This conversation is the fourth of 6 conversations. The series will stage conversations around the different areas of the Waterloo Architecture curriculum with one broad ambition: “Questioning the canon: In a world of unprecedented possibilities and unforeseen brutalities, what can architectural education do?”
This particular conversation will feature Siamak Hariri and Philip Yuan and will consider the following sub-question: "How can design pedagogy address the very real problems of the world while retaining its radical openness and experimentation?”
Siamak Hariri
Siamak Hariri M.Arch, OAA, AAA, AIBC, FRAIC, RCA, Intl. Assoc. AIA, Founding Partner
Siamak Hariri is a founding Partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects. His portfolio of nationally and internationally recognized buildings has won over 60 awards, including the Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. In 2016, he was celebrated as one of Canada’s Artists who mattered most by the Globe and Mail.
One of Siamak’s earliest projects, the Canadian headquarters of McKinsey & Company, is the youngest building to receive City of Toronto heritage landmark designation. Since then he has established a career creating institutional and cultural projects of international acclaim, including the Governor General’s medal-winning Schulich School of Business for York University and the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University that has been recognized with the 2016 Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award, the American Institute of Architects’ Educational Facility Design Award of Excellence, and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario’s Award for Design Excellence in Architecture.
In the fall of 2016, Siamak completed a project he began in 2003, the Bahá’í Temple of South American, located in Santiago, Chile, the last of the Bahá’í continental temples. Won through an international call and a rigorous design competition (185 entries from 80 countries) the Temple is poised to become an architectural landmark at the foothill of the Andes. It has already won some of the top architecture awards including the RAIC Innovation Award, the World Architecture News Best Building of the Year (selected by ninety-seven judges around the world); Architect Magazine’s Progressive Architecture Award (architecture’s top unbuilt projects award); the Canadian Architect’s Award of Excellence; the International Property Awards, and was profiled by National Geographic Magazine.
More recent public and private projects include the international competition-winning Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law for the University of Toronto, the Weston Family Learning Centre at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the multi-phase Welcome Project for the Royal Ontario Museum.
Born in Bonn, Germany, Siamak was educated at the University of Waterloo and Yale University where he completed a Master of Architecture. He has taught at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto, as well as been a lecturer and guest critic for numerous organizations across North America. Siamak was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Architecture from Ryerson University for his contribution to architecture in Canada and abroad. Siamak lives in Toronto with his artist wife, Sasha Rogers, and their three children—Lua, Yasmin, and David.
Philip Yuan
Professor, Co-chair of Built Environment Technology Center, CAUP, Tongji University; Council Member of Architects Sector and Digital Fabrication Sector, Architectural Society of China (ASC); Director of Academic Committee, Digital Fabrication Engineering Technology Center, Shanghai, China; Principle and Co-founder of Archi-Union Architects and Fab-Union Technology.
Philip F. Yuan mainly focuses on the research of Computational Design and Digital Fabrication. He has published more than 150 theses and 9 books, including From Diagrammatic Thinking to Digital Fabrication, Digital Fabrication and Computational Design, etc. He is also an active architect doing a number of architectural practices, and has been awarded various design prizes.
Over the years, Philip F. Yuan has been involved into the combination of traditional Chinese culture and digital fabrication technology, practicing the symbiotic relationships among nature, technology and architecture, and focusing on "Computational Design", "Robotic Fabrication", and "Green Industrialization", etc.
Archi-Union Architects and Fab-Union Technology are the two main teams founded by Philip F. Yuan. Archi-Union is dedicated to experimental architectural practices while Fab-Union is mainly engaged in computational design and digital fabrication. Both of them are focusing on applying experimental researches into practical practices.
Philip F. Yuan has completed a large amount of projects in the last few years, including Tea house, Fab-Union Space and Chi She in the WestBund of Shanghai, Stomatological Hospital, Songjiang Art Campus, In Bamboo in Sichuan, 3D printed bridge and pavilion, etc.
Projects led by Philip have been published on many architectural magazines and mass media worldwide, and are also actively involved in relevant academic activities and exhibitions, including Shanghai Biennale, Milan Triennial, Chicago Architectural Biennale, and many other international professional exhibitions. Next year, Philip will make another big progress in the design and fabrication of Chinese Pavilion in 2018 Venice Biennale.
