Quan Thai named as inaugural Emerging Practitioner

Waterloo Architecture O'Donovan Director, Maya Przybylski has announced that the inaugural recipient of the Emerging Practitioner fellowship is Quan Thai (BAS '13).

"I'm thrilled Quan is the inaugural recipient of the Emerging Practitioner fellowship at Waterloo Architecture. Quan's experience, in which he wholistically considers design practice, teaching and community action, captures the intent of the fellowship perfectly. I 'm looking forward to seeing his impact on our community over the next two years."

Quan is a licensed architect and educator and Senior Architect at SvN Architects + Planners. He founded Never Only Architecture Inc. in 2022, a Toronto-based studio that strives to develop innovative architectural responses through socially, environmentally, and technologically informed design. His practice builds on ten years of experience working on high-profile conceptual and built work across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. His interests and expertise in practice and academia span from the scale of community planning and engagement to the detail and materiality of interiors and furniture design.

Most recently, Quan designed and led “Ontario Place: Narrating Past, Present, and Potential” (‘23), an exhibition that brought together the voices of students, academics, urban activists, and the general public to reconcile the narrative of Ontario Place’s position as a public asset. The exhibition received funding from the School of Cities Small Programs Grant and the Ontario Association of Architects Public Awareness Award for his dissemination of research to enrich the conversation of public engagement within larger city-building initiatives. 

“Upon receiving the news that I was awarded the inaugural Emerging Practitioner Teaching Fellowship at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, not only was I extremely excited to return to where I first started my career, I began to think of the exciting opportunities this Fellowship would provide for myself as an early career professional and academic.  This opportunity will provide me with the resources to be critical of my stance of what conventional architectural practice means to me, and that is that we must find the agency to facilitate design processes that engage the community in order to understand the multiplicities of the communities we work in. I’m excited to bring my experiences into the classroom and build upon these topics through engaging discussions with students, colleagues, and the community at large. I look forward to embarking on this career-changing journey.”

This position offers early-career architects the opportunity to diversify their professional pursuits to include part-time teaching in a supportive community while continuing their practice-based activities. 

The Emerging Practitioner Teaching Fellow Award provides a salary, as well as funding to support the hiring of a Waterloo Architecture co-op student for one academic term each year.