this interchange and transforming them into an intensively planted ground, the existing land will serve as an ecology layer in this interchange park. A footbridge will intertwine with the highway and integrate with the ecology layer to serve as an amenity structure where people can slow down and enjoy the memorable experience within this traditionally no man’s land. By reclaiming the wasted and underutilized transportation land, the highway interchange would turn into a meaningful place for both ecological environment and human activities.

Advisor: JANE WOLFF Thesis Reviews winter 2012

145

CONNECTING NATURE TO THE REDEVELOpMENT pROCESS ALEX YANG, MUD This thesis proposes a series of ravine parks that integrate with the surrounding towers and infrastructure to expose a new reading of the landscape system.

People call Toronto the City of Ravines or City of Towers because a lot of apartment towers were built during the last several decades. Meanwhile, the city has an abundance of associated ravines next to these developments. According to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, many of Toronto’s parks were established in the floodplain of the ravines. As such, many ravine parks are lower than the development ground level, which affects their accessibility and the visibility to the public. in places where towers are built near ravines, this situation is particularly extreme because the towers’ floor plates and podiums produce a “walling” effect that separates the public space of the city and ravine parks. Since the ravines and towers are not developed at the same time and same location, they failed to take each other into consideration. Some ravine parks are hard to access because they do not integrate themselves with the city. And some towers failed to take advantage of the nearby ravine after the renewal prosess.

This thesis proposes to look critically at both the development methodology of ravine system and tower renewal. From an urban design perspective, it connects the tower renewal process with the surrounding public open space, and attempts to find a way to design a better open space, a better utilize urban land, and create a more sustainable neighborhood.

ADviSOR: ROBERT WRIGHT ThESiS REviEwS wiNTER 2012

147

AL JAZIRAH AL HAMRAH: REDESIGNING COASTAL DESERT ENVIRONMENTS ALONG THE ARABIAN PENINSULA SAMAR ZARIFA, MLA Coastal developments in the Arabian Peninsula have drastically transformed in the past several decades, primarily due to the discovery of oil in the region. This has caused a sudden shift in traditional modes of living, with an increased influence of architecture and design from other areas of the world. Additionally, and on a larger scale, most of the coastal developments seen often refer to specific forms found in nature, giving them the appearance of leisure and luxury destinations. A lack of accountability and attention was given to the ecological impacts of numerous designs and developments and only recently have these issues begun to surface.

This thesis investigates how the integration of ecology, cultural rehabilitation, and form, could serve as an exemplary departure from the existing approach to coastal developments in the Gulf region, which has manifested adverse affects on marine ecology and an overall loss of appreciation to authentic cultural and natural heritage.

This investigation will be conducted by exploring an ecological approach to the rehabilitation of a cultural heritage site, one of the only remaining, fully standing traditional villages in the Arabian Peninsula. It will offer a critique of the contemporary conception of nature and form in the Gulf Region, by examining traditional and innovative methods of living.

The site for this thesis will serve as a living museum and knowledge base, one that would present an unrivalled approach to future designs along the coast, by creating a unique identity and sense of place to a site.

Advisor: LIAT MARGOLIS Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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Thesis Reviews winter 2012

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