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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27 Stories
(University of Waterloo, 2010-05-20T16:30:35Z) Smith, Laura
Invisible Cities is Italo Calvino’s description, in fifty-five stories of fifty-five cities, of the travels of Marco Polo. Each city is fictitious, but collectively they make up Marco Polo’s Venice. A city is distinct; we know Venice (or Manhattan or London) by its buildings, its landmarks, the nature of the city`s fabric, and by the lives of the citizens who gather, work, and live there. As much as the fabric itself, those citizens are unique to the city’s character. The suburbs that developed around major urban centers are not cultural artifacts, built over centuries from traditions and local practices, but products: predictable, marketable en masse, and relatively interchangeable. Conceived of as the ideal blend of city and country, the suburbs are homogeneous, universally accessible, and familiar; so it is with suburban stories. The Stories here are true. The people, places, and events are all real. Isolated, they would be anecdotes, gossip, or reports; in this case, they may be considered postcards – snapshots of everyday life. As a whole they begin to portray the home of millions of people across North America. The twenty-seven stories of this thesis create a window into lives lived in the edge condition called Suburbia.
36 Stratagems Towards a People's Modernity
(University of Waterloo, 2009-09-17T14:56:40Z) Chau, Tammy Sau-Lyn
The design thesis is sited along the Shanghai Bund in China. It pursues an alternative modernity that is quintessentially Chinese by developing a design approach specific to the local imperatives and the contextual condition. The argument is set upon the premise of an accommodative nature of Chinese modernity towards foreign influences since the 1850’s. The Bund, being the original site of Chinese modernity, is characterized by hybrid structures that combine the local and the foreign. Imported building materials, techniques, and proportional ideals have predominately influenced the architecture. Against this backdrop, the thesis problematizes Shanghai’s building practice that pertains to the adoption of foreign forms. Is it possible to create an alternative modernity that is quintessentially Chinese? The thesis first examines the development of the city’s modernity, traditional construction principles, and narratives inherent to the site. Program components are then reorganized for tactical design applications. It concludes with a time-based and event-driven collective space that seeds participation towards a local modernity.
The 38th Parallel: Penetrating the Line
(University of Waterloo, 2007-09-20T21:37:23Z) Oh, Juhee
In July 1953, the armistice ended the Korean War that lasted for three years and established the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the demarcation line as a buffer between the two countries to prevent further military confrontation. However, the two sides remain at odds for half a century, and, despite the armistice, a state of war still exists between the two Koreas. As Koreans have dreamed of a united nation, the division has been described as a ‘temporary’ term to Koreans, yet the process of it has been much more obscure. Half a century has passed by, and South Korea has become a nation in which all facets of economic, political, and cultural identity are delineated in opposition to North Korea. What the future was supposed to present to Koreans has shifted relentlessly creating a disparity between the individual and national dreams. With repetitive see-saw events of national tension and reconciliation, individuals find themselves in an ambivalent position between series of oppositions: people and state, real and unreal, unification and national division. Multiple narratives crossover, creating confusion of whether the ultimate dream of Korea is even appropriate. The thesis examines the two opposing conditions: the idealized dream of homogeneity, and the factual reality of heterogeneity. Four series of investigations are presented in this thesis: the condition, the cause, the response, and the location of the individual. First, the disparity between the two Koreas illustrates the external conditions of the situation. Then an investigation of the Korean identity is presented to analyze the cause of the condition. The indigenous identity of Korea and the desire to preserve it are presented as the creative forces behind the dichotomy of Korea. The ambivalence of the individual is understood as a response such conditions. The concept of ‘Han’ is employed as a possible vehicle of understanding Korean cultural despondency. Finally the design exploration of a very significant archaeological site in the Demilitarized Zone is undertaken in order to mediate the disparity between the Korean dream and reality for the individual. The design is intended to locate the individual within the Korean pathology. Playing on the previously studied Korean conditions, the design is an amplified display of the opposing conditions which will enable the individual to face the ambivalence of today’s Korea. The thesis does not suggest the solution or envision the end but aims to meditate and negotiate the present moment. It is not my intention to force either fantasy or reality as an absolute answer, but to create an understanding of both conditions in hopes that Koreans can start to break their ambivalence regarding their national reunification.
50:50—Sovereignty, Price, Density, Efficiency: Housing-led Economic Urban Expansion in Hong Kong.
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-16) Tam, Kam-Ming Mark
Hong Kong is an ideal laboratory in which to study relationships between economy and architecture. In this city, tremendous power is held by both the state and in private capital. Urban form may be read as a tangible spatial manifestation both calculated and inadvertent, of a historic model of economic development since its origins as a colonial outpost living in borrowed times. Significantly, housing dominates the urban landscape and the city’s economic underpinnings. The housing-led economic urban system is not a reflection of market rationality. Instead, it is a complex and protracted attempt to preserve its land system. In colonial history, British authorities relied on the leasing of lands to control its ongoing development and to benefit from its ongoing economic growth. Today, although the model allows administrators to finance the government and maintain low direct taxation, it also requires the perpetuation of spatial distortions and the inflation of housing prices. These distortions result in a housing system that divides its population into two equally populous economic classes: defined by the difference between public and private home ownership. Using a combination of photographs, illustrations, textual documentation, and spatial and statistical analyses, this thesis explores the social, economic and spatial impact of value maximization in four key areas: Sovereignty, Price, Density and Efficiency. These measures of productivity respectively address the domains of power, market, urban geography and architectural morphology. Hong Kong’s housing infrastructure is framed as a calibrated production, optimising all four aspects identified at the cost of chronic housing unaffordability. As space is designed for the abstract value it represents, Hong Kong has refined a rigorous process of spatial design that is paradoxically non-spatial, which has led to a homogenization of spatial forms amidst growing socio-economic polarization. The identification of spatial distortions and operations integral to the model’s logical irrationality is the primary intent of this thesis.
53 North: Tactical Infrastructure in Edmonton
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-15) Clayton, Bryce
Edmonton, Alberta is the northernmost major city in North America, but inappropriate urban form has created a winter culture of avoidance. Long, straight city streets and a proliferation of voids within the downtown urban fabric are characteristic of many American cities, but when this condition is replicated in the far north the negative aspects of the winter season are amplified as arctic winds sweep through the streets and open spaces, and daily activity is driven indoors. As urban design has failed to account for the winter conditions, architecture has overcompensated in its response. Mechanical climate control is overused creating sharply delineated areas of over-protection and total exposure, creating harsh transitions for citizens as they move through built and unbuilt environments. But as the urban design has made winter life more difficult, the voids it has produced can also provide the spaces in which winter life can be embraced. For Edmonton to become a healthy “Winter City” it must attempt new approaches in urban and architectural design to resolve both its lifeless downtown core and the societal rejection of winter. This thesis proposes a new design tool whereby the intrinsic values of snow can be utilized to create winter public spaces to temporarily occupy the urban void. A new structure is proposed where City groups will act as coordinators sanctioning land parcels for urban interventions using the snow on each site and that cleared by the municipal workers, sculpted into basic forms. When used in combination, the forms create protective, desirable micro-climates which inject program and activity into the formerly vacant lots, introducing positive winter activity into the realm of daily life in Edmonton. The iterations in form serve a dual purpose by acting as a testing grounds, discovering new urban and architectural design strategies through experimentation and observation, informing future designs within the city.
55 + A Landscape of Intergenerational Living
(University of Waterloo, 2019-09-20) Steeper, Keegan
Ontario is experiencing a demographic shift as a significant proportion of its demographic ages. Over the next twenty years it is estimated that the number of seniors aged 65 and above will double. For small urban centres such as Sarnia, a city in Southwestern Ontario, the shift has been increased by the decline in the population of youth. This has led to a change in the city’s urban fabric as multiple schools close and consolidate while proposals of retirement residences across the region begin to proliferate. The closures have left a gap in public infrastructure as places that once facilitated social and community engagement are left vacant and their communal benefit lost. This thesis proposes a plan for the revitalization of a secondary school in the heart of the city that is soon to be vacated. Mixed senior and public units dispersed around a community hub would facilitate social and visual stimulus while offering the potential of intergenerational collaboration and interaction. Age can be subjective; it does not account for the exact mental, physical or emotional state of a human being. Intergenerational mixing in living and community is important to prevent the societal norm of systematically separating generations and benefits all. A typology of living needs to be created to allow for fluid interactions between generations and prevent isolation that can cause quicker degradation of the mind and body. The project creates a landscape in which residents can find agency to view and participate in different aspects of the city’s ecosystem. This is to allow for the embodiment of a life lived, the new possibilities of a societal role and the potential for a rewarding, stimulating and culturally rich relationship between all generations acting within the holarchy.
56 Days of Solitude
(University of Waterloo, 2016-09-21) Alladin, Kemal
Man is a social animal. He needs community for support and for the success of his life. Yet, throughout history, man has withdrawn from community to retreat into the wilderness. The journey takes him from the world, into solitude, and then back to the world again with the fruits of his experience. This thesis participates in the tradition of solitude. It begins nearly five years ago with a sketch in a notebook of a trailer in the forest. Below the drawing, a question from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?”[1] Over the next three-and-a-half years, the idea for solitude is cultivated and develops before I transform a 1970’s Grand Air Travel Trailer into my own solitary space. Then, on May 24, 2015, with the trailer as my shelter, I withdrew to the shores of the Spanish River in Northern Ontario, learning solitude for fifty-six days. When I returned from my retreat, for the next four months, I lived out of the trailer in the driveway of my childhood home, producing this book by assembling entries and illustrations from various journals and notebooks I kept during my isolation. The final leg of my journey struggles to find answers in my retreat, and to Thoreau’s questions. In solitude, the relationship between man and his space is the mechanism which separates him from the world, and at the same time, the stage on which the drama of his self-discovery is played out.This thesis explores architecture as the backdrop of solitude, and my relationship to the vessel that makes me solitary.
80 Fathoms Deep
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-26T12:53:30Z) de Cola, Marianna Rosa
The history of Newfoundland is intimately tied to its relationship with the sea, to its island status and its consequent cultural isolation, to its reliance on fishing and more recently oil. But it is also one of tides - of prosperity and loss, migration and resettlement, of occupation and erasure. This research is an investigation into the nature of mutable landscapes – shifting settlements, resources and infrastructures. It is recognized that the needs of each community and the resources of each environment are diverse in type and supply. The spatialization of an energy infrastructure has the opportunity to link, in a dynamic system, the ecological, political, cultural, and historical constituents atomized communities. It has the potential to be a dynamic system that forces a presence in the everyday lives of a cultural habitat. This investigation tests the possibility for a contemporary energy infrastructure, usually hidden from the cultural landscape, to become a physically and culturally pronounced manifestation of a layered historical narrative. This work exhumes histories of Newfoundland and uncovers omnipresent themes of mutability, shifting, movement, and transience, presenting the history of Newfoundland as a fluctuating story of the sea. These stories not only frame the historical spatializations of Newfoundland’s population, its infrastructures, and economies through various media, but they also simultaneously outline the social and economic deficiencies of modern approaches to developing the island. Structured chronologically, the research forms the basis for an investigation into new ideas for an infrastructure off the southern coast of Newfoundland. This design project exemplifies themes of shifting and movement through a mobile, water-based energy, research, and cultural infrastructure. It is situated off the southern coast of Newfoundland and engages both the land and the sea. This thesis does not try to tame, resolve, or control the sea. The sea is always itself, ordered by its own cycles of tides, currents and ecologies. One can really only synchronize the relationships between land and sea.
90 Minutes with the Machine
(University of Waterloo, 2019-01-08) Ngai, Victoria
Cremation, or the incineration of human remains, unites two fundamental elements of human existence: fire and death. This unity is today facilitated by the cremator, a machine that burns bodies as efficiently as modern engineering allows. In the cremator, an average corpse takes only 90 minutes to transform into ash and bone fragments. However, as the machine hums away, we come to realize that we are forced to reckon with a 90-minute void. We are forced to wait - to experience time that is unwanted. Waiting brings discomfort in a variety of forms, from grief to irritation to fidgeting, but it also invites honesty. The vulnerability and expectation of waiting allow us to simply be, even if we are seated in a drab witnessing room waiting for the ashes of a loved one. We face time, and, in turn, face ourselves. This thesis, through a series of essays in a range of media, explores what it's like to spend 90 minutes with the machine.
A digital platform for furniture mass customization
(University of Waterloo, 2024-10-23) Clusiau, Silas
The aim of this project is to develop a platform that enables users to design and acquire semi-customizable furniture. Positioned between mass-produced furniture and fully custom millwork, the platform promotes user agency by allowing individuals to customize designs to better fit their space, preferences, and needs. By simplifying the design process and making it more affordable, this approach aims to bridge the gap between mass production and craft production through the concept of mass customization. The platform also addresses the following issues: limited control over furniture design, high cost barriers to custom millwork, difficulty in connecting with fabricators, and the need for furniture that can adapt over time. Additionally, it will offer intelligent design feedback to help users make informed decisions about materials, costs, and sustainability. The final product includes a digital tool that allows users to configure pre-designed units into furniture and connects them with local builders for fabrication. This approach seeks to make semi-custom furniture more accessible, engaging, and adaptable to users’ evolving spaces and needs
Ab Condita
(University of Waterloo, 2014-01-21) Breg, Justin
Time and structure; expectation and construction; landscape and architecture; history and myth. The foundation is a joint which carries extraordinary potential to speak of the cultures that built it. This text tells stories about three cultures whose identities are interwoven with their foundation-building. Tracing a path among the distinct ways in which they found, it values the foundation as a marker between anticipating and making in the architectural process; an ambiguous joint between land and building; an invisible structure of the surfaces we touch; and an indicator of an attitude towards time. The narrative begins in Rome and concludes in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Canada. Both indigenous cultures represent extremes in notions of ‘foundation’: Rome’s tufa block substructures have borne buildings stratified over millennia; while the subarctic Omushkego Cree have traditionally had no permanent foundations, their building traces perceived in subtle differences of soil composition. A third base in the Netherlands is both a fulcrum and foil, as the nation’s diverse local and large-scale strategies negotiate heavy and light building traditions, and offer another distinct set of considerations in preparing ground. The aim of this book is two-fold. Firstly, it is to restore the foundation to the purview of the architect. Groundwork is more than a technical puzzle: it is also a deeply imaginative act. Secondly, this text seeks to understand why cultures found the way they do, and to give consideration to the unique inheritances offered by diverse foundation-building traditions.
Across the River: A Library Reflected
(University of Waterloo, 2009-06-19T20:16:55Z) Odobasic, Lejla
The thickening line crafted as a ‘temporary’ border thirteen years ago during the Dayton Peace Agreement –dividing Bosnia into Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosniaks and Croats- is gaining an unsettling permanence in present-day Bosnia. As each of the three ethnic groups attempts to maintain their autonomy, they unwillingly share the divided country, while tangling the question of Bosnian identity into a perplexing web of religious and nationalistic ties. This thesis traces Bosnian history with a story of a singular building, the National Library. The library’s physical and programmatic changes parallel Bosnian political transformation through time. The destruction of the library during the siege of Sarajevo on many levels symbolizes the destruction of multicultural Bosnia as well. This thesis proposes a re-conceptualization of the Bosnian National Library as a new building where a dialogue between the segregated ethnic groups could to emerge through the use of a common shared secular space. This space will act as a point of cultural overlap that negates the idea of purity and homogeneity. Instead, through the building programme and its relationship with the city, the library will welcome diversity and encourage dialogue in order to attempt a dissolution of the boundaries between the group of inclusion and the “other”.
Activating Play-Based Escape, Awakening Creativity
(University of Waterloo, 2011-05-20T15:20:32Z) Keichinger, Sabrina Deanne
Everyone participates in escape. The drive to escape is something we are born with. It is a force that has ties to our curiosity, as well as our profound psychological restlessness, and can even be seen in our displeasure with boredom. This thesis introduces three forms of escape: pure diversions, games, and play. Focussing on a play-based escape, this thesis argues that this is the most important form of escape, because, through play, we promote our cognitive health and creativity. This thesis develops three lines of investigation: first an understanding of what play is; second, through understanding the conditions, context, and disposition necessary in order to engage in a play-based escape; and third, a study of play through the review of architectural case studies. It is through these investigations that this thesis will identify ten key strategies that architecturally accommodate play. These are: nature, complexity, dynamic, loose-parts theory, scale, the primitive, along a path, mystery, risk, and unmonitored feel. In order to develop a method of design which engenders an architectural atmosphere of play-based escape these characteristics are organized into three interconnected themes: a desire to explore the world around us, a desire for a dynamic stimulating environment, and the desire to be active and move our bodies. Finally, an architectural application of the design method concludes this thesis, with hopes to activate a play-based escape capable of awakening our creativity.
Adaptive Balconies: An Open Design System for Housing Tower Renewal at 545-565 Sherbourne Street, Toronto
(University of Waterloo, 2015-01-22) Shahi, Sheida
This investigation is based on the renovation and reconsideration of residential tower neighbourhoods, and speculates an open design system as an alterna- tive to current practices prevalent across the city of Toronto. The thesis imag- ines the future of dense built environments as a mediation between planning and emergence, and speculates a design system that can be adaptable and responsive to the needs of individual units. The design research is focused on the balcony—defined as the extended threshold of each individual unit—within the context of urban residential neigh- bourhoods. Specifically, the balconies of the 1970s and 2010 rental housing development at 545-565 Sherbourne Street in Toronto and their occupancy are studied. In addition, the varying demographics, living conditions and informal programs within the site are explored. In this study, the importance of the balcony is highlighted as a platform for participation of the individual within the urban collective, and the relevance of a flexible exterior space is presented. The studies in this research position a need for attending to the significant role of the balcony in shaping urban form, for a reconsideration of its detachment to interior spaces and for addressing its rigidity in responding to the demanding needs of the units. In order to position the design investigation, the idea of a small-scale and col- laborative design strategy is studied through the analysis of informal cities and structures. Instances of un-intended informality formed through time in resi- dential contexts—Ramot Housing in Jerusalem—and intended platforms for informality—such as the Quinta Monroy housing in Chile—are studied amongst others. The potentials of vertical connectivity and communication, between expanded and connected exterior spaces of residential towers, are also investi- gated through a series of case studies. Within the design synthesis, strategies are proposed that will primarily address the structural and energy requirements of the balconies under study. These are accompanied by strategies that will serve as the infrastructure for forming adaptive balconies. Secondly, the design proposal introduces structural mod- ules for incremental expansions of exterior spaces of each unit. Lastly, a range of adaptive and interchangeable screen modules—that can begin to modulate and mediate the balcony spaces—are investigated.
The Adventures of Goat
(University of Waterloo, 2015-01-09) Shea, Melissa
This is a story about a Goat, who is an Animated & a Talking Goat, unusually, for an Architect. There are also other Talking Animals, such as a Moose, a Butterfly by the name of Bill, a Beaver, and a Jackalope—the Jackalope is a bit scary, but perhaps they are all friends. In any case, there are also Buildings, or this would not be a Master’s Thesis in Architecture. So they definitely build many things, I will say that, and drink a great deal of Tea, and eat many Cookies, as well, and if sometimes things get a bit Serious, why: I should not pay any Serious attention at all, simply follow the story along, remembering that it will all end up alright in the end—in these kind of stories, of course, it always does. I will tell you now, however, that it might be a bit dangerous to allow Goats inside your understanding of architecture, because once a Goat is inside your Understanding, who knows what trouble he might get up to, and what renovations he should make inside your mind—what Rooms he might make for a butterfly here; or what Labyrinth of Understanding he might place in a Doorway hidden There, for you to stumble into—what Small House for himself with a view to a Garden of Very Pretty Understanding, he might build, perhaps in a far-off Nook you had forgotten about entirely—why, you might be left with Whole Fields renovated inside your Understanding, and I do not know if a Goat could be Qualified for such. So I cannot quite recommend you to reading this, although it is an excessively good story, and I should not like you to miss it. I will reassure you, quite as a side-note, that I have written an accompanying essay on the Use of the Imagination in architecture, to stand as a Defense of Goat, and as a Proof of Goat’s very existence—for the Doubters among us who might not believe, in the end, since he is not in front of us, that we have seen a little Talking Goat: for such Persons who might allow Doubt to Prevail even on Sundays, and who might thereby cause us to begin to forget the little doorways and rooms, that a Small White Goat has placed carefully in our own Heart, so that we may have Adventures there.
AERO|ASTRO Architecture: the hybridizing frontier of emergent industries
(University of Waterloo, 2013-01-25T18:39:40Z) Yuen Fung, Jonathan Lim
Architectural designers often need to strike an uneasy balance between idealism and reality. Under most circumstances, architects are restricted by clients, budgets, and available technologies. However, divorced from traditional constraints, visionary concepts of new dwellings, new cities, and new “worlds” will spark greater forms of innovation and drive creativity for future generations. The exploration of new spatial boundaries and conceptual environments for design will irrevocably alter the human experience while adapting new challenging roles for future architects. Architecture can be understood in part as the art of organizing spaces through the manipulation of materials and forms. Designed spaces are arranged to provide unique sensory reactions for their occupants while emotionally and physically orientating them on Earth. As a catalyst towards the awareness of one’s surroundings, architecture has always had to contend with the many limiting factors imposed by the forces on Earth. These include, but are not limited to, gravity and climate. On Earth, structurally sound construction is limited by the forces of gravity as it influences design capabilities by standardizing forms, functions, and structural elements of architectural spaces. New design challenges and opportunities arrive when we look to create structures outside of Earth’s boundaries. This thesis proposes a futuristic model of an efficient and unique passenger transport system that connects Earth-based hybrid air/space ports with an outer space orbital infrastructural hub. This modern intervention will allow for new outer space industries, such as transit, tourism, and hospitality, which will provide unique opportunities for the future of humanity. Additionally, the thesis studies the positive architectural and experiential potentials for the future living occupancy of outer space. In recognizing the financial and logistical limitations of current space constructions, such as the International Space Station, the thesis looks beyond the limitations of current technologies and towards designs that are driven by the fulfillment of human experiences in space. Life in space, the thesis envisions, will spark new human experiences and rituals while necessitating new forms and designs in architecture. Weightlessness and its related spatial disorientations, in addition to the many other unique conditions in this unfamiliar territory, will inspire a new conceptual language for architecture and human cultures. The thesis will demonstrate that spaces designed for extraterrestrial experiences can be innovatively dynamic as they respond to new cultures and activities that evolve as a reaction to extreme conditions. Introducing humans to the environs of orbital space will be the initial stage in a long-term phasing tactic to colonize and commercialize beyond the expanse of Earth, eventually extending humanity to the remote neighbouring planets of the universe.
Affirming Bodies
(University of Waterloo, 2022-03-22) Tien, Brian
The fitness space ranges in shape and size, from gyms, health clubs to yoga studios spread across the globe, symbolizing an ongoing fitness revolution that has grown and expanded over the past century. Fitness values vary from person to person; however, they are constructed by a history of economic, gendered, and social structures which influence how we value certain notions of beauty and health. Thus, the gym becomes the site for conflict between different ideals of the body, in a paradoxical space shaped by discipline, play, and pleasure. (Re)creation is a design proposal for a fitness gym/community center hybrid which revises the way we train our bodies in relation to our architectural surroundings, incorporating its walls, columns, and railings as tools for exercise, pushing and pulling our bodies, rather than simply being static objects within our vicinity. As the shape for our gym spaces is redefined, hopefully, we begin to question the individualistic and commodified nature of our current fitness industry. (Re)creation explores the potential of architecture to dismantle the often-advertised hegemonic ideal body by promoting inclusivity for all bodies and providing a constructive space for both training and play.
Affordable Housing for the Future
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-16T13:29:50Z) Snell, Ashley
Affordable housing is currently a hot topic amongst communities across Canada. The housing crisis commenced shortly after 1993 when the government withheld funding for new projects. Since 2001, a new Canada-provincial affordable housing program has been put in place. The provision of affordable housing not only offers shelter to a household but can act as a catalyst for the city, downtown or neighbourhood to revitalize and fix its existing conditions. This thesis explores many aspects of affordable housing from the evolution and typologies to perceptions and opportunities. This topic is complex because there is no one right answer. Parts of the equation, exterior forces, are always changing like family formations and lifestyles. The biggest challenge is the perceptions formed around the topic, some of which are not even true. Case studies of projects from around the world to the recent affordable housing projects located in St. Catharines help inform the design principles and strategies. The principles and strategies can encourage designers to create better affordable housing that will benefit everyone involved. The design principles incorporate all scales, ranging from the city to the individual unit, necessary to provide successful affordable housing. Although this thesis application is located in downtown St. Catharines, the design principles can be applied universally to provide affordable housing for everyone. I hope this thesis also acts as an educational tool to help inform the population about affordable housing and the people who live there.
After Hours: Agency and Identity in Toronto’s Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Electronic Music Scene
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-26) Sermol, Alexandra
The architecture of a night - a party lasting until the sun breaks, and the crowd of faces disperse, without a trace. What happens in that one night, however, is part of a much longer story about community growth, where small-scale venues encourage experimentations with identity. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) electronic music events inhabit spaces not zoned for nightclub or venue use, making them technically illegal. Meanwhile, the legal zones for nightclubs are some of Toronto’s most expensive real estate creating a high barrier to entry. Unlike large-scale nightclubs, DIY events enable organisers a high degree of curation, allowing them to define new social rules. Increasing access to DIY venues creates opportunities for underground musicians and artists to practise and perform. Their community-led nature suits smaller establishments with more intimate crowds. Resultantly, the DIY dancefloor becomes a space where queer and equity-seeking guests can participate comfortably, free from judgment and harassment. After Hours centres a series of conversations about the experiences and desires of DIY attendees, referencing events in Montreal, London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Toronto. These conversations are fragments of a larger series of eighteen zines that illustrate the socio-spatial dynamics of DIY spaces for future practitioners. Adding to the growing discourse on safety, identity, and gender in urban nightlife, this thesis explores community-led inhabitation and agency. How can spatial and social scale enhance perceived comfort in nighttime spaces?
After the City
(University of Waterloo, 2015-07-10) Hartney, Matthew David
This thesis is an anthology of stories, mappings, photographs, and thoughts about Detroit. It is an analysis of the post-metropolis, the most modern city in the world, and the events and convulsions that have brought it into being. It describes the city that was, that which remains, and the city that may again be. It is also an account of my journey to find that city and to walk its streets as a brother. Detroit is not simply a collection of roads and buildings and people, however many or few, but rather it is an ecology of interdependent and often competing desires. Its story is the story of the building of the modern world, and its fall is the beginning of that worlds end. In a city defined by erasure and unbuilding, the role of architecture is unclear. It can provide the language to describe the structure of the city and the pieces that remain - it can suggest possible futures, but cannot realize them alone. Just one of the constellation of forces that have conspired to make the city on the straits, architectural, landscape, and urban design have become useful tools for those seeking to reconstitute Detroit for their own ends, with often uneven results. This thesis seeks to reconcile the city, not to remake it. It is not an intervention.

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