Architecture

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https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/9902

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).

Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.

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Revival: A study of regeneration for unitised curtain walls in healthcare sector
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-13) Billa, Anmol
This study examines the circular potential and limitations of current aluminium unitised curtain wall facades, primarily through strategies such as reuse, refurbishment, and remanufacture. Despite being widely used in commercial buildings, including healthcare facilities, curtain walls present significant challenges in performance, adaptability, and sustainability. The research aims the critical issue of embodied carbon and resource depletion associated with these facades, particularly in the context of Toronto's healthcare infrastructure, which is undergoing extensive renovations. Buildings contribute immensely to environmental disruption, accounting for a significant portion of energy consumption, waste generation, and carbon emissions. The construction industry is working to reduce operational carbon emissions and enhance occupant safety. However, there is little focus on embodied carbon and the act of valuable materials in the early design phase, particularly in complex facade systems where high-carbon-intensity materials are found in curtain walls, such as aluminium and glass. To address global issues, the development of Toronto's healthcare infrastructure from the 1970s onwards, with ongoing renovations focusing on its building envelope systems, has become a potential model for studying, analysing, and applying sustainable practices. Hospitals like SickKids, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Toronto General Hospital are in the process of sustainably upgrading their building exteriors. This process includes updating their curtain wall and window-wall systems with material substitution and modular designs. It's crucial to incorporate end-of-life plans for new products and strategies for older ones to combat the "take-make dispose" culture", especially in Toronto's healthcare sector. A forensic analysis, including a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), is being carried out to measure the quantity and quality of curtain walls and window wall systems and to assess the potential carbon emissions produced by facilities like the Patient Support Centre (Research site) at SickKids. Also, a mixed-method approach, combining interviews with international facade and material experts and case studies, is being used to investigate the possibility of implementing circular practices. The Design for Disassembly practice is customised and adapted to the research site (Patient Support Centre building), reflecting the opportunity and limitations of the curtain walls and offering guidance for handling such complex facade systems. The study found that while downcycling unitised curtain wall components is possible, achieving true circularity through reuse and remanufacturing is hindered by factors such as poor thermal performance, complex disassembly, and limited compatibility with new building designs. While the research demonstrates the potential for upcycling certain components, it highlights the need for a paradigm shift toward building better envelope systems that prioritise disassembly, adaptability, and material recovery. The findings emphasize the importance of developing alternative facade systems that better align with circular economy principles and exploring policy incentives to encourage their adoption. By uncovering the current unitised curtain wall systems, this research contributes to a broader understanding of the challenges and opportunities for achieving circularity in the building industry. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers, designers, and building owners seeking to reduce the environmental impact of the built environment.
Harmony in Highrises for Humans and their Loyal Companions: A canine inclusive design guideline for best practices
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-10) Wong-Chun-Sen, Matthew
The idea of a house has always been present since the beginning and as humanity underwent evolutionary transitions over the course of history, so did the understanding of what a house is. Architecturally, while houses have modernized with regard to construction methods, materiality, and technology, the essence of a home seems to have remained the same. At first glance, many who read the previous statement do not see anything wrong with it, but take a second and dig a little deeper and you will begin to realize the underlying issues within. If modern homes can be defined as permanent or semi-permanent spaces used as residences for one or more human occupants, which is clearly driven by the necessities of people, then what happens when society evolves? If the people change, shouldn’t the essence of a home change with it and be reflected in the architecture? In the last few decades, there has been a noticeable surge in the canine population in North America, a trend that further accelerated in the wake of the 2021 pandemic (Institute 2022). While the concept of dog-inclusive architecture is still in its infancy, a comprehensive synthesis can be attained by exploring the realms of both canine behavioral psychology and selective architectural philosophies. Notable figures like Aldo Van Eyck and Jane Jacobs have contributed their spatial design philosophies in public realms (Jacobs 2011), serving as foundational references. Though they didn't specifically address dogs, Eyck, for instance, explored the concept of affordances – the possibility of action - through his playground designs (Strauven 2007). Additionally, and arguably more importantly, the work of Jakob von Uexküll, a Baltic German biologist, delves into animal behavior studies and introduces the concept of Umwelt, acknowledging the unique subjective worlds of animals and humans (Uexküll 2010). Uexküll argued that different species perceive and engage with their environments differently, emphasizing the importance of comprehending these distinct perspectives to truly understand animal experiences (Uexküll 2010). Therefore, to successfully create an architecture for both humans and dogs, we must first recognize the shift society underwent to coexist with dogs and then understand their Umwelt. This thesis aims to tackle the social neglect towards our dogs as their presence has grown in our society and challenges what the new fundamental ingredients are that structure the essence of what a modern home should be. Specifically, this research will investigate how to create a canine-inclusive design guide for high-density North American urban landscapes, by reimagining high-rise residential architecture in order to improve the everyday quality of life for our canine companions. Concepts such as inclusivity, sustainability, and building science will be considered to help guide the research, which eventually will culminate in a final design proposal in Toronto’s Liberty Village as a successful canine inclusive example. It is our responsibility as Architects to understand the fundamental distinction between a house and a home, recognizing that both are integral to the creation of successful designs. While this thesis attempts to offer a fresh perspective on architecture, it also seeks to emphasize the profound significance of the bond between humanity and our loyal canine companions - between “man-kind” and “man’s best friend”.
Spatial Storytelling Through Augmented Reality: Toronto’s Water and the Technocene
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-09) Park, Justin Kyung In
This thesis utilizes augmented reality to illustrate visual and spatial stories of the Technocene regarding water in Toronto. The thesis begins by studying the etymology of the Technocene, and it establishes the need for storytelling through this definition. The thesis then assesses different visual storytelling methods to conclude that Augmented Reality(AR) is a practical approach when discussing the Technocene. After determining the need for Augmented reality, the various techniques and technologies of performing Augmented Reality are evaluated to create a technological foundation before designing the stories. The stories of water are then researched and developed into an AR experience by using the criteria to tell a situated and pedagogical story of the Technocene. Throughout the development of the thesis, a criteria system was developed to help guide the design of the outcome for the thesis. Starting with pedagogical storytelling, the thesis utilizes the criteria to review existing research on situated storytelling and formulate a guideline for situated urban storytelling. These metrics are used to review visual storytelling mediums. Derivatives of these two metrics are also used in literature reviews of AR software to help guide the types of AR technologies and software used in designing the thesis. Finally, to assess the designed stories, all of the developed criteria are used to help explore AR opportunities for this thesis. Toronto and its stories of water were chosen for their significance in terms of culture, ecosystem, and geography. Technocene is a multilayered framework that incorporates technology driven by social activities or issues to understand which environmental outcomes are induced by such activity. To visualize these stories, the site had to be an environment that has undergone dense urban growth to easily locate elements of the Technocene. Toronto has abundant city infrastructure and buildings built of engineered materials, being an appropriate site to spawn these stories. Four specific stories of lost rivers, porosity, flooding, and naturalization were chosen because of water’s crucial role in the ecosystem and the geographical abundance of water in Toronto.
Community Threads: Building Integration Networks for Refugee Claimants
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-04) Gregorio, Nurielle
In recent years, the Canadian government has implemented the use of hotels as a provisional measure to address the influx of refugee claimants. Persistent global issues have resulted in prolonged stays, leading to what is termed the ‘hotelisation’ of refugee claimants. This living arrangement manifests a disconnect from normalcy and the broader community. With the lack of integration, issues of isolation arise, further affecting the mental and physical well-being of refugee claimants. Although hotels are utilised to quickly accommodate refugee claimants, this thesis asks: how can we balance urgency without compromising suitable living conditions that initiate a promising future? The heart of the city—its neighbourhoods—is constantly changing, facing issues of gentrification and social equity. While the city of Toronto demonstrates commitment to creating inclusive neighbourhoods, there remains a notable gap in involving refugee claimants in existing strategies. An understanding of neighbourhoods through site analyses, mapping, and design precedents reveals sustainable approaches to integrate refugee claimants into the urban fabric. By emphasising the role of the community—collaborative efforts among policymakers, stakeholders, and locals—this thesis aims to redefine inclusive neighbourhoods to promote safe, suitable built environments for refugee claimants. The design proposal explores a network of interventions woven into the urban scale of neighbourhoods, encouraging local exchange and connectivity. In its entirety, this thesis argues that social infrastructure and a robust network of resources in the community is a catalyst to an easier transition to normalcy—the architecture itself cannot solve the refugee crisis, but it can however, initiate a sense of comfort and belonging.
Between Fields and Meadows: A Strategy for Naturalistic Sport Landscape Across Liminal Urban Spaces
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-04) Supryka, Anna Rose
This thesis explores the productive intersection between often-separated "sport landscapes" and "landscapes of biodiversity" through the redesign of the Strachan Street general open space in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, as a biodiverse sport landscape. The site of an abandoned road expansion, the open space connects two major urban parks (Bayfront Park, Jackie Washington Park) but divides the waterfront-adjacent North End neighbourhood from downtown-adjacent Central and Beasley neighbourhoods. As the urban core of Hamilton is set to double over the next five decades, the development of this underutilized threshold to the invaluable waterfront is inevitable. The city of Hamilton has stated two critical needs: 1) enhanced public engagement with biodiversity by introducing forest-garden types (wild-growing, uninterrupted "meadows") into urban areas, and 2) the continued development of a robust recreation network that is responsive of proximity, access, and amenity-related needs (maintained, well-groomed "fields"). The incorporation of public space into reclaimed post-industrial landscapes has precedent in Hamilton, but a key challenge is how design can resolve the incorporation of these seemingly conflicting public space typologies within increasingly confined urban space. The sports-driven "field" type alone cannot satisfy the multi-faceted ways that Hamiltonians participate in play, though a fully biodiversity-driven "meadow" approach negates the intense need for formal play spaces. These types also pose limits: the systematization of sport has degraded the play quality, and the forest-garden is a relatively new type that often lacks the amenities to invigorate use beyond a singular program. Therefore, the thesis explores how architecture can mediate between outdoor sport and biodiversity using the common theme of play. Case studies explore dimensions of "sport landscapes" and "landscapes of biodiversity" that correspond to existing site conditions as a method of informing design. The thesis explores three typologies that bring "sport landscapes" and "landscapes of biodiversity" into close friction: 1) Woodland Sport-scape: a linear forest-garden, containing native perennials and low growing shrubs, with simplistic structures that mingle play and vegetation growth; 2) Orchard Sport-scape: multi-purpose sports areas and niches of sun-loving berry guilds, mediated by a pavilion for climbing, sitting, harvesting, cultivating; 3) Nursery Sport-scape: the adaptive re-use of post-industrial sites for seed and tree production with flexible sport areas created amidst the shuffling of potted plants and seasonal growth. A set of design guidelines reflective of Hamilton’s network of environmental and recreation stewards is produced to offer guidance in two dimensions: for the City and for the citizen. This enables aspects of top-down design that fulfils the critical needs identified while enabling bottom-up design rooted in citizen engagement at the scale of the neighbourhood. Future iterations of the guidelines should present methods for addressing environmental and social challenges posed by adapting post-industrial or liminal sites. Though Strachan Street open space was selected for its urban connectivity, the proximity to the active railway presents considerable hazards that require further study of air, noise, and soil pollution; likewise, additional research must be directed towards understanding community social dynamics to ensure the project effectively mediates and equitably represents the holistic "public." Thus, this architectural thesis presents a basis for questioning the role of the public park in everyday life.
Super:Lightness: Lightweight High Performance Northern Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-30) Gordon, Landers
Super:Lightness proposes lightweighting as a means of providing high performance residential architecture in the Canadian North. The North faces severe challenges relating to buildings and infrastructure, as goods and fuel resupply must be shipped at great expense from southern Canada. These challenges compound each other, as the climate of the region and the cost of resupply necessitates highly efficient buildings, while the construction of these projects is complicated by the remoteness and lack of infrastructure. Lightweighting presents a means of moving through these problems, simplifying transportation and construction in remote communities, allowing for the construction of high performance architecture. Through study of the challenges in the North, from climatic to socioeconomic, and studying past and current building practices in the region, three key elements of transportability, constructability, and building energy performance are identified, with lightweighting as an important means of addressing these. Considering this, precedents from alternative disciplines, and architecture in other settings, are studied as they relate to lightweightness and these key elements, informing building design in the North. Drawing on research of the northern context and the study of precedents, two prototypes of lightweight high performance residential architecture are proposed, Super:Light Architecture and Northern Lightweight Architecture. These proposals improve on key elements of transportability, constructability, and energy performance, addressing the needs of the North through lightweight design. The design process of these proposals is highly analytical, quantifying component weights and modelling energy consumption to develop an optimized design. This process can inform architecture at large, as the challenges of the North become relevant worldwide due to climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and economic limitations, making lightweight high performance architecture an increasingly impactful design methodology.
The Descent to Water: Revitalization of the Ashapura Mata Stepwell in India
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-30) Varikuti, Likhitha
This thesis explores the restoration of a historical water architectural typology indigenous to the Indian subcontinent in its pre-colonial past. Stepwells or Vavs are ancient subterranean structures designed with complex engineering and utmost precision to harvest groundwater. As the name suggests, Stepwells or stepped wells are a series of steps that lead down to a water well. They were vital in providing a water source and acted as a communal gathering space. Stepwells prevailed for centuries and were shut down during colonial rule as the British considered the water in the wells unsanitary and introduced new water harvesting techniques. The wells, once vital for the communities, are deteriorating to a state of disrepair and are now used as dumping grounds. Considering how the stepwells have played a crucial role in shaping the water architecture typology in India, it becomes essential to revive these wells so that their historical and cultural values are preserved for generations to come. On a parallel tangent, with the growing population and rapid urbanization in India, there has been a significant drop in water tables leading to groundwater depletion. This water crisis issue calls for conservation and effective groundwater management. While the stepwells provided an infrastructure for harvesting groundwater in the past, restoring them would help with groundwater recharge and contribute to reviving the lost heritage. Along with the restoration of the stepwell as an artifact, this thesis project proposes small-scale, architectural interventions to help with creating a resilient and self-sustaining community around the stepwell and working with and improving both public space and water infrastructure. The revitalization of the Ashapura Mata Stepwell and its surrounding neighbourhood proposes to act as an urban catalyst model for providing restoration strategies for other stepwells in the country.
Ceramic 3D Printed Plant-Centric Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-29) Sigouin, Yannik
This thesis utilises clay 3D printing to create ‘plant-centric architecture’, a concept defined by the author that aims to apply architectural design principles to methods of designing for plants. Traditionally valued for their aesthetic and psychological benefits, indoor plants are often objectified in contemporary architecture, serving as mere decorative elements rather than living organisms with intrinsic needs. This objectification reflects a broader trend in architectural practices where natural elements are manipulated to fit human desires, often at the expense of plant health and sustainability. On the other hand, hydroponic farming systems, which emphasise plant needs and maximise growth productivity, typically lack the aesthetic considerations of traditional architecture. Plant-centric architecture seeks to bridge this gap by promoting a harmonious environment where the symbiosis between human and plant needs is architecturally envisioned and realised with ceramic 3D-printed design. Clay is historically significant for its material qualities and aesthetic appeal, often used at a range of design scales from building facades to flowerpots. 3D printing technology has revolutionised the design use of clay, creating intricate and functional designs catering to plant and human needs. By merging traditional craftsmanship with contemporary design, this approach aims to create environments that honour the vitality of plants, enhancing their health and sustainability while contributing to enriching spatial experiences for humans. This thesis explores and evaluates the potential of architectural clay 3D printing in developing plant-centric architecture through iterative prototyping. By leveraging scientific understandings of plant architecture with iterative ceramic 3D printed prototyping, this work has the potential to set a new standard in architectural design for plants. The work envisions fostering spaces that nurture both plants and humans, initiating a new dialogue on the future of posthuman architectural design.
Ultraviolet Gardens
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-29) Lesage Fongué, Cassandra
We live in a world shrouded in greenness. A world made of places, of places made of sites, of sites which make the landscape. I speak to all current and latent gardeners; to all of those unaware, yet fascinated by green. Ultraviolet Gardens invites you into a photographic garden; a reframing of how ‘green’ has been, can be, seen and rediscovered; to find greenness within plastic plants, fuzzy chlorophyll, and the illusions of green. Within ultraviolet gardens, the banal and mundane are estranged, and as such made visible. With film and photo making, I share the strange dimensions of greenness that arise in familiar places. Central to the argument is that a rediscovery of green must happen first by estrangement of the body, of both the external optics of vision and the internal perceptions of the mind. In the photographic process, an image is created when light reacts with a light sensitive surface. Silver halides are permanently converted to elemental silver, matter is changed by other non human matter; put in contact they create the repository of images central to this thesis: The Aesthetic of Contact. Not simply an image, the photograph, unlike painting or architectural drawing, shares more then just likeness to its subject; it is a part of, or an extension of its reality. I use camera-less and camera-using photography to curate a garden of images, not of ‘others’, but made in collaboration; autobiographies of the nonhuman. I seek through them an (un)representation of green that does not come from my sight, nor from architecture’s primacy of vision; a way of seeing capable of awakening a fascination of greenness.
Wahdat al Wujud: the Moroccan madrasa, Zellige tiles, and Sufi ontology
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-28) Salama, Ali
Wahdat al wujud—loosely translated as unity of being—is a Sufi philosophical concept that refers to the oneness or collectivity of our entire consciousness. This thesis aims to reframe our understanding of space through an exploration of wahdat al wujud. Today, our modern societies and spaces overwhelmingly neglect our unity of being. Capitalism clouds our hearts so that empathy and care become commodities we don’t want to spend, and the increasingly fast pace of daily life leaves little room for reflection on the great loss of our collectivity. We grow more alienated and become increasingly distant from one another and the world at large. Our spaces only further this alienation, neglecting their vital role as the realizers of our interconnected being. Architecture is a cosmological act. Samer Akkach talks about how cosmology and architecture were intimately tied in the premodern Islamic tradition. Spaces reflected our understanding of the universe and fostered our place within it. The link between cosmology and architecture has been lost to our modern conceptions of the practice. The Moroccan madrasa and Zellige tiles serve as reminders and key case studies of this link, connecting architecture with the cosmological view of wahdat al wujud. The Moroccan madrasa is a space of teaching and learning based around a central courtyard where students congregate. The courtyard is adorned by intricate enamelled terracotta tiles, known as Zellige. The spatial configuration of the madrasa symbolically reflects the philosophy of wahdat al wujud at the cosmic scale; connecting God, human and world. At the same time, its phenomenological qualities nurture a profound experience of awe and belonging as a part of this wahdat al wujud. In the madrasa, our entire perception of existence is redefined: being becomes a collective experience and not an individual one; we perceive ourselves as part of a communal oneness, akin to the Sufi analogy of being drops in the ocean. To break the cycle of alienating architecture, we need to rediscover the link between cosmology and architecture. If our architecture fosters a vision of communal being, our built environment can instead perpetuate a cycle of collective belonging. Architecture is not just a backdrop for human activity but the essential conduit that shapes and defines our entire existence. It can reconnect us to our fundamental unity, fostering our empathy and care for one another and the world at large.
Learning From Tianguis: Iterating the Informal Market Typology for a More Responsive and Engaging Retail Design
(University of Waterloo, 2024-07-09) Lee, Chiun
This thesis explores the potential towards a transformative role of informal markets within modern retail environments, contrasting them against the backdrop of both rigid physical retail storefronts and intangible digital platforms. The informal market typology in Mexico, the tianguis, has persevered by adapting and responding to people’s demands despite its various drastic social and political changes throughout Mexico’s history in the span of centuries from the Spanish conquest to the more recent revolution. While more recently, there have been safety concerns about the contextual relevance of the tianguis based on increased crime, the newer generation of storeowners in the city are working to enhance social relationships through communities with more contemporary informal strategies that allow for building a more comfortable environment to sell their products. Central to the analysis is the dichotomy between formal and informal retail structures in the contemporary scene. This paper explains how formal retail spaces usually do not encourage social interactions like community bonding necessary for marketplace through their rigidity and uniformity. By contrast, with their flexible and community-based designs, tianguis not only answer local people’s needs and preferences but also enhance social and economic resilience. In order to form the basis of a retail environment that embraces flexibility, community interaction, as well as identity, this paper uses varied cases studies and prototype design to develop a tianguis prototype. It calls for rethinking retail space design in view of the iterative concerns of informal architecture towards more inclusive, responsive and commity engagement. In addition, this study constitutes an important contribution to the urban design/retail management literature through an examination on how informal market practices can inform and redefine current retail strategies making them adaptable enough for modern urban life and its inhabitants.
Towards a Soft Architecture: Approachable Kit-of-Parts for Soft Interactive Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-24) Chiu, Adrian
This thesis looks at an approachable kit-of-parts that allows for the rapid prototyping and creation of a new interactive architectural tectonic that is decentralized and compliant by using distributed microcontrollers and actuators. How can an extendable open kit-of-parts allow for easy access in designing soft interactive architecture? Previous work has been proprietary, expert facing and had a high barrier of entry; this work explores how DIY, open source and digital fabrication methods allow for rapid prototyping and the exploration of interactive architecture to be more accessible. By using compliant patterns and digital fabrication, an aspect of this new tectonic would be the emergence of a distributed ‘soft architecture.’ This thesis seeks to examine the current exclusionary barriers surrounding interactive architecture and to disseminate a design framework that enables an increase of accessibility on who can participate in the design of responsive environments. By looking at DIY creation methods, open source and the use of compliant materials, this thesis explores an interactive soft architecture through the prototyping and creation of architectural fixtures that employ an approachable kit-of-parts framework which would be disseminated in a manual that documents its creation and methods.
Nala: In Search of a Way
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-16) Jegatheeswaran, Nilojan
Bound within two units in a strip of industrial warehouses, the Hindu temple of my youth is a compromise of the ancient to the Canadian. A temple birthed by necessity, it exists in a state of purgatory, doomed to be abandoned for its purpose-built replacement. But this story of assimilation is complicated by an architectural model, resting at its entrance foretelling an alternate fate. With walls devoid of compromise, mirroring its predecessors of antiquity, this miniature depicts the very temples its Eelam Tamil patrons were once forced to flee. This model was sculpted as a promise for the future, but I argue that this tool acts also as a gateway to the past. And by using this artifact to decipher the temple’s purpose, this body of work unknowingly unravels the second-generation Eelam Tamil-Canadian’s conception of home. Inspired by Hindu and Tamil storytelling, this investigation is disseminated as an epic, told in three parts where the reader follows Nala. A second-generation youth poached from his world by a Goddess, Nala treks a fantastical land in search of an escape. In the course of his exile, Nala navigates conflicting signs of home, while confronting his temple, childhood protests, and the war on memory in post-war Sri Lanka. The youth learns through his pilgrimage and a cast of imperfect characters how the warmth of his coveted home is intertwined with that of his temple’s. The story of Nala intends to unearth the potential of the Hindu-Canadian temple for the second-generation Eelam Tamil-Canadians held captive by the question of home.
The Cosmos and Four-Dimensional Geometry as seen in the Visionary Architecture of the Russian Avant-Garde
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-14) Kholodova, Janna
From four-dimensional geometry and philosophy to a connection with the cosmos, the intellectual tradition of the Russian avant-garde is understudied and misinterpreted in the West. This thesis reflects upon the theory of visionary architecture to explore the mystical philosophical culture that was present during the Russian avant-garde movement. My aim is to examine the following: how can visionary architecture help us understand the cultural connection between the cosmos and geometry during the Russian avant-garde period? Although there is individual research on the different disciplines in Russia, there is less research on the interconnectedness of these disciplines. Russian intellectual circles in the 19th and 20th century were very intermingled, and this thesis aims to add another voice to interdisciplinary research while understanding the broader cultural context, focusing on architecture. This thesis provides a background of Russia’s intellectual history – from philosophy to mathematics – that influenced the Modern Art movement. Afterwards, visionary architecture from different groups of architects is examined to recognize where and how impacts of this diverse intellectual culture are embedded within their designs. Lastly, I use drawing as a form of active research to understand the thinking behind several visionary architectural pieces from several architects so that the additions are in dialogue with the originals. Overall, the visionary architecture from a century ago expressed the cosmic mysticism that pervaded Russia’s intellectual circles, very different from the Western rationalism of Russia’s neighbours and subsequently misunderstood. With this in mind, along with the heavy interdisciplinary way of approaching various subjects in 19th and early 20th century Russia, there is merit in re-examining some of the ideas offered from that time in today’s modern world.
Architecture as Setting the Stage: A framework for architectural design of virtual reality places centering the concept of presence through Wideström, Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya, and Slater
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-14) Won, Meghan
Architecture shapes our physical world – and it shapes our virtual worlds as well. Virtual architecture creates the place in which a participant in Virtual Reality (VR) can understand and be immersed in the VR experience. This research contributes a framework for conceptualizing how architecture can work in service of immersive VR experiences that evoke a feeling of presence in the participant. Presence is the sensation of “being there” in a mediated environment through the allocation of attentional resources perceived physically and psychologically. It is the authentic feeling of being in a world other than the one in which one is physically located – the ultimate goal for a heightened VR experience. Architecture as Setting the Stage highlights presence felt in a VR experience as the benchmark for a successful virtual space. The framework synthesizes the concepts of Wideström’s Stage, Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya’s Virtual Utilitas, and Slater’s Place Illusion, centering presence within each. This research is prompted by powerful VR experiences that evoked presence in myself - like the cave setting in Scanner Sombre and the depictions of home in The Book of Distance. The latter VR project, The Book of Distance created by Randall Okita, is used as a case study in analysing how architecture supports engagement and connection between the participant and the virtual spaces. The concept of Stage, from the philosophical dissertation of A Seeing Place (2022) by researcher and lecturer Josef Wideström, provides language and philosophy in conceptualizing the relationship between the physical and the virtual. The metaphor of Stage positions virtual space as a stage, connecting concepts of how we understand theatre to how we understand VR. Stage highlights how audiences in theater and participants in VR negotiate their understanding of representations, whether physical or virtual, leading to agreements about their meaning and context. This research extends his metaphor of Stage into the language of architectural design. Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya’s framework Virtualitas from their conference paper Cyberarchitecture (2012) addresses the need for the analysis and translation of established architectural theory into the realm of virtual architecture, enabling architects to approach virtual design with the same depth of consideration as physical practice. The concept of Virtualitas redefines the traditional architectural Vitruvian Triad - firmitas, utilitas, and venustas - to encompass virtual architecture’s broader considerations beyond aesthetics. Their contemporary framework informs the concept of Virtual Utilitas in this research, which centers presence as a key condition in VR architecture achieving Virtual Utilitas. Researcher and psychologist Mel Slater’s established concept of Place Illusion (2005, 2022) offers psychological insight into how the construction of virtual spaces are perceived, and its influence on achieving presence. Place Illusion describes the influence of the coherent and convincing creation of place on a participant in a VR experience. Architecture as Setting the Stage works as a conceptual bridge in understanding the properties of virtual architecture and informs three propositions of how architecture influences a participant; directing attention, relational meaning, and expression of boundaries. The propositions speculate how virtual architecture through design impacts presence. The framework and propositions are then applied to a VR experience case study, The Book of Distance (2020) by Randall Okita and the National Film Board of Canada. The Book of Distance is investigated through a first-person written account of observations and reactions to the experience. This descriptive passage aims to portray an authentic experience in VR. The passage is then followed by an analysis of the experience through the propositions informed by Architecture as Setting the Stage. VR holds exciting potential for defining new experiences that go beyond those constrained by our physical world. Architectural knowledge, when adapted and applied to a virtual context, plays a significant role to the creation of VR experiences. Architects must confront the complexities of VR through a language for common understanding and help shape our virtual worlds.
TRANSCENDENCE: Being on the Edge of Meaning
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-13) Crowder, Jordan
The erosion of the body, the other, and the tangible world now permeate all facets of contemporary existence, extending beyond the confines of a debilitating disease—a mode of non-existence until death. We are separating ourselves from the human condition, encapsulated within a server; we are no longer present, instead existing in a palliative state where information proliferates, yet being diminishes. Servers, both physical and digital, become central to our existence, embodying non-real forms that collapse into one another, displacing both the real and us with it. Our existence becomes inauthentic, with no alternative to exist outside of it. Without presence in the server, one does not exist at all. Man is enslaved in this state, celebrated as progress erasing him from the picture, until there is no longer a picture to erase. Instead, a virtue signaling for more control, sedated from a disease that is life, until disappearing entirely. Greater anesthesia is induced, keeping him in a coma, only to need more. When an individual is presented with his own condition and a series of unavoidable losses, he is compelled to ask and reflect – to fight an incurable condition; one akin to the server that alienates one from the body, the other and reality. Man however finds himself searching for meaning in a world devoid of it. To embrace one’s pain and suffering where the other has removed it entirely; here one brings man towards death and the other hides it away, both however pull towards disability. This frustration, born from the desire for freedom only to be constrained by his condition, signifies a descent into non-being, lacking both a functioning body and, potentially, mind. Conversely, a mode of existence the world too becomes, that a collective complies towards. For man however, falling into both results in a double disappearance. The condition, while physically and mentally debilitating, serves as an opportunity to confront more clearly the realities of life and death, independent from the server’s palliation of it. The server’s nature offers an escape to realms beyond, liberated from a hyperreal and disabled existence. The rooftop, both metaphorically and physically, connects to reality, offering a liminal vantage to reflect on the essence of being one is increasingly pulled away from. Here, man transcends the body’s limitations, the notion of access, and the reality of disability. He surpasses the server’s digital and physical confines and his condition, reconnecting with the remnants of the real world and its corporeal existence. The rooftop clarifies his condition and the underlying loss of being. Although man’s fate remains inescapable, this distancing from non-existence rekindles his freedom to that when he was a child, while drawing him as close to heaven as possible, so that when death does occur, he is already there. In this realm, man falls in love with being in the very places he should not.
How Do We Belong Here? The Evolution and Expression of Incidental Spaces of Belonging for Toronto's Chinese Diaspora
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-13) Chi, Aurora Xiaozhu
The Chinese diaspora of immigrant cities have historically created spaces of enclosed cultural spheres for collective survival and adaptation and this thesis examines those of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. Such spaces are often called “ethnic enclaves”, characterized by their homogenized demographic and corresponding services, spaces, and activities specific to those backgrounds. The subject of this thesis is an exploration of incidental spaces of belonging in these enclaves that were not explicitly built or programmed for building a sense of belonging but exist as such nonetheless because of what they contain. In a method of analysis analogous to the approaches taken by Interboro in The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion and by Huda Tayob in her work in critical drawing, I examine the role of spaces, such as Chinese malls and plazas, private establishments, and streets of Chinatowns, and uncover how scales of belonging are developed through architecture, spatial planning, sign and language, and networks. As transmigration and transnational economies proliferate due to globalization, the character of these cultural spaces of belonging have shifted since the first diaspora in the nineteenth century – strengthening the sense of belonging in some ways and eroding it in others. This has led to the rise of impermeable spaces, which import Chinese culture, alongside permeable spaces that export culture. As Sara Ahmed has argued, “it is the uncommon estrangement of migration itself that allows migrant subjects to remake what it is they might yet have in common”. This thesis explores these incidental spaces of belonging for Toronto’s Chinese diaspora and examines how physical, social, and temporal factors affect their permeability through field research, critical drawing, photography, and written analysis.
Mining Memory : Three Land-Stories from Cerro de Pasco
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-10) Babcock, Reese
High in the Peruvian Andes, the four hundred year old city of Cerro de Pasco is being swallowed by an open pit mine. For its entire history the city has depended on mining to fuel its growth, but the industry has displaced its urban fabric and poisoned its population. The city’s parasitic relationship to extraction has challenged its very existence and it’s been forced to decide whether it will preserve its history or protect its future. This thesis will explore how architecture, operating at the intersection of the industrial landscape and the city, might serve as the medium for local histories and collective memory to survive. The industrial landscapes surrounding Cerro de Pasco, on the Bombon plateau are aliens, constructions of a global industry occupying revered and symbolic places. Their proposed remediation strategies are a new form of pseudo landscape which threaten further perversion of local stories. Mountains made of mine tailings, a historic city with a pit growing at its center, and a lake used as storage for ancient mine waste are all operating within the symbolic landscapes of the Andes. These inevitably affect local traditions and identities which are rooted in a pre-extraction, land-based agrarian lifestyle. Using on-site documentation and site mapping to understand the technical, political and material processes of these industrial sites will inform three design projects that graft onto remediation strategies to connect people to the collective memory of a site’s history. The research presents methods for designers working in the context of extraction landscapes which begin with story-telling. It posits that amidst the tension of global industries and cultural sustainability, architecture may emerge as a conduit for preserving local histories, ensuring their resilience in the face of transformative site forces. Through this exploration, the thesis offers insights to empower designers in honoring stories while shaping healthier futures for Cerro de Pasco and similar contexts.
Crafted Experiences: Weaving the Craft of Dressmaking into Retail Space
(University of Waterloo, 2024-04-29) Grabke, Danielle
The intersection of fashion and architecture centers around the user; it is their interaction, experience, and memory that give a space meaning. With the introduction of fast fashion, clothing retail stores morphed into anonymous spaces with generic designs and became volatile to trends, resulting in a lack of authentic engagement with clothing. Previous academic research has tried to understand the relationship between fashion designers and their clothing, but there is limited literature addressing the reciprocal role of the making of their garments and the spaces in which they are presented to potential consumers. In this line of thinking, this thesis examines how the act of crafting dresses can inform the design of retail space while creating a deeper connection to clothing. Three dresses are designed, crafted, and curated to investigate clothing’s ability to influence the autonomy, emotion, and movement of the body. The finished dresses are conceptualized into architectural retail space, allowing consumers to experience the designer’s intention and creative process. This research aims to deepen the understanding of reciprocal relationships between craft, architectural design, fashion, and the human experience.
Re-Imagining Indoor Gardening Systems: Ceramic Light Fixtures as Food Growing Typologies
(University of Waterloo, 2024-04-29) Murray, Taylor
In recent years, many Canadians have shown interest in growing their own food at home as a form of recreational hobby, to address concerns of self-sufficiency, and to encourage greater environmental sustainability. However, individuals living in small urban apartments are less likely to be able to start their own gardens due to distinct barriers such as a lack of time, space and gardening knowledge. This raises the question: How can design interventions enable apartment inhabitants to overcome these barriers and begin the practice of at-home food growing? While many systems for indoor gardening exist today, they face design challenges such as the construction of environmentally harmful materials, the lack of an architectural design language, and limitations on their ability to use aesthetics to create beauty. Innovation in the development of architectural ceramic assemblies provides an opportunity to use these systems to propose new typologies for indoor food growing that remedy the design flaws of existing indoor gardening systems. Therefore, this thesis will design and construct new typologies for indoor gardens using clay 3D printers to create multi-functional ceramic components for food growing. These new typologies are explored through a case study, which develops the indoor gardens as a light fixture. Additional applications for the food growing systems, such as in wall assemblies and cladding systems, are discussed in the research outlook. The key impact of this research is to develop a new aesthetic and architectural quality for indoor residential agriculture.

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