Archinect - Features

JA Architecture Studio on Pursuing That Missing Middle in the Mode of Practice

2022-04-25T13:01:00-04:00

For our latest Studio Snapshot conversation, Archinect had the pleasure of chatting with Nima Javidi and Behnaz Assadi, founding partners of Toronto-based JA Architecture Studio. Being an architect and a landscape designer, respectively, Javidi and Assadi contribute their unique perspectives to tackle an array of typologies — recently earning them also, among other awards, a coveted Emerging Voices distinction from The Architectural League of New York.

Their interview responses elaborate on the team's search for a new mode of practice, the relationship of their architecture to the city, and aspirations for future commissions.

Anya Moryoussef on Challenging the Traditional Model of Architectural Practice

2021-05-06T07:59:00-04:00

For our latest Studio Snapshot, Archinect had the pleasure of connecting with Anya Moryoussef, Founding Principal of Toronto-based firm AM_A and this year's recipient of the RAIC Emerging Architect Award. Her design work impresses with gorgeous clarity, awareness of material interplay, consistently conveyed through warm, minimalist tones.

The conversation touched on the team's collaborative nature, the intention to keep the studio small, and the challenges of scoring bigger, public commissions for emerging practices in Canada.

UofT Daniels Graduate Mariam Malaty Architecturalizes Grottoes

2020-09-03T11:57:00-04:00

M.Arch graduate Mariam Malaty of the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design used the figurative and literal forms of grottoes to explore formal concepts in pursuit of "fantastical design" possibilities. In her thesis, The Grotto of Illusive Forms, Malaty explains, "these propositions are an open exploration of form found within the spectrum of the 'familiar' and the 'unfamiliar.'” The result, Malaty tells Archinect, "is the creation of four grottoes, each the venue and the result of three acts of colonization."

Archinect connected with Malaty to learn about her thesis, the process for creating the "digital artifacts" that make up her project, and how she has applied the skills she learned in architecture school to her family's residential and hotel business.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic ...

University of Toronto M.Arch Graduate Jessica Ying on "Reading Between the Lines" of Architectural Drawing

2020-06-24T12:15:00-04:00

Jessica Ying is a recent M.Arch graduate from the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Archinect connected with Ying to learn more about her final project and its focus on architectural drawings' power. According to Ying, "digital design culture places great importance in the design process for emerging architects; our method of generating new possibilities in architecture depends on how we are using our digital design tools. Yet, drawing remains the primary instrument to realize our imagination into reality, a form to express our visual thought in the process."

Ying talks of her process behind her thesis project, Reading Between the Lines, and her inspiration to explore line drawing geometries due to Giovanni Battista Piranesi and his Carceri drawing series. Ying also shares her thoughts on what she hopes the future will bring as a recent graduate during the pandemic.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an ex...

Williamson Williamson on Staying Small in Toronto’s Booming, Competitive Architecture Scene

2017-12-04T12:25:00-05:00

Located in Toronto, the architectural design studio Williamson Williamson was established by husband-and-wife duo, Shane and Betsy Williamson. Since its founding, the firm has been awarded the prestigious 2014 Emerging Architectural Practice Award by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the 2014 Emerging Voices Award by the Architectural League of New York.

For this week's Small Studio Snapshot, we talk with the two about learning to balance design priorities with the realities of construction, working in the city of Toronto, and the growing number of small offices in the city.

Neeraj Bhatia discusses his transcalar design-research practice, the Open Workshop

2017-07-17T11:39:00-04:00

The Open Workshop was founded in 2011 and is located across San Francisco and Toronto, Canada. It is a design-research office working at multiple scales to examine the negotiation between architecture and its territorial environment. Projects include consulting on the redesign of Bruce Mau's office and accolades include the Architectural League of New York's 2016 Young Architects Prize.

The founder, Neeraj Bhatia, discusses the studio's interdisciplinary approach and remaining undefined as a practice.

From LA to Toronto, Batay-Csorba discusses relocating their architecture practice to Canada

2017-07-12T12:00:00-04:00

After working for Morphosis and Frank Gehry in Los Angeles, Jodi and Andrew packed up their bags and moved to Canada to start their own firm, Batay-Csorba Architects. The two discuss their decision to relocate and the process of establishing themselves as a young practice in Toronto.

Screen/Print #28: PLACE-HOLDER's interview with Greg Lynn for Issue 1/2, "Afterschool"

2015-02-23T10:26:00-05:00

It’s foolish to think of process as a straight-line; tangents, detours, dead-ends and roundabouts are the foundation of architecture's process, however immaculate its presentation. PLACE-HOLDER, a publication out of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto, focuses on the messy preamble and sequels to architecture, publishing those fringes of architectural practice and study that otherwise might be sheared away.

Screen/Print #8: Satellite

2014-02-28T12:56:00-05:00

Screen/Print is an experiment in translation across media, featuring a close-up digital look at printed architectural writing. Divorcing content from the physical page, the series lends a new perspective to nuanced architectural thought.

For this issue, we’re featuring Satellite's Toronto.

Do you run an architectural publication? If you’d like to submit a piece of writing to Screen/Print, please send us a message.

In Focus: Sam Javanrouh

2012-02-21T18:33:00-05:00

In Focus is Archinect's series of features dedicated to profiling the photographers who help make the work of architects look that much better. What has attracted them to architecture? How do they work? What type of equipment do they use? What do they think about seeing their work in blogs?

In this feature, we talk to Iranian-Canadian creative director and photographer Sam Javanrouh.