News

What brought you to UWaterloo? 

Three things: the University, the School of Architecture, and the expertise of my postdoctoral supervisor. Waterloo engineering is one of the top faculties of engineering in Canada. The university is also strategically located in the Waterloo Region, close to hustle and bustle of Toronto yet offering a quiet and peaceful environment to work, research and raise a family. The university also has amazing facilities and diverse body of students, staff, and faculty. The overall atmosphere is very encouraging to excel.

Congratulations to Tristan Van Leur and Samantha Eby, who won 1st Prize in The Toronto Affordable Housing Challenge for their project, Cooperative Corners.

According to the jury, ”This project cleverly identifies a unique opportunity to capitalize on an underutilized feature of the Toronto residential landscape – the corner lot – and proposes a new typology that creates gentle density, design flexibility, and the possibility of implementation in various types of residential settings. 

Waterloo Architecture student Adam Cohen has some very big ideas that he says could enliven the space for humans while also enhancing landscape conditions for local ecology to thrive on Toronto Island.

"Tasked with reimagining the park's central plaza for a new generation of residents and visitors, I began by examining possibilities for reviving programatic vibrancy while enhancing landscape conditions for local ecology," reads Cohen's proposal.

Researchers from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture (Adrian Blackwell, Associate Professor and John McMinn, Professor) and School of Planning (Martine August, Assistant Professor) are currently undertaking a research project, Assessing the viability of tiny homes to address housing insecurity in the Region of Waterloo, as a first phase in their Tiny Home research project. The first phase of this research is funded by the MITACS Accelerate Program in partnership with local firms Isherwood Geostructural Engineers and Z-Modular.

Local architect Roger Farwell (BAS 1977), known as a philanthropist, community builder and champion of the arts, died August 4 in Wellesley Township in a single-vehicle crash.

Philip Beesley was an interview guest on the Beyond the Bulletin podcast last week, discussing the Grove installation at the Venice Biennale. The new episode is live now (Philip's interview begins at 7:50).

Emancipation Seed is a short film set in the haunted sites of Toronto’s colonial slave-owning past. A young boy is transported into an alternate reality where he learns his ancestral stories of Black love, anguish and pride. He is aided and guided on his journey by an elder spirit Moko Jumbie.

Spearheaded by Philip Beesley and curated by Sasha Hastings, the sensorial installation Grove at the Venice Architecture Biennale explores constant metamorphosis of our environment.

Sounding Bodies: Experiments in Sonically Active Surfaces is a new publication by Jonathan Tyrrell from the Living Architecture Systems Group Folio Series, published by Riverside Architectural Press.

Inten-City is now available at various locations in Downtown Kitchener!