Between 1947 and 1971 Aldo van Eyck designed an estimated 700-860 playgrounds in Amsterdam, forming a massive city-wide network of activity. These places shaped an entire generation, and radically shifted the approach to urbanism, turning the top-down modernist approach of the time on its head.
Through his thesis “Sentient Matter,” Mark Wang developed a prototype that translates human movements that are expressive of emotion into continuous surface transformations, translating emotive states into architectural form. Find out more at his thesis defence on Thursday September 17, 2015 at 7:30 pm in ARC 3003.
Saba Amini will defend here thesis entitled “Hybrid Thresholds” on September 16 at 10:00 AM in the Photo Studio Room 2003. Her thesis weaves infrastructure and public space into a threshold which filters water at the edge of the Don Valley in Toronto.
Prianka Smita will defend her thesis “Render Authenticity” on Tuesday September 15 at 6:30 PM at the BRIDGE Centre for Architecture + Design. Her thesis examines the rich history and unique culture of the Shakhari Bazar and proposes to instigate a healthy and informed dialogue to create a common goal of sustainable micro economy that refuses to accept uniformity and the disappearance of memory.
Kassie Miedema will defend her thesis “Urban Agriculture as an Agent for Social Change” on September 16 at 11:00 AM in ARC 3003. Her work proposes the creation of healthy, socially inclusive public and private spaces that reconnect people to nature through urban agriculture in London Ontario.
Vacant Storefront at 35/37 Main Street – September 14th 2014 Opportunity in Absence: Activating Vacant Space in The Temporary City Abstract by Zak Fish The vacant buildings in Cambridge await new uses as traditional commercial activity has shifted to the sprawl that defines the landscape between the city’s historic cores. Downtown businesses have been replaced by big-box suburban developments, leaving the question, what will fill the city’s urban voids? In declining manufacturing-based economies, like Cambridge,...
PROCESS: Thesis in the Making exposes the unique process undertaken through the development of a thesis and provides insight into the Masters of Architecture program. It examines the intensive research, critical thinking and design process required to produce the final thesis document, exposing the exploration and learning which informs every thesis.
Karan Manchanda’s will defend his thesis “RAM [Remote Arctic Memory]” on Thursday September 10th at 11AM in the Cummings Lecture Theatre. His work investigates the coupling of communications and research infrastructure together to create a flexible and scalable connective network for the North. The proposal describes a “New North”, an Arctic networked through a series of monitoring towers deployed across the North to foster gathering of data and sharing of knowledge between researchers and the indigenous communities.
Animals are invading the city. Coyotes are sighted on downtown streets, raccoons notoriously forage through greenbins, and bears are trapped in suburban backyards. Sarah Gunawan’s thesis entitled “Synanthropic Suburbia” explores these conditions and re-imagines human animal interactions in the domestic realm. A series of telescoping design experiments use architecture to structure hybrid relationships that positively contribute to the suburban ecosystem. Her thesis defence will take place on Thursday September 10th at 2PM in the Loft.
Patti Beaulieu will defend her thesis entitled “Forgotton Landscapes: Restoring our Rural Imagination” on Thursday September 10th at 10am in ARC 1001. Her thesis challenges the existing remediation approaches to problems of dryland agriculture in Western Australia by attempting to address the disconnect between consumers and their rural footprint.
