Jaliya Fonseka
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Email: jafonsek@uwaterloo.ca
Biography
Jaliya Fonseka is a designer, educator, maker, and community builder. His work explores narratives and lived experiences shaped by climate, migration, cultural identity, belonging, and place, with a focus on those often left unexamined. His practice and teaching unfold in a pursuit to deepen human kinship.
He returned to his native Sri Lanka to study home in a country fractured by nearly three decades of civil war. There, he traced the arts, crafts, and architecture of his heritage while leading the revitalization of his grandparents’ home, now a school for migrant children. As a Fellow of The Asia Foundation, he expanded this research, travelling across South Asia and later exhibiting his findings at Strathmore Art Gallery in Maryland.
Jaliya’s built work is guided by a commitment to uplifting communities through thoughtful design with a hands-on, material driven approach. His architectural practice, Fonseka Studio, recently completed Galt Health, a medical clinic in Cambridge, Ontario, that reimagines public healthcare spaces as environments of warmth, inclusion, and care. He designed and built the woodwork that defines the space, including a 150-foot bench that stitches the clinic spaces together. Recently, he crafted a memorial table for The Acapella Foundation and the University of Waterloo in honour of the late professor emeritus Andrew Levitt—a table meant to bring people together as equals.
At the University of Waterloo, he has taught in both the Architecture and Architectural Engineering programs, and has served on the Advisory Board and Standing Committee for Racial Equity and Environmental Justice, working to shape a more inclusive architectural education. His article Voices of the Unheard (Canadian Architect, 2021) challenges architectural pedagogy to listen to history, to place, and to those long excluded from academic discourse.
Jaliya’s work insists on proximity—to the issues we care about, the communities we serve, and the futures we imagine. For him, community is practice. During the pandemic, he volunteered with World Central Kitchen in Washington, D.C., helping serve over 100,000 meals to vulnerable populations. He sees food and cooking as a form of collective healing and continues this work in Cambridge, where he collaborates with the Cambridge Food Bank on a range of initiatives, including an affordable Mobile Food Market at the School of Architecture.
He returned to his native Sri Lanka to study home in a country fractured by nearly three decades of civil war. There, he traced the arts, crafts, and architecture of his heritage while leading the revitalization of his grandparents’ home, now a school for migrant children. As a Fellow of The Asia Foundation, he expanded this research, travelling across South Asia and later exhibiting his findings at Strathmore Art Gallery in Maryland.
Jaliya’s built work is guided by a commitment to uplifting communities through thoughtful design with a hands-on, material driven approach. His architectural practice, Fonseka Studio, recently completed Galt Health, a medical clinic in Cambridge, Ontario, that reimagines public healthcare spaces as environments of warmth, inclusion, and care. He designed and built the woodwork that defines the space, including a 150-foot bench that stitches the clinic spaces together. Recently, he crafted a memorial table for The Acapella Foundation and the University of Waterloo in honour of the late professor emeritus Andrew Levitt—a table meant to bring people together as equals.
At the University of Waterloo, he has taught in both the Architecture and Architectural Engineering programs, and has served on the Advisory Board and Standing Committee for Racial Equity and Environmental Justice, working to shape a more inclusive architectural education. His article Voices of the Unheard (Canadian Architect, 2021) challenges architectural pedagogy to listen to history, to place, and to those long excluded from academic discourse.
Jaliya’s work insists on proximity—to the issues we care about, the communities we serve, and the futures we imagine. For him, community is practice. During the pandemic, he volunteered with World Central Kitchen in Washington, D.C., helping serve over 100,000 meals to vulnerable populations. He sees food and cooking as a form of collective healing and continues this work in Cambridge, where he collaborates with the Cambridge Food Bank on a range of initiatives, including an affordable Mobile Food Market at the School of Architecture.
Teaching*
- AE 300 - Architectural Engineering Studio
- Taught in 2021, 2022
- ARCH 193 - Design Studio
- Taught in 2021, 2022
- ARCH 392 - Design Studio
- Taught in 2025
- ARCH 393 - Option Design Studio
- Taught in 2022, 2023
- ARCH 473 - Technical Report
- Taught in 2023, 2024
- ARCH 493 - Design Studio/Comprehensive Building Design
- Taught in 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024
* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.
Graduate studies
- Currently considering applications from graduate students. A completed online application is required for admission; start the application process now.