Architecture

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's School of Architecture.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 875

Healthy living by design : Exploring the blue zones as a framework for a multi-generational housing typology
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-20) Ali, Syed Bahroz
This thesis begins by examining the pervasive urban sprawl in Toronto, analyzing the profound health impacts associated with suburban living—challenges such as social isolation, poor walkability, and a general decline in well-being. While the city has responded to housing pressures with mid-rise densification, many existing problems persist and are often intensified: smaller living spaces and inadequate community infrastructure continue to undermine both physical and mental health. In response, the research turns to the Blue Zones—regions where people consistently enjoy longer, healthier lives, largely free from the chronic health issues prevalent in suburban and urban environments. By closely investigating the architectural and spatial qualities of these communities, the thesis explores the fundamental role of design and space in fostering well-being. The study identifies key overlaps between the principles found in Blue Zones and the recommendations outlined in age-friendly and World Health Organization guidelines. These shared values inform strategies aimed at addressing the underlying health concerns of both suburban and densified urban contexts. Central to this approach is a re imagining of housing: specifically, promoting multi generational homes and neighborhood designs that support aging in place, encourage social cohesion, and create opportunities for intergenerational connection.This thesis advances alternative models of housing and community development—drawing on co-housing and co-living precedents from Canada and the Nordic countries—that respond more effectively to Toronto’s climate and cultural context. Instead of pursuing density as an end in itself, the proposed designs emphasize creating environments where people of all ages can flourish, maintain strong social connections, and lead healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Reparative Infrastructure: Reimagining Water Kiosks in Ulaanbaatar’s Ger Districts
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-17) Liu, Yiqing
Over half of Mongolia’s population lives in Ulaanbaatar, with many settling in ger districts on the urban periphery. These areas, where some residents still live in traditional gers on self-claimed plots, resemble other informal settlements lacking basic infrastructure. Following the political reforms of the late twentieth century, many rural migrants relocated here seeking better opportunities, yet their living conditions remain poor. This thesis investigates how architectural interventions can enhance daily life, public space, and a sense of nomadic identity within these rapidly urbanizing areas. Focusing on the water kiosks system, it explores how these kiosks can serve as social and spatial anchors for future development. Based on literature review, secondary data, and remote site analysis, the thesis proposes two architectural upgrades in Bayangol District. The study ultimately frames a community-driven approach for informal settlements that promotes local agency and spatial justice through reparative infrastructure.
IN BETWEEN LAND AND SEA: Adaptive Redevelopment of the Indigenous Fishing Villages at Mumbai’s Coastal Fringes
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-17) Dasgupta, Ahan
Architecture is often understood through the spaces it produces, but its more significant role lies in framing the relationships between people, economies, and environments. When these relationships are disrupted by ecological change and urban expansion, the focus of architecture shifts from form to the conditions that allow communities to endure. In the city of Mumbai, this shift is most visible along the coastline, where reclamation, large-scale infrastructure, and speculative real estate have steadily eroded ecological systems. Within this changing landscape, the fishing villages of the Koli community, the city's native inhabitants, continue to function as active settlements that support both livelihoods and cultural practices, even as they are reclassified as informal and placed under pressure from redevelopment. This thesis proposes a framework that responds to the challenges faced by the Koli community through an integrated approach. Ecological restoration is established as the foundation, focusing on mangrove regeneration, wetland protection, and the preservation of tidal flows. Economic resilience is addressed through cooperative infrastructure, including fishing hubs, repair yards, and storage facilities, which strengthen small-scale fishing practices. Cultural presence is supported through plazas, markets, and promenades that keep Koli life embedded within the public realm of the city. Through this lens, the thesis reframes the coastline of the Khar-Danda Village as a shared edge where ecological systems, livelihoods, and cultural practices are sustained together.
PIECE IT TOGETHER : Rebuildable Homes for Post-Disaster Resilience
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-17) Akhtar, Areeba
In an era marked by intensifying natural disasters, no one is immune to the risks of displacement and loss. Climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events, leading to more frequent and intense disasters that affect millions globally, with an average of 25.3 million displacements per year from sudden-onset disasters alone. While government-led disaster recovery efforts aim to restore stability, they often rely on short-term shelter solutions that leave individuals with little control over their futures. These shelters, intended as temporary, frequently become long-term residences, as seen in Haiti and Florida, where FEMA housing remained in use for over a decade. As the climate crisis increases the frequency of such events, the question is no longer if, but when, and what happens next. This thesis addresses the critical challenge of how to transition from shelter to home. It responds to two core problems: the disposability of temporary housing and the disempowerment of those who live in them. The research proposes self-build, incrementally adaptable housing systems that give displaced individuals agency over their environments. These structures can be assembled in emergency conditions and later deconstructed to support the rebuilding of permanent homes - turning what was once a temporary fix into a meaningful foundation for recovery. By leveraging Design for Disassembly (DfD) principles and flat-pack strategies, the project offers a system that is not only responsive to immediate needs but also materially and socially regenerative. Unlike standard modular pods, which are costly to store or reuse, these homes are designed as kits of parts that evolve with their users. CNC digital fabrication is used not to mass-produce standardized units, but to enable localized, rapidly deployable systems that support self-building and reduce dependency on centralized supply chains. The thesis employs iterative prototyping, drawing on literature review as a theoretical foundation, to develop a timber-based modular housing system suited to North American climates.Applying the design in post disaster scenario of Jasper Wild Fire and Florida Hurricane to evaluate how the prototypes perform under these recovery conditions - assessing adaptability, reusability, and user empowerment across both interim and long-term use phases. This research reclaims post-disaster housing as a space of autonomy, love, and growth - one where people rebuild not just structures, but lives. In doing so, it legitimizes the nonlinear, personal, and often prolonged process of healing after disaster, proposing a housing framework that is adaptable, enduring, and deeply human.
Rethinking Waste(d) Realities
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Jain, Vanshika
Historically marginalized in urban consciousness, waste in the Global South occupies a complex and layered terrain visible in its overwhelming presence, yet systematically excluded from narratives of progress, design, and planning. In New Delhi, this contrast is embodied in Ghazipur’s so-called “trash mountain” - a towering monument to systemic negligence and infrastructural collapse. A measure first conceived as a temporary solution has evolved into a permanent fixture, reflecting the city’s dependence on centralized, extractive waste systems. The precarious and undervalued labor of informal waste pickers, the toxicity of the air, and the stagnation of land without a future all demonstrate how the silence around waste is not only logistical but deeply spatial, ecological, and political. This thesis reframes waste as a spatial urban condition and explores overlooked opportunities for renewal. It proposes a decentralized, multi-scalar system where linear waste streams become circular and burdened sites become catalysts of transformation. The transformation of the Ghazipur trash mountain is envisioned as a gradual unmaking rather than erasure. Through temporal and ecological interventions, the site shifts from dumpsite to regenerative landscape. Currently a monument to systemic failure, Ghazipur is reimagined through a multi-scalar strategy consisting of citywide zoning and redesigned waste infrastructure with localized material recovery facility, a neighborhood pilot combining waste infrastructure and public commons, and site-specific remediation of the 70-meter-high landfill through bioremediation, phytoremediation, and constructed wetlands. Together, these interventions restore ecology, recover resources, and reinsert the site into public life, while making visible the labor that sustains it. Rethinking Waste(d) Realities builds on currents already visible in Indian cities beyond Delhi. Biomining initiatives, decentralized collection systems, and growing legal and civic pressure to remediate landfills point to a real appetite for systemic change. This thesis positions design within that momentum, showing how architecture and landscape can help reorganize waste from crisis to resource.
Multisensory Immersion in Architectural Virtual Reality: Effects of Visual and Auditory Cues
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Jeon, Jikyung
The evolution of architectural representation has progressed from traditional analog methods such as hand-drawing to contemporary digital technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) which emerges as the latest architectural representation in spatial visualization and client communication. However, current implementations of architectural VR heavily focus on visual presentation, potentially underutilizing the capacity for comprehensive multisensory experiences that could significantly enhance users to have comprehensive understanding and more engagement within proposed space. This paper investigates the role of spatial auditory effects in enhancing architectural VR experiences and examines how multisensory (particularly visual and auditory cues) design approaches can improve user engagement and spatial communication effectively. Through a comprehensive three-part methodology, this research addresses critical gaps in current architectural VR representations which visual-only approaches represent partial utilization of the contemporary potential of technology. In PART 1, through trend extrapolation from historical evolution, ‘what’s the next?’ was predicted that architects should utilize architectural VR representation to prepare for emerging technological paradigms. The analysis of various contemporary precedents in the architectural field shows that current architectural VR implementations primarily focus on providing better visualization and virtual experiences to clients and stakeholders, while insufficient attention is on multisensory architectural VR applications. PART 2 introduces the cognitive foundation for sound integration in architectural representation and explains the necessity of applying spatial audio to architectural VR presentations for enhanced communication. This part outlines specific acoustic properties such as attenuation, overlapping, and diffraction and shows their potential applications in architectural design visualization. This foundation demonstrates how these properties can enhance the awareness of relationships in spatial hierarchy, active zones, and connectivity. PART 3 presents experimental validation through repeated measures with 38 participants experiencing three conditions: PC-based non-VR, visual-only VR, and both visual and auditory VR. The results demonstrate progressive increases in participants’ voluntary engagement, with multisensory VR achieving 198.1% improvement in play time compared to traditional PC-based presentation. These findings provide architects experiment results based on numerical evidence and encourage them utilizing multisensory integration as fundamental to effective VR representations rather than optional enhancement. This research contributes to architectural practice by providing measurable advantages of comprehensive sensory experience in VR-based communication and spatial understanding.
A Seat at the Table: Placemaking in the Hong Kong-Canadian Diasporic Landscape
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-15) Yu, Alison
Gathering is present in every aspect of Chinese culture - its customs, traditions, and celebrations. This act of gathering provides community, a shared strength in celebration, but it also reveals the social nuances of the community. In the North American diaspora, it provides protection against prejudice, community, and the tools to teach and grow, offering opportunities for grandparents to teach grandchildren about their culture. Food accompanies this crucial act of gathering as a vehicle for cultural transfers of knowledge. Bringing a group of people of different ages and lives together over food and conversation is an act of solidarity, of sharing, and an expression of care. It has provided the very foundation for the formation of Chinatowns and their surrounding ethnoburbs, as places to keep an eye out for one another amid exclusion, and it is this very act of gathering over food specifically that provided the first stepping stone in the Canadian acceptance of Chinese culture. The Chinese restaurant provides the arena for food and gathering to take place, a key player in the transfer of cultural knowledge between the generations of Hong Kong-Chinese immigrants that reside in the Greater Toronto Area - namely in Markham, Richmond Hill, and Scarborough. Restaurants are known to adapt and shift with the current times, but in the recent years, through modes of gentrification, an influx of anti-Asian racism following Covid-19, and the aging of the first-generation Chinese immigrants that had in Canada in the late twentieth century, the traditional and beloved Chinese restaurant typology that has anchored neighbourhoods for decades face a much more rapid and drastic change. Through analysis of Hong Kong settlement patterns across the Greater Toronto Area, this thesis reveals the integral role the restaurant plays in the Hong Kong-Canadian diaspora and its network of businesses. It investigates the often unsaid part of Chinese culture that is intergenerational knowledge sharing, and speculates on what tools may be carried down to the second and third-generation Hong Kong immigrant to imagine what the Chinese restaurant can become. This thesis uses analysis of placemaking and memory, accompanied by interviews and ethnographic drawing studies to come to a written projection of the trajectory of the Chinese restaurant, understanding the ways in which culture defines space and how space can, in return, preserve culture. The research provides an analytical approach to understand the Hong Kong culture that has stood the test of time, through the movement across continents and political upheaval, and speculates on what is needed to maintain its ground against rising threats of financial instability, gentrification, and change in the customer landscape. The Chinese restaurant, a silent yet crucial contributer to the community, may be considered a regular spot today, but is a pillar of Chinese culture, specifically Hong Kong culture, that stands to be preserved.
Artisanship in a post-industrial present: A physio-biological framework for restorative design artifacts
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-08) Clouthier, Derrick
Over billions of years, organisms have evolved from single cell organisms into the human species of today. That process shaped the physiology and psychology of the human species. While each person is unique, a product of each individuals experiences and specific genetic endowments, there exists universal features that are innate in the biology of humans. One aspect of this is our brain, a unique organ which has evolved through thousands of generations, and through countless interactions with our environments into a mechanism for our species survival. This evolutionary process created a deep innate relationship between humanity and our natural environments. When modernism emerged at the turn of the 20th century, it fundamentally changed architecture. The economics of mass production mingled with advancements in medical reasoning to produce an architecture of efficiency. Architects such as Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, and Alvar Alto translated the sterility and medical principles of the sanatorium into housing and beyond, producing an architecture founded on the principles of air and light as essential elements to health, while peeling architecture away from the “humid ground where disease breeds” as defined by Le Corbusier. Large windows, rooftop terraces, and spotless interiors crafted light filled spaces and spotless environments, perfect for the air and sun cure against tuberculosis, but which increasingly separated individuals from the ground humans have evolved to thrive in. Architecture shed the rich visual complexity, naturalistic illusions, and fluid interior exterior relationships of historic architectures, replacing it with a sterile incubator, targeted toward contemporary concepts of health. Modernist architectural advancements led to a sterility that has permeated modern architectures, producing a cognitive discord that is actively harmful to individuals. Researchers in neuroscience and environmental psychology have sought to understand this discord, producing studies which seek to better identify the underlying cognitive mechanisms that inform these interactions. Designers in turn have developed frameworks for applying this research to design for well-being. This thesis proposes a framework for restorative design principles, and advocates the harnessing of digital fabrication technologies to produce restorative artifacts for well-being. Through the development of a framework specifically tailored to the production of digitally fabricated artifacts, this thesis proposes a methodology for generating restorative environments through informed design. The artifacts presented in this thesis demonstrate the application of restorative principles through digitally fabricated artifacts, advocating the adoption of a new architectural language for restorative, evolutionarily informed design.
Exploring the Relationship between Concrete and Mycelium Through an Integrated Design Methodology
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-24) Kirkwood, Alexis
In 2023, the built environment sector was labelled the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, prompting an increased effort to reduce its embodied carbon. While research in sustainable, low-carbon materials has proved an excellent method to define where we have failed in material use and what we might use in the future, a discussion blending the two is underdeveloped and worthy of further exploration. Also lacking is the number of materials that exist in the grey area between sustainable and structural, with one quality seemingly favoured over the other. It is in this area of architecture that the greatest green impact will be felt, as it then competes with the three largest carbon emitters – concrete, steel and aluminum. This thesis takes concrete, the largest emitter, and contrasts it with mycelium-based composites, an innovative biomaterial whose potential has been constrained by studying it in isolation (solely observing mycelium with its substrate). By comparing them, we stay grounded in the current state of material in architecture and its impact on the planet. By combining them, we have an opportunity to blend their individual properties to offer new applications not previously available to either material. An integrated design methodology was created to guide the design process through a holistic framework, considering as many factors as possible to use concrete as a means to strengthen mycelium-based composites, and to reach a design proposal for a product that combines the materials in a way that is both practical and sustainable. This inspired a series of material experiments that explored the surface and form bonding capabilities of the materials, as well as how mycelium-based composites paired with deconstructed concrete (cement and recycled concrete aggregate). These experiments then tested for their acoustic properties and compressive strength. Throughout this process, the working methodology was constantly cross-checked with Jason F. McLennan’s six principles of sustainable design as well as proposed sustainable policies to ensure the final product maintained its integrity as a sustainable material. The work culminated in a design proposal for a recycled concrete acoustic masonry unit with a mycelium-based composite infill.
Generational Weave: An age Inclusive Community Centre
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-02) Mehta, Drashti
The demographic composition of Toronto is shifting rapidly, with a significant increase in the senior population prompting the need for innovative, socially inclusive care solutions. Traditional models of senior care have typically led to environments marked by isolation and limited interaction across generations, negatively impacting seniors’ emotional and social well-being. Addressing this gap, this thesis proposes an architectural reimagining of community spaces through the design of a Intergenerational community centre integrated with senior care facilities located in North York, Toronto. This project challenges conventional paradigms by promoting environments that actively nurture social connectedness, emotional resilience, and intergenerational reciprocity. Central to this thesis is the principle of universal and adaptable design, ensuring spaces seamlessly accommodate the varying needs of seniors, adults, and children. By fostering natural and spontaneous interactions, the design aims to diminish generational barriers and facilitate meaningful relationships. Through careful site integration, including the strategic development of an existing water stream as a central community feature, the thesis underscores architecture’s role in cultivating a sense of belonging, dignity, and vitality. Ultimately, this project presents a comprehensive design framework for multi-generational spaces that enrich social connections, foster emotional well-being, and set new benchmarks for community-based senior care in an urban context.
Beneath the Tracks
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-28) Liang, Calvin
As of 2025, Vancouver is facing a worsening housing crisis, with homelessness rising sharply each year and vacancy rates remaining critically low. Given the city’s limited available land, it is essential to explore alternative spatial strategies. One such looked opportunity, lies beneath Vancouver’s elevated SkyTrain tracks - a space in which hundreds of commuters pass over every day yet remains underused. This thesis explores the untapped potential of these areas, reimagining them as prime locations for affordable housing that is targeted at young urban residents such as students, recent graduates and young professionals. To understand the viability of this housing strategy, four categories of international case studies relating to under-SkyTrain communities are explored: [1] Reclaiming Elevated Spaces, [2] Prefabricated Units, [3] Tiny and Flexible Spaces, [4] Communal and Landscape Engagement. Many of these categories overlap, with the central case study encompassing all four categories being the Chūō Line in Tokyo. It is a project that most closely parallels the thesis vision, which successfully integrates housing with community and commercial life beneath elevated rail infrastructure. As a fully realized and active project, it offers an example of what an under-SkyTrain development in Vancouver could become. Other examples from dense cities like Hong Kong and Paris show innovative responses to limited land, many of which are becoming increasingly relevant in a rapidly growing city like Vancouver. The thesis also examines local cases to see how these strategies might actually play out in reality. By examining the range of both global and local projects, the thesis identifies key design and planning strategies that may be applicable to Vancouver’s own spatial context and housing challenges. The following section considers how these spaces could be integrated in Vancouver, and what it means to build so close to transit infrastructure. It explores topics such as the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) strategy, historical context of the SkyTrain and sound mitigation. The research, case studies, and context studies are ultimately synthesized into two design ideas that test how prefabricated housing and community can be integrated beneath the SkyTrain. The first explores co-living and retail near Metrotown Station (a high-density area), while the second looks at live-work housing around Royal Oak Station (a medium-density area). A lower-density site isn’t proposed, since those areas still have room to grow without needing to build under infrastructure like the SkyTrain. This thesis challenges the idea that dense cities like Vancouver have run out of space. It doesn’t claim to solve homelessness overnight, but it argues that under-bridge spaces shouldn’t be dismissed as leftover gaps. With a shift in perspective, they can become seeds for community.
Reclaiming Absence: Building collective futures in Ontario's Gravel Belt
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-27) Hasan, Ali
Ontario’s gravel mining belt stretches across vast swaths of land, leaving behind a fractured geography of extraction voids that scar ecosystems, disrupt fertile farmland, and give rise to monotonous suburban sprawl. Since the early 2000s, the Greater Toronto Horseshoe Area has welcomed nearly 100,000 new residents each year, with 86% of this growth shaped by low-density, car-centric development. This expansion continues to encroach on agricultural land, intensifying ecological imbalance and threatening long-term food security. This extractive form of urbanism treats Ontario’s rural terrain as a consumable resource to fuel the material needs of metropolitan expansion. These landscapes, often dismissed as post-industrial or peripheral, are the frontlines where the converging crises of climate change, land commodification, and environmental degradation manifest most visibly. Yet, architectural discourse remains largely silent on this issue, overlooking the spatial politics of gravel pits and the suburban paradigms they perpetuate. Increasingly subjected to gridded, cartesian systems of control, these territories are erased of their histories and stripped of their potential futures. This project responds to a moment of heightened urgency, marked by a housing crisis along with global supply chain disruptions, resurgent push for domestic extraction, and deepening climate precarity. Scholars across architecture, geography, and environmental humanities, such as Pierre Bélanger’s articulation of the “Extraction Empire”- have begun exposing the global entanglements of resource infrastructures. Within this critical discourse, this project will push for a growing momentum around design strategies that resist extraction and prioritize repair. Envisioning a reclamation corridor across adjacent gravel pits. Structured as dense, reconfigured suburban fabrics centered around housing, food production, and ecological regeneration. This future oriented design reimagines the suburban ideal by coupling resilient infrastructure with regenerative land use, transforming extraction voids into productive terrain of renewal. Ultimately, it proposes a new kind of productive suburban belt that counters sprawl while fostering ecological stewardship and collective belonging through a shared sense of place.
Mapping Absence, Making Presence: Hydrosocial Repair Along Proctor Creek in West Atlanta
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-27) Murthy, Vindhya
Mapping Absence, Making Presence, analyses how ecological restoration can serve as a reparative framework for landscapes shaped by systemic neglect and forms of erasure. The Proctor Creek Watershed in Atlanta, Georgia, woven into the everyday life of Westside neighbourhoods was buried and reduced to a piped conduit, essentially severing both its ecological function and its role in community life. Its absence is materially expressed through recurrent flash flooding, water quality decline, and widespread vacancy and blight, material presence of symptoms drawn from redlining, disinvestment, and environmental injustice. This thesis argues that restoration must go beyond ecological metrics to confront histories of displacement and spatial inequalities. Through layered mapping of water, race, and land, tracing buried hydrology, redlined neighbourhoods, and demographic shifts leading to patterns of vacancy, the project indicates how systemic absences are embedded in the urban landscape. By analyzing and mapping eight past plans and visions for these neighbourhoods including the Proctor North Avenue Vision, it identifies recurring goals such as flood control, green infrastructure implementation, and community revitalization, alongside gaps in implementation, concerns about community displacement, and missed opportunities to integrate ecological restoration with neighbourhood redevelopment. This analysis informs a delicate incremental approach which is grounded in exisiting conditions and community priorities. Methodologically it brings together watershed-scale analysis, story mapping, and ecological sectioning to locate opportunities for intervention that balance hydrological performance with cultural and spatial sensitivity. Daylighting Proctor Creek is reimagined not as a scale of infrastructural reconditioning but as a series of non-invasive, almost surgical acts that are targeted exposures of the buried creek that stitch water back into the redlined neighbourhoods of English Avenue, Vine City, and Bankhead. These interventions are not confined to vacant or blighted parcels of land but function across a range of conditions within these marginalized areas. Daylighted stream sections, bioswales, rain gardens, and micro-wetlands across the area form a distributed network of living infrastructure that performs both ecologically and socially. By making present what has long been absent, this thesis positions Proctor Creek as more than a piped stream flowing beneath but as a conduit of memory, resistance, and renewal. Through this action, based on community-identified needs, the design offers a model for reparative urbanism, advancing the role of water as a medium for justice and resilience of the Proctor Creek Watershed Community, which is grounded in care. Keywords: reclamation, ecological time, environmental justice, belonging, creek daylighting, urban voids, community identity, ecological design, public space, urban hydrology.
Urban Fragmentation in the Age of Digital Platforms：Rebuilding the Nearby in Guangzhou, China
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-26) WANG, XIAOYU
In contemporary China, rapid urbanization and the rise of digital platforms have reshaped the urban landscape and urban life. Functional and highly ordered urban space, paired with highly efficient lifestyles has further intensified urban fragmentation and social isolation. The idea of the “nearby”, as defined by Biao Xiang, is not a fixed administrative boundary, nor as clearly defined as a formal community. It is a fluid space that shifts with our everyday experiences centered around the individuals. It is the space of opportunities in which to encounter complexity and difference, and yet it is quietly disappearing from daily life. This thesis focuses on Tianhe District in Guangzhou, studying the fragmentation of three contiguous urban fabrics: a university campus, a traditional urban village, and gated residential community. Although they are spatially adjacent, these fabrics are separated by tangible and intangible boundaries are not only physically dividing space, but also shaping how people access space, resources, and interaction with one another. Fences and access control, institutional policies, platform algorithms and social identity together reinforce these divisions. The study adopts a range of methods, site visits, mapping, and collage as analytic approaches, starting from specific social groups, the research identifies four social phenomena, each of which is then addressed through corresponding design interventions to activate urban boundary spaces, in order to rebuild everyday connections between socially and spatially divided urban communities. The thesis argues that design can help restore social diversity, and promote social resource sharing and empathy and resist our growing urban alienation.
Wandering / Sanctuary: Perceiving Learning Spaces Through A Tamil Sangam Lens
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-25) Mani, Yeshwanth
The role that architecture could play in shaping our world and hence our lives is undermined - and the role that it already plays in ingraining values promoted in a society is skimmed-over. For the complexity of any given society is a culmination of various societal, political and cultural values fueling it. Architecture then, becomes a by-product of these said values - thereby playing considerably the most consistent role in influencing the masses. A niche of this framework that this work focuses on is education and school architecture. To understand how school architecture could influence students’ education, it becomes essential that a good understanding of the educational values of a society is required. This is done by taking a critical look at the current educational values of our society. The Sangam literature is a body of Tamil literature belonging to the Sangam Age (circa. 300 BCE - 300 CE) - a period of history in the southern part of India and parts of Sri Lanka. This body of work is a compilation of poems that deal with various aspects of life - philosophy, governance, ethics and many love poems that give vivid descriptions of the lives of these poets and their surroundings. Through analytical research of existing publications and some original works, the people of the Sangam Age are traced through these poetry to have had an epistemological approach to life, and their knowledge being deeply rooted to their context - where nature herself was considered The Greatest Teacher. These poems and the philosophy they embody are adopted as spiritual and cultural mentors and guides to get an understanding of how education and its context coalesce to form a school. To embody the values of the Sangam texts, the city of Vellore in Tamil Nadu, India is chosen as the context to synthesise this hypothesis. The Vellore fort has in its unmaintained peripheries beyond its moat, pockets of memories from my childhood, and plots of land that are now dilapidated parks. Looking through an architectural lens, such a culturally significant “plot” deserves regulation and a typology of architecture that would propel the place’s heritage - while potentially enriching the culture of the city and its people. This Master of Architecture thesis proposes an institutional complex in Periyar Poonga (one of the dilapitated parks inside the Vellore Fort complex), while trying to answer this question: How can the spatiality of a pedagogy contribute to culturally enriching it?
Preservation Under Siege: Adaptive Conservation Approaches for Yemen’s Heritage
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-22) Al-Kebsi, Lames
Yemen is no stranger to conflict. In fact, Yemen’s urban heritage, marked by tower houses and fortifications, reflects enduring architecture and craftsmanship developed over centuries. Towards the end of the 20th century, international interest in the preservation of Islamic cities placed Yemen center stage, leading to the award of three UNESCO World Heritage titles within a decade and to major publications and conservation projects. However, this momentum stalled following the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the devastating coalition-led aerial raids in 2015, which caused the loss of many historical sites and disrupted the passing down of traditional construction techniques from one generation to the next. The thesis explores heritage preservation amidst Yemen’s ongoing conflict. Unlike existing scholarship that anticipates a stable government and resumption of foreign aid, this thesis proposes adaptive and local solutions for preserving Yemen’s heritage in its current, war-torn reality. It explores three proposals: re-purposing abandoned settlements of Yemenite Jews as shelters for displaced refugees, leveraging the Yemeni diaspora as potential donors, and utilizing the highly debated waqf system as a self-sustaining mechanism. The village of Bayt Baws in Sana’a is introduced as a case study, providing a grounded, culturally resonant, and logistically feasible model for heritage preservation in Yemen today.
Housing Public-Private Partnerships in Toronto’s Regent Park
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-15) Zhu, Yanbo
This thesis explores the evolution of public-private partnership (PPP) in Toronto’s housing development. PPP is defined as a legal and economic framework in which public and private sectors share resources, risks, and responsibilities in delivering projects or services traditionally managed by the government. The study first traces the model’s emergence in 1980s Toronto, where it arose as a response to fiscal constraints and administrative inefficiencies, particularly in infrastructure and affordable housing initiatives. After the late 1990s, the model was widely employed in Toronto to address housing challenges—leveraging public land and private capital to develop mixed-use, mixed-income, and mixed-tenure communities. These developments sought to combine private-sector efficiency with public-sector goals of affordability, spatial equity, and sustainability. Focusing on the redevelopment of Regent Park as a case study, this thesis critically analyzes the effects and limits of PPP-operated housing in contemporary Toronto. Originally constructed in the 1940s as Canada’s first public housing project, Regent Park faced decades of physical decay, social isolation, and stigmatization. In 2005, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) launched a major redevelopment to transform the area into a vibrant, mixed-income neighborhood. Drawing on archival research and fieldwork, the study investigates the collaboration among the City of Toronto, TCHC, and the Daniels Corporation at both political-economic and spatial levels. It assesses the model’s spatial manifestations, advantages, and shortcomings—particularly issues of gentrification, displacement, and placelessness—while situating the case within a broader international context of PPP-operated housing projects. Finally, through a design-based inquiry into the Phases 4 and 5 of Regent Park, the thesis proposes a new public-residential typology that seeks to dissolve the spatial segregation between market-rate and affordable units, mitigate placelessness, and foster community integration and historical continuity. In doing so, it offers a transferable design strategy for the global implementation of PPP models in affordable housing. This design proposal responds directly to the spatial and social limitations of the PPP model, offering a pragmatic intervention rather than a utopian vision. At the same time, it embeds a critical stance toward the neoliberal housing paradigm by reimagining the relationship between public and private, affordability and profit, architecture and equity.
A Woven Divide: Cotton, Property and Partition in the Indus River Basin
(University of Waterloo, 2025-05-09) Zubairi, Hiba Hasan
In less than a hundred years of colonial occupation, almost all of South Asia’s cotton species were erased. Where previously native communities had cultivated thousands of localized subspecies to foster unique properties, the British Empire imposed a single species of American cotton to meet their insatiable demand for textiles. My M.Arch research thesis examines cotton, in the context of South Asia, as a vessel for colonial extraction, environmental transformation, exploitation, and erasure. The displacement of Indigenous ‘desi’ cotton and propagation of ‘American’ cotton gave way to large scale environmental transformation, most notably the construction of the world’s largest irrigation system, to date, across the Indus River Basin. As the irrigation network transformed the province of Punjab into an agricultural asset, colonial intervention erased its forest, wetland and pastural landscapes. Simultaneously, colonial processes of extraction and manufacturing rendered native cotton methods obsolete, resulting in the degradation of textile tradition and the disappearance of native spaces of production such as kharkhanas. With my research, I aim to create spatial documentation of cotton in undivided Punjab, from plant to fabric, as a means to explore how life in South Asia transformed through colonial processes. Through archival research, architectural documentation and tapestries, this thesis traces the processes of cotton cultivation and production across the Punjabi landscape from pre-colonial eighteenth century to British exodus in 1947. Specifically investigating the spatial operations executed by colonial forces in order to displace Indigenous methods of production, and the resistance which came as a response from native Punjabis. Through the obsolescence of these processes, native spaces of cultivation and production were changed forever, diminishing native people’s agency over their land, and altering the relationship between the built and ecological environment. By taking a multiscalar approach with every stage of cotton processing, this thesis disassembles the intertwined nature of imperial forces manifesting in scales from the river delta to the human body. To expand beyond standardized drawing methods as a means of representation and challenge the epistemological truths upheld by these standards, I’m engaging with textile making in efforts to reconnect the work back to native practices and perspectives. The artifact crafted for this thesis was made by me as I uncovered knowledge of my grandmothers’ skills as textile artisans and connected their stories to the persistence of colonial forces in modern day nation-states which continue to diminish the agency and personhood of native communities in regards to land rights.
Maasai Women in Architecture: Navigating the Journey from Thorny Branches to Resilient Roots.
(University of Waterloo, 2025-05-09) Khan, Zhoya
"Maasai Architecture: Navigating the Journey from Thorny Branches to Resilient Roots" investigates the relationship between cultural preservation and the empowerment of Maasai women through architectural design. Traditional Maasai architecture, shaped by nomadic practices, communal living, and natural, local materials, is increasingly threatened by pressures from tourism, colonization, and shifting land ownership. These forces have transformed the Maasai culture and spaces surrounding them, unfortunately leaving the Maasai women with limited opportunities and spaces for growth. Historically, Maasai women have been the primary builders of their homes, with their intimate knowledge of the land and construction practices crucial for sustaining their community. However, as cultural change accelerates, this role is gradually being erased. Women’s activities are gradually being restricted to a private service, while men’s are being directed toward the wider public community. To address this, the research aims to design a space that honors Maasai heritage while creating new opportunities for women to thrive. The project envisions a women's empowerment center that integrates Maasai culture and traditional construction techniques with modern architectural innovations to address present-day challenges and meet the holistic needs of Maasai women. By incorporating locally sourced materials and culturally significant forms, alongside modern features, the design aims to be both symbolic and functional - a space of resilience but also one that fosters empowerment. The proposed center will offer spaces for education, economic opportunities, healthcare, and community support, empowering Maasai women to adapt and succeed. These multifunctional spaces will help the Maasai women with economical, intellectual, and emotional support. Additionally, the center will serve as a hub for cultural preservation, celebrating and passing on the wisdom and practices of Maasai women. In African culture, women’s agency and leadership is essential to passing on cultural heritage from one generation to the next. Through their creativity, knowledge, and key role in social practices and cultural expression, women are fundamental to maintaining traditions and cultural identity across the African continent. This journey "from thorny branches to resilient roots" represents the transformation of Maasai culture and spaces—evolving to provide strength, security, and opportunity, while still remaining rooted in important cultural values. As external pressures on Maasai communities increase, this architectural project aims to preserve both the vernacular physical structures, forms and building techniques as well as the socio-cultural fabric that defines the women's identity. This vision sees Maasai women not just as passive recipients of change but as active participants in shaping their future. By embracing their cultural roots, they become the protectors of their traditions while also leading their community towards growth and innovation.
From Time
(University of Waterloo, 2025-05-01) Peiris, Simon Eustace
This thesis, From Time, explores the intersection of community and the built environment within Scarborough, Ontario, by examining the decommissioned Scarborough Rapid Transit elevated guideway as a site for adaptive reuse. Scarborough, one of six boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto, is shaped by post-WWII suburban sprawl, industrial zoning, and modernist ideals of efficiency. Its immigrant communities have adapted the industrial-residential landscape to meet their communal needs, both formally through the reuse of industrial buildings and informally through the occupation of the terrain vague. Through personal reflections, historical research, and site analysis, this thesis investigates Scarborough’s social and communal dynamics. It explores how the remnants of the Scarborough RT infrastructure can reimagine public space, fostering a sense of communal identity. The design proposes the guideway’s reuse as a linear park with architectural infill, seeking to honour Scarborough’s history while providing a space that reflects its diverse cultural spirit. This thesis contributes to ongoing discussions on community-centric design, offering a locally rooted, culturally responsive approach to redevelopment. The project emphasizes the need for spaces that support local social life, preserving the ingenuity and optimism that define the community of Scarborough.

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