The Arriscraft lecture series is back for the winter term with new and exciting lecturers who, by complete coincidence, have incorporated some form of food into the title of their lecture. Either they happened to be hungry while writing it, or food and architecture will always go hand in hand. Maybe they are trying to hint at some obscure spatial metaphor… Architecture is food? Food is architecture? #ThoughtsThatKeepMeUpAtNight
This last year [2012-13] the Twenty-Fifth Annual Arriscraft Lecture Series – ARCHITECTURE OUTSIDE THE LINES – at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture investigated the edge of architecture, where architects, clients, planners, and other participants in the building world talked about work outside of the conventional boundaries of the architectural profession. Eight remarkable individuals engaging in new forms of architecture and new forms of architectural enterprise – all in the Greater Toronto Area – shared their experiences in the new arenas of design and development with a capacity audience of three hundred students, academics and professionals, journalists and citizens in a constructive critique of the detached, professional model of architectural practice.
This academic year the School plans a new series – ARCHITECTURE ON THE LINE – a series that examines the potent role public transit plays the urban infrastructure, and in the shaping the nature of the city. ‘ARCHITECTURE on the line’ is dedicated to exploring the relationship between architecture and urban infrastructure, at every scale from the sidewalk to the inter-urban transit line.
The new series, which begins early in October, will address public transit in any number of ways in the GTA and, in a special sub-series, in Waterloo Region. Unlike last year’s programme, this year’s lecturers will be drawn from the region and beyond, nationally and globally.
[Text by Professor Donald McKay]