Archinect - University of Toronto (al&d)

architecture vs a-ha!

2006-09-21T23:41:11-04:00

check it out...

http://www.current.tv/studio/media/12427856

staedtler^2

2005-05-16T10:18:56-04:00

towards the end of the semester i found ways to cope with the lack of time i had for personal hygiene as an architecture student over the course of the year. i dicovered i could prune myself right in studio simply by doubling my architecture supplies as personal hygiene supplies. ergo, i was also able to half the time i spent on personal hygiene, double my marks and reduce the pesky need to visit places like shoppers drug mart and my apartment. yay staedtler !

.3" removal of brittleness from sanding, re-sanding....

2x8 squares (=32cm^2) removal of glue stuck in hair

57 degrees too much vending machine snacks

2" above appropriate crit attire

r=1 7/8 blush coverage of overnight ruddiness

Zero-Gravity

2005-04-19T17:38:16-04:00

its my pleasure to introduce jimenez lai. architecture student, baseball player, rock star, poet, comic, model etc etc...

Jimenez recently returned from taliesin west (ariz) where he spent 5 months as al&d's third recipient of the howarth-wright graduate fellowship, allowing jimenez to pursue independant study on the work of FLW and to complete a major research project.
jimenez presented "zero gravity residential community" to the taliesen community in late january & his model was exhibited in the phoenix art gallery as part of "art walk" in march.

jimenez has a well-established reputation for huge models & way cool drawings, rounding out his first year with a 1:20 model of his library design & an accompanying comic strip illustrating the seedy life underneath the institution.

jimenez is looking forward to a summer in Rotterdam, where he will be joining the Atelier Van Leishout for an internship- the next best thing to practicing architecture in outer space.

more info about...

VAL KILMER

2005-03-29T00:47:10-05:00

val kilmer is a familiar friendly face in toronto these days, and thats because fans/detractors/accomplices/misanthropes have been glueing photocopied images of his face all over the city for the past year.

& tagging his name in cute 60's bubble letters.

this revolutionary graffiti proves to fly-guy taggers that you dont need to go to the trouble of learning how to write all that fancy lettering to get some attention. you dont even need to write at all infact. all you need is a photocopier and a head. ready-made graffiti has arrived!

this graf allows val to cruise on the buzz of great movies he was never even in.
more like VAL killMER to stay alive!

you can buy the val kilmer t-shirts here . prove to your friends at home you had the toronto val kilmer experience!

our logo is similarly irresistably taggable, and equally deserving of the spotlight. and we'd like to do the same thing. but we're afraid they might know who did it -bruce mau, obviously-, (al) & (d) that could st...

gehry chair & red carpet

2005-03-02T02:18:31-05:00

One of the most anticipated events of winter term at al&d is when we roll out the red carpet for the new Gehry chair. For those of you not in the know, the Gehry chair is held by a visiting architect of international prominence from jan-april. Students in their third year of al&d's master of architecture program study with the chair holder before they start their design thesis.
The inaugural chair holder was world-renowned Daniel Libeskind, designer of the latest addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, who has also just recieved the commision to redevelop Toronto's Hummingbird Center for the performing arts. Preston Scott Cohen was the second holder of the Gehry chair.
Heather Reisman, founder of Indigo Books and Music, and 45 others raised $1 million, matched by U of T, to establish the chair named for the famed Torontoborn designer of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Experience Music Project in Seattle, and the newly opened Walt Disney Concert Hall ...

morphosis- around campus I

2005-02-21T13:28:54-05:00

there has been a flurry of construction activity on u of t campus the past few years as a multitude of new residences, faculty buildings, etc have been going up. among the most prominent of the projects has been morphosis' student residence, "grad house"(2000).

strategically located on the outskirts of campus, at the major intersection of harbord and spadina, it serves as a "gateway" into u of t. the protruding bridge resting atop the building boldly announces "university of toronto"and can be seen from several major blocks distance at night and during the day.

the shifting exterior surfaces of the building give the impression of the building's own deconstruction, or "undressing" as some would have it....

imagined scenarios provocated by the potentially racy views across grad house's courtyard space were the subject of Thom Mayne and Noritoshi Hirakawa's joint photography exhibition, "Subject", mounted last year at al&d's eric arthur gallery.

there's also a trendy restaurant i...

fabricating cont. ("subtraction")

2005-02-20T18:25:54-05:00

here are some images of the IDS fabrication project as it appeared at the show.
the original concept was for a echoless anechoic chamber.

visitors were drawn to touching it

& some also fell asleep beneath it

there was also a film documenting the production process on display

Frampton, Merrill Elam... (upcoming lectures)

2005-02-19T14:55:44-05:00

Shouldice Designer Stone 04/05 Lecture Series

Lectures + Symposium
Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto

03.01
Julie Bargmann
Principal, D.I.R.T. Studio
Director, Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia
"Toxic Beauty "
7:00 PM / Room 103 / 230 College St

03.07
Wilfried Wang
Neill Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture, University of Texas at Austin
" From the Shadows of History to New Ideas: Berlin's Architecture in Context"
7:00 PM / Room 103 / 230 College St
co-presented with the Goethe-Institut Toronto
part of Thought and Construction: New German Architecture in Toronto / New Canadian Architecture in Berlin
more info: www.goethe.de/toronto Cultural Programs Architecture

03.18 / 03.19
Landscape Regionalism
Commemorating 40 Years of Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto, 1965 - 2005

03.18
7:00 PM
Keynote Lecture
Michael Hough/OALA Visiting Critic
James Corner
Principal, F...

fabricating

2005-02-17T11:52:37-05:00

when over the course of the past week the amount of puffy white flakes around the building went from a light sprinkle to a full on deluge, students weren't sure if people were being increasingly careless about wiping their feet at the door or if it had actually begun to snow inside the building.

if you follow the trail- which these days can be found just about everywhere- in hair, on stairs, clothes, stuck to walls-

you'll be lead down to the PRL lab in the basement where a team of students lead by Prof. Shane Williamson are preparing a concept space of milled white foam for the upcoming toronto interior design show.

the team has taken over most of the basement for the storage and mock-up assembly of the foam modules which will be assembled at the ids center.

the prl lab was instituted last year for research into digital design and production. recent events the school has held in conjunction with ongoing research in the lab include the fabrication conference held earlier thi...

al&d at ids

2005-02-14T01:16:19-05:00

over the weekend al&d students participated in the toronto interior design show with a body of work completed recently in plastics and lighting courses

the work encouraged a haptic approach on the part of visitors, inviting them to experience the work through touch as well as vision

other highlights of the IDS included talks by winy maas of MVRDV....

as well as concept spaces by alsop...

local firms 3rd uncle....

and saucier + perrotte

we particularly had fun at the droog design booth.

go fly a kite

2005-02-08T17:06:16-05:00

first year space has become a somewhat uplifting little alcove within the al&d studio ever since students were asked to make tetrahedral kites for design studio 1.

part of the final crits were at al&d...

but the real test of success were the crits at the beach. some flew swimmingly....

others have been put to altenalte uses...

art or architecture..?

2005-02-03T13:20:54-05:00

no, i won't bore you with this old question. in John Shnier's recent seminar course, "Piranesi: modern thought, contemporary practice & curated relationships" students were asked to forget this old debate and instead act simultaneously in the spirit of both artist and architect. each week a student transformed a lowly classroom into an exhibition space which synergistically linked the work of a chosen artist and architect.

Piranesi-architect, archaeologist, scenic designer, engineer, theorist, antiquarian, contrarian, provocateur-was a creator who melded many roles, acting through all of them in simultaneity. in like spirit, students were asked to curate an exhibition that somehow melded the character of their chosen artist and architect into an alternate third personality.

an interactive exhibition of Dominique Gonzales-Torres & Peter Eisenmann involving an instructive student-made film and the folding of origami

each week different students adopted the role of guest-critic, l...

Break from Back to School

2004-09-20T14:54:13-04:00

here at al&d MArch2's are begining Studio 3: Culture and the Metropolis, a studio that begins with an investigation of the urban fabric of Toronto. i spent the day getting photos of my site, but along my way also did a little investigating of our site here for the al&d blog. here's what unfolded and with it a bit of the al&d psycho-geographic map

since al&d is located downtown at the intersection of College and Spadina, right in the thick of the city, there's a lot going on in the area, like this scene of friendly local breakers who we happened to run into at the corner of Queen and Spadina

ei-yo supernatz

backing it up with some beat boxes

jazzyjester informed us that we witnessing a rare event, these breakers are hardcore enough to be busting it out on “c-ment”

in the background behold our beloved CNtower

keeping it real in the classroom. a student busts a move in the HOK computer lab. certainly a day of culture in the metropolis

certainly a day of culture in the metrop...