Notice of M.Arch. Thesis Defence Spring 2018

Clara Walker

Of the thesis entitled: Are we there yet? A Study of Public Space in Midtown Kitchener-Waterloo

Abstract:

With the introduction of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) route, Midtown Kitchener-Waterloo is now easily accessible from other areas in the Region via several transit options without the need to rely on personal vehicles. The LRT connects public transit to pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure, and, more importantly, acts as a catalyst for mixed-use, residential, and commercial development along its route. These are drastic changes in both how people move from place to place, and where those places are within the Region.

The public spaces of Midtown Kitchener-Waterloo will need to evolve in response to the changes prompted by the LRT development. The anticipated increase in population residing in this corridor will require additional amenities, and the streetscapes will need to address the augmented flows of people, all while enhancing without compromising the existing character. Through analysing the shifting priorities of emerging stakeholders, this thesis will explore how the public spaces of Midtown will reform during this period of change, and supplement ongoing government initiatives.

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Mona Dai

Of the thesis entitled: A Commons for Resistance

Abstract:

The housing crisis is Oakland is starkly visible.  In recent years, the tech boom in Silicon Valley has drastically increased costs of living in the Bay Area.  Many workers from San Francisco and the peninsula have relocated across the Bay to Oakland, in search of more affordable rent, spurring a wave of gentrification and displacement in the city.  Since 2000, Oakland has lost 29% of its Black popuation¹.  The Bay Area is gradually being re-segregated, as gentrification forces lower-income residents, often people of colour, to relocate to peripheral cities.

A Commons for Resistance examines the current crisis through a dialectic of commons space and enclosures.  Commons spaces are spaces that are produced by all, and shared by all, while enclosures are spaces controlled by an exclusive group in society, which produce benefits for that group to the exclusion of all others. The thesis posits that Oakland’s current crisis is made possible by- and perpetuates- a history of enclosure in the city, which has created the inequality necessary for gentrification and displacement to occur.  Policies of enclosure (for example, redlining, predatory lending, and Urban Renewal) organize domestic space, in turn generating the inequalities currently visible in the urban landscape. 

Using this theoretical framework of commons and enclosures, the thesis also surveys current state, market and individual tactics addressing the crisis, revealing that most measures accept a default association between housing and private profit, and have limited effectiveness in adequately addressing the shortage of affordable housing. The thesis argues that for housing to be truly affordable, it must be a common right, detached from motives of profit.

The design response draws upon Oakland’s deep history of social justice activism, and the radical practices for living together that have emerged in its communities’ struggles to reclaim the commons.  It advocates for a vision of housing embedded within the urban commons, kept perpetually affordable through a community land trust, a model of housing provision that is gaining clout in Oakland and in cities across the world facing gentrification pressures. An architecture of scaffolding is proposed for this model and applied in the design of three sites in Deep East Oakland.  The scaffold refers a guiding framework for community involvement in the design and construction processes for these interventions.  As well, the scaffold is an exploration of how architectural forms (surfaces, structures and landscapes) could contribute to the collective stewardship of space.   

It is not the place of this thesis, written from an outsider’s perspective, to offer a definitive set of steps to solve the housing crisis. Instead, by learning from the crisis in Oakland and the collective efforts to combat it, A Commons for Resistance adds a voice to the growing, global call to see housing as a collective responsibility, offering a set of suggestions and provocations that illustrate the potentials of dwelling in the commons.

¹ 1 US Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table B03002, 2000).; US Census Bureau, 2016 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table B03002, 2016).

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Samuel Ganton

Of the thesis entitled: Cauldron of Forces: Designing a Lightning Observatory on Lake Maracaibo

Abstract:

There are storms in the world, and the world is a storm, and we ourselves are weather. Earth and the universe are continually emerging and dissolving: geological, meteorological, and biological forces interact to create planets, storms, and living creatures, which cycle from one form to another. What seems static is simply moving slowly. Everything is weather.

As an example, take the Maracaibo Basin in western Venezuela, a 50,000 km² valley where wind, water, oil, and mountains are fused in a single turbulent system. The Catatumbo Lightning burns overhead, dominating the scene. Nearly every night for centuries there has been a thunderstorm over Lake Maracaibo – a persistent, recurring weatherform that has shaped cultural memory and mythology in the region. Below, the lake is the centre of Venezuela’s oil extraction operation. Wellheads dot the surface of the lake, threaded by a labyrinth of leaky underwater pipelines. All these phenomena have their genesis in the geological processes that shaped the basin. The uplift of surrounding mountain ranges has depressed the valley, freeing deep reservoirs of oil and trapping them close to the surface. The same mountains funnel low-level winds sweeping south from the Caribbean and create favourable conditions for thunderstorms.

This thesis wrestles with the complexity of the Maracaibo Basin through storytelling and design. Part One is a cosmic history, tracking the spatial and cultural metamorphosis of the valley. Part Two is a design investigation into architecture’s capacity to frame an encounter with wild weather. Through the speculative design of a thunderstorm observatory sited near the epicentre of the Catatumbo Lightning, it asks: what kind of architecture might participate in cycles of transience and change, rather than obscuring them? How might architecture extend sensory perception and become an instrument for connecting humans more completely to the storm that is our world?

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Marco Chimienti

Of the thesis entitled: I Went for a Drive

Abstract:

The place is a Tower much like the ones in Cambridge I’ve been so fascinated by, the ones I’m drawn to when I need a break.

What makes this Tower of interest is that it just so happens to be the tallest thing in the western hemisphere. Better yet, it’s also located in perhaps the flattest state in the US: North Dakota—second only to Florida. This place, where the tallest structure meets the flattest land, is where I want to go. North Dakota also happens to be the place where you can find the longest stretch of laser-straight road—192 kilometers running between the I-29 south of Fargo and Highway 30, into the city of Streeter, population 170 as of the 2010 census.

I seem to be drawn to these extremes of mundanity—maybe because nothing is ever really mundane if you capture it just right. And so I’m off on a boring trip to take plain photos of mundane objects in bland landscapes. One is a Tower. The other is a Road.

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Carly Kandrack

Of the thesis entitled: Guiding the Grand: Journeying into the Grand River’s Diverse Histories

Abstract:

The Grand River is a dynamic force that acts on and within the landscape of its watershed. Through the course of an eleven-thousand-year relationship with humanity, its identity has evolved most dramatically in the last two hundred years. Human understanding of the river has gone from prosperity during early settlement, to adaptation under pressures of increasing mid-century flooding and drought, and now, toward a passive stance that views the river as a valuable resource before an active ecosystem. This most recent attitude wavers only when the river swells and rushes to remind us of its inexorable nature; a power that humanity has historically fought to obtain control over.

This thesis work is inspired by the willful words of geographer J.G. Nelson of the University of Waterloo’s Heritage Research Centre; “when people understand and appreciate the long history and special qualities of [the Grand River’s] landscapes, they will be more supportive of their conservation and stewardship”^[i]. It is aimed at building on the individual’s relationship with the river, and seeks traction through the underutilized tourism industry of the Grand River. Currently, a handful of paddling and rafting outfitters service the lower reaches of the river, providing guided tours with limited historical content. Besides this, the GRCA has installed a number of heritage plaques within the watershed to mark a significant person, place or event on the river, however, these do little to adequately reveal the complexities of its history. This thesis proposes an alternative to the fragmented private services and prescriptive plaques, and, instead, uses architectural and landscape design to unify the river and animate aspects of the landscape’s past. The meaningful histories of identity, use and occupation on the Grand River become the basis for designs that draw people into it.

Operating as a guidebook to paddling the Grand River, this thesis is organised into a series of five day-trips to be undertaken in a canoe or kayak downstream. The journey begins central to the watershed, at the Shand Dam north of Fergus, and finishes at an abandoned stone mill near Glen Morris. Each trip accounts for 3-6 hours of water travel combined with several portaging stints, arriving by the end of each day at a themed site and campground; Displacing, Unearthing, Restoring, Gathering and Racing the Grand, in sequence. The themes explore aspects of the Grand River’s natural and cultural histories, engaging existing and revived qualities at each site, and encouraging moments of reflection along the journey. In order to experience the river, and to develop an immersive relationship with the capacity to learn from it, this thesis proposes that one must occupy the landscape the same way that the river does – physically, dynamically, and continuously.

^[i] Nelson, J. G., ed. The Grand River Watershed: A Heritage Landscape Guide. Waterloo: Heritage Resources Centre, University of Waterloo, 2003, 3.

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Victor Poon

Of the thesis entitled: Portraits from the State Mental Hospitals

Abstract:

The thesis is a short book of fifty sketches. I felt I threw out a significant amount of other material – plans, sketchup models, physical models, and photographs. Many people I had shown my work to were uninterested in drawing analysis or precedent studies, but reacted strongly to the sketches of patients. People began opening up about aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who suffered through various phases of mental illness. I found that this was the type of discussion I wanted to foster and threw out most of my previous work. The thesis is a challenge to the taboo of mental illness and what we do not say about it.

I travelled to one of the largest and most secluded of the State Hospitals in the American South. I flew to the state of Georgia for two weeks, rented a car and drove two hours east to the small town of Milledgeville. A place has the power to change the way you feel about the world. Central State Hospital, located in the forest south of Milledgeville, had the power to awe. Here was a full city built and deserted in the geographical heart of Georgia. After my travels, I spent time studying the works of photographers who documented State Hospitals across America in the era of long-term institutionalization. Photographs have raw power and truth in their documentation of the human condition. The image pauses a moment of distress, or despair for someone who may not be aware and try to hide it. Photographs are primary documents. They tell what was done to patients, through physical restraints, being force-fed or locked up. The act of redrawing so many photographs leads to a sort of inhabitation of the collective photographs. I imagined myself inside the ward, feeling the raw concrete on the floor and hearing the dry creaks of an overloaded wooden bench. I began to emphasize with the patients. I understood their acts of resistance. 

I live with someone who has a mental illness. I feel a sense of horror looking at the cruel restraints and the resigned faces of suffering. As an architect who may decide to branch into healthcare, this work has warned me to take special care in designing for the vulnerable (physically, socially, politically) who are kept in places out of sight from most of the world. I have learned that places where people are sent away from their families and communities, tend to collect these people. These places can grow unchecked through willful neglect, a ‘collective amnesia’ out of sight (Meskell 2002,566). As architects, we must always keep these institutions for the vulnerable in sight.

Meskell, Lynn. "Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology." Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 3 (2002): 557-74.http://www.jstor.org/stable/3318204.

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Jennifer Vanessa Jimenez Escobar

Of the thesis entitled: Untold History, the Museum of Toronto

Abstract:

From its role in the fur trade in the 17^th century to the multicultural city that it is today, the City of Toronto has evolved significantly over time. This thesis attempted to build a container to recognize the city’s history through the design of a museum: ‘Museum of Toronto’. The project itself is located at the east end of the St. Lawrence neighborhood, adjacent to the busy downtown core, where the first parliament of Upper Canada once stood. The museum is targeted to all Torontonians, including; all Canadians who choose to live in Toronto; immigrants who are looking for new places to call home; and children and youth who are curious to learn more about the city they live in.

The design of the building began with explorations into the city’s history including its immigration policies. These historical narratives influenced the true purpose of the building both as a place to exhibit historical artifacts connected to the city’s development and also as a place of inclusion for newcomers. As such, the museum houses a mix of cultural institutions: a museum, theatre, library, and also a learning centre. The ‘Untold History’ refers to not only histories of the past, but also to histories of immigrants yet to come. The main goal of the design was to create a space that could simultaneously express the past and also be open to the possibilities of the future. The architecture itself addresses the complex functionality of a museum and the representation of memory through physical form while creating a place for integration and development of community, to the new comer, to the elderly and the children, but most importantly to open the eyes to the lake.

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Terry Huang

Of the thesis entitled: Chasing Spadina

Abstract:

Toronto is a city that operates at the scale of automobiles and subways. Its environments are many and varied—layers of infrastructure, geography, and history create a heterogeneous mix of urban fabric. The Spadina Subway Line is one of the primary routes of navigating this mix. It extends from the heart of downtown northwest to the edge of Toronto and into the neighbouring City of Vaughan. With no single street to follow the Spadina Line winds through a fragmentary collage. On the surface the pieces have little relation to each other—a collection of urban fabrics forcibly connected by the subway.

This thesis is a performance. It performs a walk, a transect, along the above ground line of the subway. This walk builds off the previous generations of theoretical walkers—the saunterers of Henry Thoreau, the flâneurs of Charles Baudelaire, the surrealistsof André Breton, the Situationists of Guy Debord—and Lee Freidlander’s eye for the cluttered city to synthesize the perspective of the transient observer. A solitary figure that seeks out urban forms and artifacts to discover the layers of intentionality, the coincidences and contradictions that coalesce into the messy city—a city that is fragmentary, haphazard, uncurated.

Documentation of the walk is done through mapping and photography. Mapping describe the lands of the Spadina Line holistically and create a picture of how the Line interacts with the wider city. Photographs describe the experience of the walk itself. This is an exploration of the present, of singular moments—the moments of encounter between a transient observer and a new urban form—that implies both history and future. Through act of walking and documentation—the moments and the maps—a narrative is found within the fragments of the Spadina Subway Line. It is a narrative of competing visions and failed ideal cities—a narrative of a great urban laboratory with decades of experiments in urbanity.

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Ryan Pagliaro

Of the thesis entitled: Consider The Kayak

Abstract:

With ignorant disdain towards the progression of globalization, I adopt the plastic kayak as a microcosm of the cultural ethos in the design of our surroundings. To counter the abundant mass manufactured kayak, I am fabricating a traditional arctic qajaq (Inuit spelling), to fully understand the qajaq and its history. 

Through the design, construction, and use of the qajaq, I expose the crucial elements that form the watercraft. Combining contemporary tools and materials, I design and fully assemble two more iterations of the qajaq. From wood, to metal, to plastic, I learn the particulars of the design process with the intent of construction in today’s society.

The wood skin-on-frame qajaq reveals the limiting factors of design: the influence of economics, tradition and its place in contemporary design, ergonomics, form-focused versus frame-focused construction, and the proper expression of design tectonics. The metal skin-on-frame qajaq is a study in the limitations of material exploitation. I begin to optimize the fabrication process to create a streamlined assembly suited to a globalized marketplace, while maintaining the same spirit of the traditional qajaq. The metal frame is designed to rival the durability, cost, weight, and ease of fabrication of a contemporary plastic kayak with the beauty of a traditional qajaq. The plastic skin-on-frame qajaq is a structural improvement on the metal frame, and is quicker to assemble. This demonstrates how using new tools with an old practice produces quality work. 



In a culture that relies on mass fabrication, designing and prototyping a qajaq in this iterative manner reveals the importance of design, even if only in contrast to commonplace inventory.

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