Current students

Dilip da Cunha, Columbia University

We live in an all-consuming Ocean of Wetness, a wetness that is everywhere in the air, earth, sea, flora and fauna, precipitating, evaporating, storming, seeping, soaking, transpiring, osmoting, freezing. We are wetness ourselves, our wetness necessary to our existence. However, we do not learn that we live in an Ocean of Wetness. We learn instead that we live on an Earth surface called land that we take for granted as existent and place beyond all difference, assuming that all people experience it. In this talk, I present land as a product of design in an Ocean of Wetness that we fail to acknowledge. It is a design that deploys four design devices: the geometric surface, geometric line, hydrologic cycle, and language of landscape. Together they create and maintain an Earth surface that serves as the ground of observation and habitation. It also serves as the ground of a colonization that continues largely because this act of design passes unnoticed and unquestioned. What does it take to acknowledge land to be a product of design; to recognize that our real home is in an Ocean of Wetness that is everywhere rather than on an Earth surface with water somewhere? Does Ocean offer an appreciation of more fundamental difference in culture; and does it open fresh possibilities for design in the face of climate change that threatens land with destruction? 

Angie Jim, Allies & Morrison

What truly defines "homes for all" in our rapidly growing cities? In this talk, Angie Jim Osman, Partner at Allies and Morrison, explores how thoughtful design and density can nurture communities, championing sustainable, resilient neighbourhoods built for the long term. Drawing on Allies and Morrison’s deep experience with complex urban regeneration sites—from King’s Cross to Greenwich Peninsula in London—Angie will reveal how these foundational lessons are now being adapted to reshape Toronto.

Samantha Eby, Emerging Practitioner, Waterloo Architecture

Samantha Eby is a licensed architect and researcher based in Toronto. Through her work she explores the intersection of design, policy frameworks, and ownership models, focusing on their impact on housing projects. In 2024, she founded this—office, an architecture and spatial research practice committed to exploring new typologies and models of architecture through non-traditional collaborations and research. She is also the co-founder and the Executive Director of ReHousing, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting housing creation through applied research, consultation, and education. ReHousing’s work on multiplex zoning was recognized with the 2023 CMHC President’s Medal for Outstanding Housing Research.

George Massoud, Material Cultures, London, UK  

Material Cultures is an interdisciplinary, not-for-profit research, action and design organisation working to address the intersecting issues of climate and social justice in the built environment. Understanding buildings as ultimately drawn from the landscape, we argue for the reintegration of architecture and agriculture. We support regenerative approaches to growing and harvesting materials, fostering bioregional construction practices that operate within planetary boundaries. We challenge the systems, technologies, supply chains, regulations and materials that make up the construction industry, with the aim of transforming how we build and who we build for. 

Brian Doucet, University of Waterloo

Thinking Beyond the Market: A film about genuinely affordable housing takes you across Canada to learn about policies, programs and projects that are already happening and already having a positive impact on addressing the housing crisis. From using public land to build non-market housing in Kitchener and Whistler, and inspiring Indigenous-led projects in Vancouver, to strong tenant protections and rent control in British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, the examples featured in this film demonstrate how many important solutions are making a difference in communities big and small! The film features interviews with more than 30 planners, policymakers, politicians, developers, residents and housing advocates from coast to coast. The film inspires and challenges us to think about both the root causes of the housing crisis and transformative solutions.