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The Grove, Venice Architecture Biennale 2021
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Architecture IS Climate
a conversation with Jeremy Till
10 May 2023
Architecture IS Climate (and so is urban planning and landscape) a presentation of a project being conducted by the research collective MOULD. The project suggests that, far from being the solution to the problem climate breakdown, architecture and design are deeply entangled within the causes of climate breakdown. Unable to stand outside and deal with climate through technocratic interventions, applying superficial patches to the wounds of climate, architecture and design become part of a febrile and disrupted world, vulnerable to its contingencies. The phrase Architecture IS Climate therefore suggests a radical reconstruction of disciplines as part of the systemic change that climate breakdown demands. This is turn means that the tenets and protocols of architectural, urban planning and landscape education have to be reconsidered.
Jeremy Till is an educator, writer and recovering architect. As an architect, he worked with Sarah Wigglesworth Architects on their pioneering building, 9 Stock Orchard Street, which is seen as an innovator in climate-informed design. As an educator, Till was Head of Central Saint Martins, Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Arts London from 2012-22. He is now Professor of Architecture at the University, and a member of the research collective MOULD. As a writer, Till’s extensive work includes the books Flexible Housing, Architecture Depends and Spatial Agency, all three of which won the RIBA President’s Award for Research. His most recent research project Architecture after Architecture, investigates the future of spatial practice in the face of climate breakdown.
watch
Establishing a Communication Practice for a Site Assessment’s Introductory Phase Through the Making of ‘Alexandra: A Backstory’
A Collaborative Workshop around a graphic novel about how Johannesburg, South Africa became what it is
with Solam Mkhabela and Hiten Bawa
22 February 2023
Theorizing a Collaborative Workshop
The Making of… explores how Alexandra: A Backstory came to be. The graphic novel forms part of Urban Scripting, a study project that unearths voices to retell the city of gold, eGoli. Retelling eGoli combines modern audio-visual storytelling techniques with traditional spatial mapping culture. The African oral system of the narrative explores how Othered and discounted Nguni knowledges can be used as a foundation for site assessment within urban planning/design practice in South Africa. In the workshop, three teams will explore the structure of an image-making approach that contributes to the understanding of everyday life in a complex local context.
Essentially, the workshop develops a tripartite storytelling model and finds applicable terms which appropriately describe the actions explored by the teams. To simulate an understanding of a person's lived experience, a stretch of a street in Orange Grove, Johannesburg, acts as a site for the participants to engage with the context and concept of the approach actively.
§ Team one looks for evidence of past events and why they happened.
§ Team two looks at what happens in the present and why it might be happening.
§ Team three looks at what could happen if changes occur in the (near) future.
Teams are reading the site, listening to contextual realities, and writing local possibilities with purposefully restricted access to information within a short time. Details will be communicated in the session. All participants need access to Google Earth.
The site is Louis Botha Avenue, Johannesburg, South Africa between 6th St and Garden Rd/Dunottar St. Latitude: 26° 9'45.36"S, Longitude: 28° 5'6.25"E. https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1626,28.08507,4005m/data=!3m1!1e3
Follow the link to the miro board for workshop resources:
Solam Mkhabela teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Architecture and Planning, Johannesburg. My work focuses on the intersection between urban design and film, and the role of audio-visual narratives in understanding city street dynamics forms a research interest. In understanding street dynamics, the work connects social, economic, cultural, political, and ecological issues to aid in making city spaces more accessible to the many. Through a transnational lens, creative and intellectual thinking blends art, history, and activism. The aim is to create a hybrid storytelling approach that makes and represents an alternative city image.
Local Code - 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design and the Nature of Cities
Nicholas de Monchaux
25 January 2023
Local Code by Dr. Nicholas de Monchaux is a critical and essential, data-driven analysis of the built environment. As noted by Princeton Architectural Press, “Local Code is a collection of data-driven tools and design prototypes for understanding and transforming the physical, social, and ecological resilience of cities . . . In text and image, Local Code presents a digitally prolific, open-ended approach to urban resilience and social and environmental justice; At once analytic and visionary, it pioneers a new field of enquiry and action at the meeting of big data and the expanding city.”
Nicholas de Monchaux is Professor and Head of Architecture at MIT. Until 2020 he was Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and Craigslist Distinguished Chair in New Media at UC Berkeley, where he also served as Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media. His design work has been exhibited widely, including at the Biennial of the Americas, the Venice Architecture Biennale, The Lisbon Architecture Triennial, SFMOMA, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. His work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony, the Santa Fe Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, the Hellman Fund, and the Bakar Fellows Program. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.
Imagining a way forward: Minecraft as a community design tool?
19 December 2022
This panel discussion critically considers the use of gaming as a community design tool. Using the active case study of their skatepark design in Kliptown, Soweto, South Africa, community leader Thabang Nkwanyana moderates the conversation exploring the role of Minecraft technology in his own neighbourhood which he describes as both a ghetto and a beautiful place to be.
Panel:
Thabang Nkwanyana is a passionate photographer, visual creative, filmmaker, graffiti and stencil artist and art installer based in Kliptown, Soweto, South Africa. He a community leader and the Director and co-founder of 1955 Creative Collaboration, a grassroots Kliptown social enterprise addressing today’s socio-spatial issues through creativity, innovation and collaboration. He has ten years of experience installing fine art and single and multimedia art installations at some of the finest galleries and museums across Gauteng. Most recently he was Head Installer at the Javett Art Centre at University of Pretoria, with other highlights including the Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg Art Gallery, the Origin Centre among others. He believes that it was through art that he found himself and became a voice or inspiration of positivity within Kliptown’s poverty and neglected heritage.
James Delaney is the founder and Managing Director of BlockWorks, a collective of designers, artists, and developers from around the world with a shared passion for Minecraft. BlockWorks has grown from an informal group to a global design studio that has pioneered the use of Minecraft as a design tool with film studios, marketing firms, and educational institutions. James graduated with a degree in Architecture from Cambridge University and pursues a particular interest in the correlation between architecture and video games. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has given talks at the International Spatial Development Forum, The Bartlett School of Architecture, and the British Library, among others. James enjoys traveling; when in new cities he looks for hidden public spaces to explore.
Veronica Madonna is the founding Pricipal of Studio VMA and Assistant Professor at the RAIC Centre for Architecture. Before joining Athabasca University, Veronica was a Principal at Moriyama & Teshima Architects, leading award-winning, highly sustainable designs for Universities and Colleges across Canada. She was the Principal Architect on The Arbour, a ten-storey, mass timber, net-zero carbon building for George Brown College and the Honey Bee Research Centre for the Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph. As an educator, researcher and practitioner, Veronica's focus in architecture includes; sustainable design strategies in the built environment, advancements in mass timber construction, and equity in architectural practice and education.
Kristen Kornienko is a co-founder of 1955 Creative Collaboration, an experimental collaborative in Kliptown, Soweto, South Africa. Activism has become central to her work as a creative practitioner of transformative socio-spatial justice through design and education. She is a faculty member in architecture and landscape architecture as well as the coordinator of the Global Studio at the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University in Canada, a Fulbright Fellow South Africa, and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Built Environment Studies, Wits University, Johannesburg. Her work and self-reflection on the power dynamics within our white social constructs focuses on their violence and impact on cultural and racial identities, everyday lives, and the spaces we inhabit. It has grown out of years of relationship building with fellow human beings and the land. This collaborative work takes action towards decolonizing our minds, institutions, and design processes.
Global Trends in Architecture for Health & Wellbeing
Panel Session
Date & Time: November 30, 2022 at 19:00-21:00 EST (Canada & USA)
December 1, 2022 at 9:00-11:00 JST (Japan)
INTRO
The world is just readjusting itself at the wake of a global pandemic that has affected everyone’s physical and mental health. To this effect, the International Union of Architects (UIA) designated 2022 as the year of Design for Health, highlighting the importance of the role of architecture in maintaining good health as well as contributing to the healing process. It states that “architecture for well-being goes beyond access to hospitals and health care facilities. It extends to improving the quality of the architectural spaces in which we live and work. From technical innovations which can improve thermal comfort, circulation and ventilation to subtler factors contributing to our psychological and social well-being such as public spaces, walkability, land use and daylight, we have realised that the quality of our built environment has profound implications for our quality of life, on the lives of those around us and on our natural environment.” This panel session will explore themes of “health” and “wellbeing” in a global context with speakers presenting case studies from the United States, Japan and Canada.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Dr. David Allison, Professor & Director of Graduate Studies in Architecture + Health, Clemson University, USA.
Dr. Ruka Kosuge, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering & Science, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan.
Dr. Henry Tsang, Assistant Professor, RAIC Centre for Architecture, Faculty of Science & Technology Athabasca University, Canada.
The use of bamboo as a resource of value for architecture in Ecuador
Arch. Enrique Mora Alvarado
31 August 2022
The lecture will discuss the use of bamboo in projects developed in rural areas in Ecuador and how these have improved the quality of life of the inhabitants, in addition to making visible the possibility of using this material with low environmental impact and how industrialization of bamboo can help housing solutions in developing countries.
Enrique is an Ecuadorian Architect graduated from the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil (UCSG). He holds a Master in Architecture with Mention in Criticism and Advanced Architectural Project from the same university. Also has master degree in Advanced Architectural Design from IaaC (Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia). He currently works as a professor of architecture projects at UCSG. Where he is a founder member of the Social Housing Laboratory in Guayaquil (LabVIS). His research interests and his work as investigator has been focused on informal settlements, incremental housing in his hometown and participatory design processes. He has led his architecture practice since 2009.
His project Casa Convento has been distinguished with Awarded Work at the 10th BIAU the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in Sao Paulo in 2016. First International Prize (shared) at the XIX Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Quito 2014. First National Prize at the XIX Pan-American Biennial of Architecture of Quito 2014. In 2021, his project Iche – Culinary Innovation Center has been pre-selected in the Global Challenge Award. He has been a guest speaker and teacher at several national and international workshops and his work has been published in different architecture magazines.
Discussion curated by Reza Nik
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
https://www.daniels.utoronto.ca
Founding Director SHEEEP
Co-Steward
The-Architecture-Lobby-Tkaronto (TAL-TO)
Rasquachando!
RAEL SAN FRATELLO
film and student lead discussion
We were asked not to record the full session but this short film is from Ronald of a project he was part of and is shared with his permission - Pedacito de la Tierra.
Wednesday 18 May 2022
Rael will discuss how an expanded understanding of the borderlands has fostered experimentation with play and clay in Mexico and the USA.
Ronald Rael, draws, builds, writes, 3-D-prints and teaches about architecture and craft as a cultural endeavor deeply influenced by a unique upbringing in a desolate alpine valley in southern Colorado. As the San Francisco Chronicle writes, “[Rael’s] imagination is audacious. He speculates on the implications of the border wall, building with mud and using 3-D printers to create buildings” — as seen in his books Borderwall as Architecture, Earth Architecture, and Printing Architecture. Rael is a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and is a founding partner of the Oakland based Make-Tank, Emerging Objects. You can see his drawings, models and objects in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
These interests: 3D printed buildings, additive manufacturing, earth architecture, mud, dirt, dust, U.S.-Mexico border wall, arid landscapes, ranching, acequias, alipne deserts, ceramics, rural architecture, ruralism, animation, digital modeling, furry buildings, unnatural materials, rasquachetecture.
Read more about his work as educator and practitioner:
arch_future: global studio forum series
Session 6: Sketching User Experiences
Bill Buxton
29 March 2022
In 2007 Bill Buxton wrote a book entitled, “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design.” It is one of the most important books written on design in the 21st Century and reflects his interdisciplinary approach to both design and life.
As such Bill has become “a relentless advocate for innovation, design, and - especially - the appropriate consideration of human values, capacity, and culture in the conception, implementation, and use of new products and technologies” (www.billbuxton.com). He is currently a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research.
In this lecture Bill will share his insights into design and how we can create informed designs capable of “molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values (Sketching User Experiences).”
His work speaks not only to user experience designers but to designers of all kinds. Athabasca University’s Centre for Architecture, for example, uses his ideas in their design studios. At the same time his work will also be of interest to computer scientists, business people and product managers.
As he says, “Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the "things" that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name (ww.billbuxton.com).”
For more information please visit his website at www.billbuxton.com
arch_future: global studio forum series
Session 5: Veils and Nests: New design systems
Phillip Beesely
Living Architecture Systems Group
24 March 2022
Can architecture integrate living functions? Could future buildings think, and care? This talk will illustrate a series of new environments created by the Living Architecture Systems Group (LASG), offering valuable models of open, sensitive architectural systems. These experimental works embed intelligence and interactivity into spherical shells and membranes that react empathetically to the gestures and sounds of visitors, converting motion sensor data into intricate patterns of light, the movement of shivering fronds, and fields of gentle whispering sound that fluctuates from intense crescendos to gentle whispers. Radical new physics-based construction systems feature extraordinary reductions in energy-intensive material by using biomimicry-based design with ‘precarious’ components.
Combining art, engineering, machine learning, and material research, the LASG disrupts the rigid walls and boundaries of traditional architecture by modeling the vitality, flexibility and even fragility of tissues, cellular constructions, and complex networks. When outside forces cause pressure on human activities, it might seem natural to harden and seal our spaces, but hardened walls can create turbulence that ultimately creates even more insecurity, both inside and outside. Mutual relationships with the world can be encouraged by shifting away from rigid energy-intensive structures toward resilient spaces that can move, respond, learn, and share. Instead of weakness, fragility and precarity can be seen as highly positive qualities in this work.
Projects illustrated in this talk form part of an ecosystem of Beesley and Living Architecture Systems installations exploring organic conversations between machines and humans. These works feed sensor data through purpose-built algorithmic environments. The systems and object design are widely shared through participatory workshops, STEAM kits, and Open Source manuals that share the complex data systems that make up the sculpture with public users of all ages.
arch_future: aede with the global studio forum series
Session 4: The Future (or Non-Future) of Architecture
Tuesday, 22 March 2022
A symposium that will explore how current architects and designers are subverting out-dated modes of practice and catalyzing paradigm shifts within the field of architecture
In a society that actively accepts rapid climate change, a widening wealth gap, the rate of change as we know it is no longer an acceptable speed. As designers, we must seek ways in which to subvert and revolutionize architecture from within in order to realize the kind of change we seek.
In partnership with Global Studio and SAPL, AEDE is pleased to announce our panelists for this symposium:
Maya Bird-Murphy is a designer, educator, and the founder and Executive Director of Chicago Mobile Makers, an award-winning nonprofit organization bringing design-focused skill-building workshops to underrepresented communities. An architect by trade, Ms. Bird-Murphy holds an M. Arch from the Boston Architectural College.
Dr. Sechaba Maape is a Senior Lecturer at the WITS School of Architecture and Planning, and is the founder of Afreetekture, a ‘parallel design practice’. Dr. Maape established Afreetekture as an alternative experimental practice aimed at producing architecture and other designs based on the philosophical and theoretical framework derived from his 10 years of in-depth study of indigenous knowledge systems and spaces in South Africa.
Reza Nik is an architect, artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. He is the founding director of SHEEEP, an experimental architecture studio working through an equitable lens. Reza has a background in Art History and he is currently an Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. His research is focused on a deeper dialogue between the socio-political nuances of the urban context and playful experimentation - as researched through his course Guided Distractions. Disrupting the traditional architectural processes and institutions is at the forefront of his pedagogy and practice.
Dr. Arijit Sen is an architect and vernacular architecture historian who writes, teaches and studies urban cultural landscapes. His research includes studies of South Asian immigrant landscapes in North America. Dr. Sen is currently an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
arch_future: global studio forum series
Session 3: (student lead) The Future of Design Education
Saturday, 19 March 2022
a collaborative discussion around the arch_future Miro board
board password arcH1234
arch_future: global studio forum series
Session 1: decolonize_decarbonize
tools to discrupt hierarchies of power and knolwedge in architecture
9 March 2022
Who is redefining the potential of architecture? We want to look beyond the icons and the status quo, we are inviting innovators in architecture, urbanism and design. We will be hearing their stories within the contexts of social justice, diverse knowledge systems, technology, climate change, and regenerative design. Learning from key concepts brought to light in the Global Studio and hearing from new perspectives.
Through embracing decolonization and decarbonization, what tools can be used to disrupt the hierarchies of power and Knowledge in architectural research and practice?
What does a decolonized and decarbonized world look like?
We are addicted to our present world, what would a transitional narrative look like and what are the tools?
What is the role of designer/architect as activist in the transition to a decolonized world?
en conversación con / in conversation with
Shane Laptiste_socadesign.ca
Iazana Guizzo_3margem.com.br
with consecutive translation by Dr. Cristina Ribas Pesquisadora e artista
Sechaba Maape_afreetekture.com
Michael Donaldson_designworkshop.ca
Tiffany Shaw_http://www.tiffanyshawcollinge.com/
Towards a cross cultural sketching school: evening feedback session 4
Chibuzo has recorded his comments on a sample of this week’s drawings.
Workshop 4: Visualizing the Unintended / Colour and Light
David Covo in collaboration with Chibuzo Ohaneje, Architect, CPDI Africa, Nigeria
Monday, February 21, 2022
Workshop 3: Subject vs Object, Detail vs Information / A Painter’s Perspective
David Covo, Hentry Tsang in collaboration with Joanna Nash, Visual Artist, Former Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture, McGill University, Canada
Monday, February 14, 2022
Henry shares My Community: Sketching the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Towards a cross cultural sketching school: evening feedback session 2
4 February 2022 6pm MST
David Covo and Henry Tsang discuss drawings in response to the Monday’s workshop.
Towards a cross cultural sketching school: morning feedback session 2
4 February 2022 9am MST
Chris Cornelius and Kristen Kornienko discuss drawings in response to the Monday’s workshop.
Workshop 2: Drawing the unseen, design sketching
David Covo, Henry Tsang in collaboration with Chris Cornelius, citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Chair, Department of Architecture, University of New Mexico, USA
Monday, February 7, 2022
Find out more about Chris Cornelius’s work
Towards a cross cultural sketching school: morning feedback session 1
4 February 2022 9am MST
Sechaba Maape and Kristen Kornienko discuss drawings in response to the Monday’s workshop.
Towards a Cross Cultural Sketching School
Workshop 1: Context and narrative, the human figure
David Covo, Henry Tsang in collaboration with Sechaba Maape, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture & Planning, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Monday, January 31, 2022
Find out more about Sechaba Maape’s work
The Tall and Short “Stories” of the Gulf: Vertical Urbanism and Identity in Gulf Cities
with Fahad al-Otaibi and Sabeen bin Zayyad, moderated by Veronica Madonna
18 Janurary 2022
The Gulf (also known as the Persian or Arabian Gulf) is not a homogenized region. The countries that make up the area are often the subject of debate, especially in the development of their built environments. In addition, the processes of globalization have driven the fields of both architectural and urban design and planning into an unprecedented role in defining and shaping the identities of these nations. Placing these developments within the context of the Gulf region becomes increasingly difficult, given that they are carried out within Western-dominated constructs such as tourism, branding and consumption.
Rather than disparaging such constructs, the presenters will draw from their research in academia and work to reframe the narratives within these constructs, using the concepts of vertical urbanism and identity in the cities of Dubai and Riyadh.
Lines, Land, and Lessons for the Future
David T. Fortin, PhD, OAA, SAA, Architect, AAA, MAA, MRAIC, LEED A.P.
Associate Professor, McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University
8 December 2021
This talk will share recent research into the role of delineation in colonial land dispossession and how deeply it impacts our collective relations with the Land. As a result, the pervasivenesses of the property fantasy also dictates conventional approaches to design thinking. Alternatives are discussed as possibilities for a more equitable future.
Raised in the Canadian Prairies, David Fortin is a professional architect and an Associate Professor at the McEwen School of Architecture. Since 2005, he has taught architectural design, history, and theory the UK, USA and Canada. He previously developed a course called Design for Climate Change and has twice taught graduate studios in Indigenous design. In 2018, he completed a study of Red River Métis contributions to architectural thinking in Canada as part of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant. He is a co-editor of the current issue of Scapegoat Journal with Adrian Blackwell (University of Waterloo) focusing on the delineation of land through notions of property and Indigenous land dispossession. David is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and the RAIC Indigenous Task Force that seeks 'ways to foster and promote indigenous design in Canada'. He was co-curator of UNCEDED: Voices of the Land, a team of Indigenous architects under the leadership of Douglas Cardinal, who represented Canada at the 2018 Venice Biennale in Italy. David was the inaugural Associate Director of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute and was the Director of the McEwen School of Architecture from 2018-2021.
(Apologies for the recording loss of sound, text has been added for the first 3 slides)
Lecture and Workshop: African Design Philosophy: Community Engagement & Development Practices with Nmadili Okwumabua from CPDI Africa!
hosted by AEDE and Global Studio
Nmadili Okwumabua is the Executive Director and founder of CPDI Africa, “a culture-inspired research-based and design-build movement that aims to develop new architectural design languages for Africa and the Diaspora that are culturally and environmentally sustainable.” The organization “believes in promoting creativity and dialogue for collective community development embedded in African traditions.”
The session will focus on how every culture has a place in architecture and teachings to share, specifically identifying ways one can adopt the African community development philosophy and utilize sweat equity in their locality.
Additionally, we ask you to watch these videos prior to the workshop.
Burkina Faso Film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0cr4-Q1zY4 (sensitive content)
Owner gets a Habitat Home: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bmM9fM0260
Real-time Architectural Rendering with Twinmotion
A Global Studio skills workshop with Jessica Williams
Wednesday 17 November at 9am MST (for international participants note that Canada changes to standard time on November 7)
Jessica is a student in Athabasca’s architecture program and works in architectural visualization with Mindful Architecture. She discovered the rendering software Twinmotion from Epic Games in her final year, and it has completely changed the way she renders architectural images.
In this lecture, Jessica will demonstrate the process of bringing a design to life with real time rendering in Twinmotion. Terrain and model files will be imported into Twinmotion from Sketchup and Revit. Then she will show how materials and 3D objects from Twinmotion and Quixel Megascans can be used to create a vivid, detailed scene. Finally she will demonstrate how to add weather effects and use animation tools to create renderings that are immersive and engaging. Make it stand out.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
DIY Filmmaking Part 2: Storytelling through Film
with francesca ekwuyasi
Hosted by Supernatural TV
6 October 2021
Storytelling through film: In part 02 of the Supernatural TV workshop series with francesca ekwuyasi we will be learning about francesca’s creative process, discussing different modes of storytelling through film and if there is time at the end we will be workshopping story boards for Supernatural TV film ideas.
francesca ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. francesca's debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread was longlisted for the 2020 Giller Prize and was a finalist for CBC's 2021 Canada Reads, the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, the 2021 Governor General's Award, the 2021 ReLit Award, and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
DIY Filmmaking Part 1: Production
with Abner Collette
Hosted by Supernatural TV
2 October 10am MDT
In Part 1 of the Supernatural TV workshop series with Abner Collette we will be learning production quality ways of creating films with iPhones and other simple technology. By the end of the workshop participants will be able to confidently go out and shoot footage for a Supernatural TV short film.
Abner Collette (he/they) is a Trans filmmaker living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a graduate of Vancouver Film School and the writer, director, and producer of several independent fictional and documentary short films. Abner’s well-received short film ‘SURFACES’ can be found in Season 6 of Reel East Coast on CBC Gem. He is currently working on a short documentary entitled SPECTRUM(S) which explores the established scientific link between gender identity and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Abner is the Technical and Production Coordinator for the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative (AFCOOP), and he looks forward to continuing his creative and professional development.
Community Engagement in Design
with Srimal Ranasinghe
Hosted by Advocates for Equitable Design Education (AEDE)
22 September 2021
Srimal Ranasinghe originally hails from Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, but has called Canada his home since 2004. He has worked with people from all walks of life around the world. From piloting a youth leadership program with groups of Indigenous youth in Western Canada, to providing addictions and mental health counselling to teens, and facilitating community outreach programs in collaboration with members of the South Sudanese community in Calgary, he is a seasoned hand at working in partnership with diverse communities. Srimal holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of British Columbia, and a Master of Environmental Design from the University of Calgary. The founding principal at SIR Consulting, Srimal also works as the Community Lead with Sustainable Calgary, and as a planner and engagement lead with Hive Developments.
The workshop will explore the importance of community engagement in the design industry and how to approach the process in an empathetic and equitable way. Understanding we as designers are not here to impose solutions to what we deem “problems” but to ask questions, critically reflect and aid in realizing people's visions. Through this framework, community members can further build in their own capacity and localize the design process. Acting as an extension of AEDE’s manifesto, community engagement demands the democratization of environmental design, where people have the tools to assert their “right to the city”, dismantle systemic oppression, reduce disparities, and take action to build a dignified life.
Surviving Architecture: creating architectural videos
with Rasha Shrourou
8 September 2021
Event Details
Dear Students,
My name is Rasha Shrourou, and I am the content-creator of the leading female architecture channel on YouTube called ‘Surviving Architecture’. I help design students and young architects learn how to design buildings, how to create drawings, and enhance their visualization by sharing tips and tricks in the form of well-crafted tutorials. With 200,000 subscribers and over 6 million views, Surviving Architecture is a tremendous source of practical information on architectural drawing, visualizations, portfolios, sketchbook tours, rendering, and more.
I look forward to meeting you and welcome you to the workshop as you embark on learning about videography. This is an exciting workshop for architecture education, as we are moving into an online world where we are changing the norm and encouraging students to embrace different communication styles.
In this workshop, we will cover a lot of in-depth information about videos. You will learn how to create footage with a purpose, how to record media, and how to edit videos using various software. This might seem overwhelming, but do not worry. This workshop is about inspiring you more than anything. I want you to feel more creative and develop as a designer regardless of your field.
I have also included templates in this document. I am happy to answer any questions you might have about them. It would be great if you fill them out beforehand (very roughly) and we can go over them together. So, a very warm welcome to all of you. Please stay until the end so you can ask any questions or if you want to say hi!
Kind regards,
Rasha Shrourou
Surviving Architecture
The Grove: a public space installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021
Living Architecture Systems Group
14 July 2021
Event Details
Join the Living Architecture System Group for a tour and discussion of “The Grove”. This installation is a delicate and beautiful gathering space that offers a vision for inclusive, open building. A soaring, undulating canopy of luminous, lace-like clouds embedded with liquid-filled glass vessels hovers above a central pool-shaped screen, into which a film, called Grove Cradle, by London-based Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones is projected.
The projection pool is surrounded by a forest of totemic, basket-like columns with embedded custom speakers that carry a multi-channel spatial sound environment by composer Salvador Breed and 4DSOUND of Amsterdam. Together, the film and sound environment offer visitors an almost overwhelmingly intense experience of innumerable worlds falling into chaos and rising again in new life. Inspired by the form language of Beesley’s “living architecture” environments, the film’s intricate geometries move from inert crystalline minerals into surging life forms. Within an astral, dream-like vision of constant metamorphosis, a child-like being emerges, reflecting the fundamental journey from death into new life. Rising and falling in cycles, deeply fragmented wilderness is interwoven with shimmering, hopeful light. Whispering voices emerge from cavernous depths, creating an emotional passage from suffering through new life and innocent wonder.
COVID-19 necessitated a complete re-imagining of the original Grove concept. Initially conceived of as a robustly physical, densely interactive environment, it soon became clear that a different type of public installation was required during a global pandemic. So Beesley looked to ways of creating expanded and enhanced physical and virtual experiences by working with collaborators in sound and film. The result is a new type of multimedia installation that re-interprets the interwoven layers and constantly transforming, near-to-life qualities of Beesley’s immersive architectural visions.
It is also a direct response to the urgent question posed by the title of Hashim Sarkis’s exhibition. How will we live together? Beesley and his collaborators offer a vision of a transformed world where future architecture seeks communion with plants, animals, and inert matter alike. Free citizenship was long defined by protective city walls, yet those same walls have also fueled catastrophic changes that befall us now. Instead of the rigid, bounded, and closed territories that divide us, can we live in open, constantly exchanging, shared worlds? Can a new architecture based on dissipative natural forms, such as fragile snowflakes and shifting clouds, create buildings that are both unapologetically sensitive and extraordinarily coherent, self-renewing, strong, and resilient?
In Grove, Philip Beesley has expanded upon his major built projects, such as the recent permanent sculpture Meander (located in Cambridge, Canada), and innovative fabrics developed in collaboration with fashion designer Iris van Herpen. The deeply layered, resilient physical structures of these preceding projects have been transformed into ghost-like virtual worlds for presentation in Venice. The experimental architecture of Grove offers profoundly restorative and healing qualities. By translating complex, interdependent natural systems into projected physical and virtual structures and environments, Grove offers a vision of a radically inclusive future where we can mesh our bodies, minds and spirits with our surroundings, breach seemingly unbreachable divides, and create renewed worlds grounded in mutual exchange and empathy.
supernatural charrette
7 July 2021
Event Details
Supernatural would like to invite you to our first of four workshops focusing on regenerative design as a part of the Global Studio project. For our first event, we will be facilitating a collaging charrette using a combination of Zoom and Miro. Participants will be broken into small groups, each accompanied by a facilitator, and will be tasked to make a series of digital collages to collaboratively visualize and iterate guiding goals from our living manifesto. We will use the emergent themes from this activity to inform themes and topics for our next three events. The aim of this workshop is to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives, spark critical conversation, imagine shared regenerative possibilities, and create relationships across the Global Studio team.
Supernatural Description
Supernatural, a student initiative established in 2019, has a mandate to create a platform for architectural communities (including students, interns, researchers, faculty, and professionals) to actively shift education, research and practice in response to Climate Change. We are advocating for architecture and design communities to move beyond damage limitation (sustainability) and toward a regenerative perspective through challenging best practice and architectural conventions, and encouraging critical inquiry into all scales of the design process. We seek to address Climate Change and environmental degradation together as symptoms and propellers of underlying social inequity, and we believe that environmental action offers opportunities to identify and disrupt intersecting systemic forms of oppression. Our mission is to promote architectural education and practices that explore and positively contribute to complex social and ecological systems at different scales. Our work aims to facilitate critical dialogue and action through interdisciplinary collaboration, lecture series, and design workshops.
lectures.
Afreetekture: The principles of a design school from a parallel dimension
Dr. Sechaba Maape
5 May 2021
In Abantutopia, a parallel South Africa free from the shacklesof colonialism and inequality, Afreetekture is the spiritual education and practice of designing human habitation. In Afreetekture school, elders, of which the majority are indigenous people from Abantutopia, are responsible for shaping not only the minds of Afreetekt initiates, but also their souls. The Afreetekt elders are custodians of antient wisdom, while also being experts in their technological and intellectual craft. They undergo deep spiritual training, spending at least 10 years learning from other elders, prolonged hours visiting ancestral spaces like caves and rock shelters, as well as harnessing their technical knowledge and skill.
The Afreetekt initiates are also mainly indigenous members of Abantutopia, which is merely a reflection of the demographic. They begin their curriculum by forming a community. This community, among the initiates, becomes the strongest resource they have. They create an identity, sing songs around great towers of fire under the vast cosmos establishing deep bonds, and ultimately design artefacts that become physical symbols of their bond. This, along with other elements of training, are key parts of the education of initiates before launching them into the spiritual practice of Afreetekture design.
The school of Afreetekture, its physical design was administered by ancient elders, and remains an orientating device for all those coming to learn. The walls of the school are lined with pictures of great elders such as William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmangankato Helen Sebidi and Frantz Fanon.
Decolonizing Design Equity Workshop
Prof. Wanda Dalla Costa
We invite you to join us for an online workshop led by Wanda Dalla Costa focusing on decolonizing design education from an Indigenous perspective. The workshop will dive into four Indigenous design research paradigms: Futurity, Placekeeping, Pluriverse, and Design as Ceremony. Participants will come away from this workshop with a deeper awareness of Indigenous design practices, which can bring insight into their own practice and research.
Futurity challenges assumptions consigning Native American peoples and lifeways to the past and uses creative thinking as a pathway toward Indigenous revival and self determination. Architecture is one portal of reimagining futurity of and for Indigenous people.
Placekeeping prioritizes the historical and cultural setting, negotiates an expanded role of citizen experts and knowledge brokers, utilizes Indigenous methodologies as a means of accessing local narrative, and is led by local worldviews and lived experience.
The Pluriverse acknowledges and validates humanity’s interconnectedness as species through concepts such as: ancestrality, autonomy, and futurality. The Pluriverse acts as a stark contrast to the suppression of world views and realities that differ from the Euro-centric status quo.
Design as ceremony. Indigenous architecture views the design process as a sacred process of preserving and disseminating Indigenous worldviews. Comprehension of Indigenous worldviews can be exemplified through four inseparable modes of understanding: ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology: ontology and epistemology are based on a process of relationships that form a mutual reality; the axiology and methodology are based upon maintaining accountability to these relationships.
About: Wanda Dalla Costa, AIA, LEED A.P. is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. She is a practicing architect, a professor and a YBCA 100 2019 honoree. At Arizona State University, she is the director and founder of the Indigenous Design Collaborative, a community-driven design and construction program, which brings together tribal community members, industry and a multidisciplinary team of ASU students and faculty to co-design and co-develop solutions for tribal communities. Dalla Costa holds a Master of Design Research in City Design from SCI-Arc, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Calgary.
interesting links.
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AEDE.
Advocates for Equitable Design Education (AEDE) is a student-run collective at the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Landscape, and Planning (SAPL), which is dedicated to the advancement of critical pedagogy in design and recovery of dialogues minimized in current design practices.
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Supernatural TV.
Stay tuned, coming soon!
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harvard GSD.
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SAIA.
South African Institute of Architecture. Get a diverse global perspective on the issues facing architecture with these panel discussion and lectures.
Great Zimbabwe Monument, Zimbabwe