The Arriscraft Canada Brick Speaker Series at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture brings leading voices from the architecture and design profession to share insights, ideas, and innovations shaping the built environment. This lecture series fosters dialogue between professionals, students, and the community, offering a platform for discussions on contemporary architectural practice. All lectures are free and open to the general public
Event details
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All talks take place at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture campus located in Cambridge, Ontario
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Parking is available on site (next to campus on River St.)
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All talks take place in the Laurence A. Cummings Lecture Theatre, room 1001
Data, design, and civic action: new ways of seeing and shaping cities
Sarah Williams, professor of Technology and Urban Planning, Director of the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning
October 22, 2026
4:30pm - 6:00pm
Sarah Williams is a Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at MIT, where she directs the Civic Data Design Lab and the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. Trained in computation and design, she creates tools and visualizations that make complex urban issues visible to the public, a process she calls Data Action, also the title of her recent MIT Press book. Her projects, ranging from mapping informal transit systems to visualizing the cost of migration, aim to spark dialogue and drive policy change. Her work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim, MoMA, the Venice Biennale, and the Cooper Hewitt, and has been presented to Congress. She has received numerous awards for innovation in design and civic engagement. Before MIT, she co-directed the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University.
Asking looking playing making: a nature-focused design process
Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu, founders of Tonkin Liu
Monday, October 26
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Mike Tonkin is an architect, landscape architect, visiting professor at the Manchester School of Architecture and founder of Tonkin Liu and Visiting Professor at the Manchester School of Architecture. Anna Liu is an architect and educator with a background spanning literature, science, and design, and experience across the UK, China, Japan, and the US. As co-founder of Tonkin Liu, her work unites cultural narratives and ecological thinking to create architecture that connects people, place, and nature.
This lecture introduces Asking, Looking, Playing, Making (ALPM), a design methodology developed by Tonkin Liu Architects that reimagines architectural practice through storytelling, nature, and innovation. Rooted in the dialogue between people, place, and environment, ALPM proposes four stages of creative inquiry that move from questioning and observation to experimentation and realization. It offers a framework to reconnect design with natural intelligence, cultural narratives, and site-specific conditions. Through examples from practice and teaching, the lecture will explore how ALPM fosters a symbiotic relationship between architecture and ecology, expanding design thinking towards a more responsive and regenerative future.
Groundwork: the education of the architect
Rick Andrighetti, associate professor, teaching stream, Waterloo Architecture
November 5, 2026
6:00pm - 7:30pm
Rick will speak on a range of subjects including his 39 years of teaching, specifically 1A Design Studio, and his research into landscape studies, the relationship between Canadian architecture and the land as well as paths to teaching as a profession.
Rick received his B.Arch. from Waterloo in 1984. His design work, in conjunction with Toronto firms, has received numerous awards, including a Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. He has taught in numerous design studios over the years, with an emphasis on design fundamentals. He has also taught courses in landscape theory and design. Research interests include: Canadian architecture and landscape history and theory; contemporary landscape design; relationships between buildings and the land; land art.
Doubts, coping strategies, elevators
Office OU, Architecture, Landscape, and Strategy.
November 19, 2026
4:30pm - 6:00pm
Based in Toronto, Canada, but with projects around the world, Office Ou is an architecture and landscape design practice established around the values of social impact and environmental sustainability. Office Ou's projects are a product of their natural and cultural context. From site analysis, to detailing, they work to create experiences that connect people to the places they inhabit and to each other. Their work seeks to understand the processes and forces that shape a site, and harness these to foster more diverse and biodiverse places. Key projects include the National Museum Complex of Korea, whose character is derived from the specificity of local ecosystems, Skola Smichov, a school in which the creative works and ecological stewardship of students compose the facade to the city, and, most recently, Delaware Apartments, Toronto’s first single-exit stair apartment building.
Office Ou has been awarded the Canadian Architect Award of Excellence as well as the Ontario Association of Architects’ Best Emerging Practice Award.
Generously sponsored by:
