Thursday, July 16, 2015

University Avenue to close for ION construction

Get ready.

As work continues on the CN railway tracks for the ION rapid transit line, University Avenue is the next scheduled intersection to face temporary closure.

Beginning on or about Friday, July 24, University Avenue will be closed from Phillip Street to the ring road and Seagram Drive as crews move the heavy-gauge tracks and replace them with two light rail lines.

From Monday to Friday for approximately three weeks, one lane will be open for traffic heading eastbound towards Highway 85. On the weekend, the road will be completely closed as crews will be working throughout the night.

The work will also require closures of the Laurel Trail between University Avenue and Seagram Drive.

The ION website has full construction update details. Check the ION-related travel disruption site on our homepage for updates.

London Calling for Fine Arts students

This article originally appeared on the Faculty of Arts news site.

Offered during winter term, the Fine Arts Abroad course (FINE 293/393) focused in 2015 on exploring London from historical, cultural, aesthetic, and theoretical perspectives. Before the 24 students travelled, they participated in a series of lectures and workshops on the historical, artistic and cultural evolution of London to set the stage for experiencing the city live and in real time.

“I think the trip was a great way to learn, by seeing and exploring ourselves,” said Jeneviere Kentner, a 3rd year Fine Arts major. “Having the sketchbook and written component as coursework along with a trip really helped me to prepare and later reflect on my experiences.”

Taught by Fine Arts professors Tara Cooper and Joan Coutu, the pre-trip course content was organized around compelling themes, including: The Tourist Gaze, The Englishness of English Art, England and the Arts and Craft Movement, Post-War British Angst, Saatchi, Shock and The Art Market, The Turner Prize and The Tate Modern, and The Plinth Project. Once they were in London, the students were free to explore a range of galleries, artist-spaces, and studios while getting to know the culture and communities of the city.

Going beyond the typical tourist experience – riding the Tube (London subway) and walking through the city, enjoying the cuisine and ordering at a pub, going to the theatre, wandering through the markets and shops – the students had to also document, report and reflect. “Working in the field, students use a variety of media to develop techniques for visual reportage, documentation, note-taking, and journal-keeping,” says Prof. Coutu. “The end results are fantastic: rich journals full of sketches, photos, souvenirs and written memories.”

Architecture students' nerves of steel help win competition

First year students in Waterloo's School of Architecture have taken home the top three prizes in the 2015 Annual Steel Structures Education Foundation Student Design Competition.

The theme for the 2014-2015 competition was "recycle - recycler", where students were to explore the theme as it might be expressed in form, surfaces, members and connections, and structural and architectural design and were to provide a solution where a clear incorporation of  "recycle - recycler" was the basis for structural form.

The winners were announced on June 30:

• Justin Ng and Tristan Sito received the Award of Excellence for their "Cable Cruise" proposal (pictured above);
• Christy Cheng and Shaina Coulter received an Award of Merit; and
• Jane Hung, Winona Li and Sean Quach received an Award of Merit for their entry entitled 'Steel Garden.'

There were 44 entries, and the Waterloo students were competing against master's level students from the University of Calgary, Ryerson University and Université Laval.

The student teams were supervised by Terri Meyer Boake and Matthew Spremulli of the Waterloo School of Architecture.

The first place team prize includes $3,000 and all-expense trip to the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction Annual (CISC) Conference in San Francisco this September to receive their award. The two Awards of Merit were worth $2,000 to be shared among the winners.

The award-winning projects can be viewed online.

7th Cousins walk from Lancaster to Waterloo

There’s tracing your roots, and then there’s pacing your roots.

Christine Brubaker, who graduated from Waterloo in 1991, and friend Erin Brubacher, both Toronto-based actresses and artists, met a few years ago and discovered that they were distant cousins; both descendants of John E. and Magdalena Brubacher, Waterloo Region pioneers who constructed the Brubacher House on the University of Waterloo’s north campus in 1850.

On Monday, July 6, the pair set out on a 700-kilometre walk from Lancaster, Pennsylvania with Waterloo Ontario as their destination, following the path taken by their ancestors in the early 19^th century. They have dubbed their journey 7^th Cousins, even though technically they are sixth cousins on their grandmother's side and eighth cousins once removed on their grandfather's side. Their trip is an “automythography” that will weave fact and fiction together as they make their journey to Waterloo Region.

The pair plans to arrive at the Brubacher House on Wednesday, August 5, where members of the Brubacher House Committee will welcome them.

Their trip will form the basis of a piece of performance art entitled “The Unpacking” that will be performed later in August.

A recent Waterloo Region Record article has more details.