ABSTRACT by Taehyung Kim Contemporary architectural discourse commonly invokes the term framing. Derivative phrases contrived in education and practice are seemingly inexhaustible: framing the view, framing space, framing an idea, frame of reference, framework, window frame, body frame, space frame. The polymorphic nature of the term is perplexing, and despite its frequent and casual mention, […]

ABSTRACT by Emma Ma The City of Shenzhen was created as a part of the Chinese economic reform in 1978. The existing undulating topography was bulldozed and flattened, as agrarian fields were transformed into a world-class megalopolis. The state-backed initiative saw the accelerated growth of the city from a population of 300,000 to more than […]

ABSTRACT by Virginia Fernandez Rincon Striving for subsistence, the growing population of Caracas has radically transformed the city in the course of the past fifty years. The inability of the city to respond to the accelerated growth that resulted from mass rural migrations left millions to provide land, shelter and basic services for themselves. The […]

ABSTRACT by Samantha Oswald Brick. A simple object, but one that has been a base unit of architecture for over 6000 years. It carries connotations of labour, of energy, of the fundamental desire of humanity to give form to the substance of the Earth. However, current tendencies in manufacturing and construction are challenging the prevalence […]

ABSTRACT by Renee Kuehnle The outport is in the midst of great change. Twenty years since the moratorium on cod fishing, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is experiencing rapid economic development in another industrial resource boom. While some outports are growing, others continue to decline. This development is based on wealth gained through exploitation […]

ABSTRACT by Sonja Vangjeli In a context of rapid urbanization and increasingly standardized built environments, urbanism must find new methods of creating appropriate conditions for the variability of contemporary urban life. The city, understood as a system of interconnected processes in constant change, offers a relational way of thinking about urban design. This thesis explores […]

ABSTRACT by Shannon Ross During the 1960s large trenched expressways were introduced into our urban centres to accommodate the booming vehicular traffic. These expressways were built on an enormous scale, often traversing entire cities. Unfortunately, some neighbourhoods have been divided and now share a noxious physical boundary. The Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia, the Cross […]

ABSTRACT by Emad Ghattas Québec’s historical attachment with Roman Catholicism is obvious through the great amount of churches throughout the province. Changing attitudes in Québec (in parallel with other regions around the world) are leading to a chronic desertion of spaces of worship. Conceived as the heart of a community, churches successfully imposed their presence […]