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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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.
Re-storying Dammed Waters: Towards Kichisippi Pimisi (American Eel) Recovery in Algonquin Provincial Park
(University of Waterloo, 2024-04-29) Yeoh, Elizabeth
Since time immemorial, the migrations of Pimisi (American Eel, Anguilla rostrata) to the Kichisippi (Ottawa River) Watershed have woven together a vast web of interdependencies. Dam operations along these waters have driven Pimisi to endangerment, impacting ecological balances, cultural ties for the Algonquin Anishinaabeg, and relational understandings of the watershed. Re-storying Dammed Waters considers the future of Pimisi recovery efforts by intervening in barriers to their habitat in what is now Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. Though celebrated for its vast offering of ‘wilderness’ experiences that foster human connection and care towards more-than-human beings, the park upholds colonial and resource-oriented legacies of land management and use. Successive and prolonged dam operations stemming from the park’s logging era to the rise of water management for recreation and hydropower development have resulted in aquatic ecosystem disruptions and biodiversity concerns that are challenging to negotiate. This thesis asks how the design of recovery interventions might reconcile human relationships with Pimisi and other more-than-human beings and systems. A research process consisting of fieldwork documenting the park and its dams, conversations with allied voices in fisheries management, and case studies of dam intervention approaches reflect upon the planning and implementation of Pimisi recovery in conjunction with its ecological and cultural narratives. The synthesis of these studies imagines an alternative story for the park’s aging Cache Lake dam in support of recovery. Restorative and interpretive interventions within a phased design scheme reinstate the rights of Pimisi to access these waters, improve habitat conditions, and usher in human awareness and care. By foregrounding more-than-human lives like Pimisi in a research process attuned to relationality, this thesis suggests that there is potential for an agential and ethical shift in how designers engage with the land. Amidst an ongoing global loss of biodiversity and entwined discourse on reconciliation in architecture, it offers actionable considerations for design that seek to bridge species, scales, and ways of knowing.
Under a Willow Tree: Demonstrating the Use of Creative Writing in Understanding Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2024-04-02) Deng, Selina (Xin Chun)
How might our personal state of mind change how space is perceived? At a very emotionally heightened moment, like when someone is dying, how might two people standing in the same room see it differently? This is a thought experiment that questions our assumptions as designers. What could we design and control? What should we design and control? This thesis dives deep into these ideas by directly examining thoughts, emotions, perceptions through creative writing. I wrote a fictional story following two characters. A grandmother as she grows weaker and eventually dies and her granddaughter caring and grieving for her. I hope to demonstrate the potential in using creative writing as a tool for designing architecture.
Reconquering Homeland
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-24) Islam, Rifat
In a world plagued by refugee crisis, the urgency of addressing this persistent challenge remains a constant thread, especially as the root and stem of the crisis are yet to be fully understood and resolved. The complexities surrounding the Rohingya crisis demand deeper exploration and innovative solutions, empowering not only Rohingyas but also everyone facing the harsh challenges of displacement. This thesis delves into the intricate challenges of displacement faced by the Rohingyas, seeking to unravel the layers of their struggles and proposing an architectural roadmap for their future well-being and sovereignty. Starting with a contextual overview, it explores the global backdrop, environmental impacts of displacement, and immediate issues confronted by the Rohingya tribe. The comprehensive literature review, supplemented by case studies, unlocks proposed architectural visions. The heart of the thesis lies in a pilot project for their makeshift camp, emphasizing food security, sovereignty, and self-sufficiency, aiming to enhance mental health and foster independence. Beyond addressing physical needs, the design provides institutional support to reduce dependence on humanitarian aid, rebuild confidence, and empower the Rohingya community. As a broader vision, the thesis explores the potential application of the first phase of the design on a larger scale in a government-designated remote island for the Rohingyas. This approach aspires to transform it into an active, vibrant urban community, enriching both individual Rohingya and their collective identity, while pushing the boundaries of evolving urbanism. The thesis acts as a call to immediate action, encouraging a balance between government policies and human aspirations to tangibly improve the lives of forcibly displaced individuals globally.
The Architectural Parables of C.S. Lewis: The World Between Tangible and Transcendent
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-23) Bulos, Monica
Beloved and renown writer, C.S. Lewis, sees the world beyond its material construction and that its meaning is rooted in its spiritual significance. Beyond the curtain of physicality lies divine reality that transcends our world, yet is constantly invading it. The experiences of beauty, sublime awe, and the delights of the imagination within our corporeal realm awaken within us inconsolable longing that points to the reality that we were made for another world. For Lewis, stories and myths were the most powerful vehicles of transport to the other world, namely that of the spirit, illuminating transcendent reality in a language we can understand. The context of our sensual setting provides tangible expressions to the intangible realm, and provides a framework for understanding what is beyond our comprehension. As Lewis ventures into creating his own stories within imaginary other worlds, he opens up a portal for us to become pilgrims in the story, to experience the spiritual dimension in a concrete way. Architecture, through its mythical form, can become revelatory, unveiling concealed truths that lurk behind the visible. Such artforms are able to awaken a powerful desire to move beyond the shadows and towards the substance of absolute reality in which we can encounter the Other.
A Nation of Imaginaries: Negotiating India’s Collective Identity through Mughal Miniatures
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-22) Mohammed - Khaja, Ali
India is a nation of imaginaries. Through time, the subcontinent has been captivated by mystical and profane conceptions of collective identity which have inspired hope, fear, and belonging. Since 2014, the nation has been swept up by the imaginary of Hindutva, a cultural nationalist movement that proposes a primordial cultural and ethnic identity within the territorial region of the Indian subcontinent. The Hindutva movement has been championed by the governing political right which have deployed it to sow communal divide and establish a homogeneous society. The Indian-Muslim is particularly antagonized within this socio-political context and has been pushed to the margins of society. Rupal Oza, a scholar on nationalism, suggests that the Hindutva project is a “narrative of spatial belonging and segregation” which is complicated by the entangled histories of the Hindu and the Indian-Muslim. As such, the machinations of the Hindutva imaginary see it inscribing itself within the spatial geography of the subcontinent while simultaneously Othering the Indian-Muslim. My research is situated within this contentious milieu where I investigate the transformation of space by an emboldened nationalist movement. Against the backdrop of an uncertain future for the Indian-Muslim, my research traces the past to uncover the shared history of myths and memories of the Hindu and Muslim communities. My study lands on the late 16th century when the Mughal Empire sprawled across the majority of the Indian subcontinent, unifying an incredibly diverse group of subjects with vast cultural and religious differences. A product of this unprecedented tolerance and social cohesion is the Mughal miniature painting tradition which I foreground as an important visual archive of politics, power, and the ideals of a society. More importantly, I posit the miniature’s characteristic spatial and temporal distortion as a unique capacity to visualize several continuous and discontinuous narratives in the space of a single image. In this research, I propose that the distinct qualities of the Mughal painting tradition can be re-mobilized in contemporary discourse to critically engage with the Hindutva imaginary and expand the limits imposed on the marginal Other. I lean on the work of Henri Lefevbre and Jane Rendell to argue that the production of miniature images is a radical spatial practice to negotiate the Othering of the Indian-Muslim; where spatial representation is a form of spatial production. My research culminates in a number of disparate reconfigured miniatures that not only interrogate the Hindutva imaginary, but also re-inscribe the Indian-Muslim back into the socio-political fabric of India.
Block 1: Refiguring the Post-Industrial Ruin or Bridging Natural and Cultural Heritage in the Haldimand Tract
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-22) Hutchinson, Adrian
In an ever expanding and quickening world, heritage has become a vestige of authenticity, identity, and placemaking. In a settler colonial country its ties to ideas of inheritance, birthright, and patrimony, complicate these narratives of identity and belonging. Today heritage has its economic, environmental, and cultural utilities: supporting regional economic shifts to tourism and development, protecting natural areas, and fostering multi-cultural exchanges of values, traditions, artifacts, and customs. In this work, I offer my own contribution to the growing chorus of heritage theorists, critics, and designers, while critically reflecting on my own personal connection to place. Born at the southern end of the study region in the small town of Paris, and currently attending the University of Waterloo School of Architecture approaching the northern periphery of Block 1, this archival research and fi eld exploration has uncovered a history that unsettles well founded beliefs of belonging and stirs me to pursue a meaningful path to reconciliation through heritage. These questions began with a recreational exploration of formal and informal trail systems along the Rivers. Many of which are familiar childhood friends. In these valleys were all the familiar trees, reptiles, birds, flowers, but also: a city’s informal dumping grounds, a series of hand carved stone column capitals, washing machines, and the ruins of industry. As I walked these trails I would contemplate these artifacts, and the River. The Grand and its tributaries – the Nith, Connestogo, Eramosa, and Speed Rivers – have all been designated in the Canadian Heritage River system. This book begins and ends with the River, flowing from questions of obsolescence, positive, and negative inheritances, to imagined futures through the lens of heritage. Concerned with what and how we bring values, artifacts, and narratives into the future, it finds recourse in the past. Engaging with three hydrological industrial heritage sites on, in, and along the Grand River, I propose three interventions which engage with lessons from the text’s meditation on heritage and place. The representation of these interventions is primarily through models built from artifacts collected from the banks of the River, endowed with qualities of both natural and cultural heritage – making and dumping, holding and weathering respectively – that aim to represent the way forward for heritage in the Grand River Watershed. A management of ‘Natural’ and ‘Cultural’ heritage as interconnected.
The Game with Death : a transgressive tradition of Villa Adriana
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-22) Mukerjea, shiuli
Villa Adriana has long been hailed as poetry in architectural form. A world building project executed at the scale of landscape, it manipulated the very fabric of the earth with audacity, draining a river plain, conjuring valleys and precipices, cutting into soft tufa and drawing water like fine threadwork through the site. Famously inspiring Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn, architects have long looked at the pieces of this game and reconfigured them in tune to their interpretations. These volumes and axes, eternally in collision, taught them to play their own games with architecture. Thus began a transgressive tradition in architecture. With Hadrian, a politically and spiritually fraught figure, began the tradition of cultural and architectural transgressions upon this sprawling site; he challenged the boundaries of context and transcended them through cross-cultural play with form. The Villa is a riddle in space, quicksand magic. Its constant movement across space and time positions it as a game best kept out of the glass box of architectural history. This thesis argues that Villa Adriana is meant to be played with, for the game is infinite and can never be lost or won. While traversing Villa Adriana’s landscape in 1947, a young American writer, Eleanor Clark, wrote in her memoir that “Hadrian’s game was with Death.” Comparing it with the “childish whimsies” of Versailles, she intuitively felt Villa Adriana was an entirely different game – something grave, vast, unfathomable. If Versailles was one of life’s grand illusions, Villa Adriana encapsulated the very essence of it. This thesis will use Eleanor Clark’s words as a prompt to begin a world building exercise constructed using memory and phenomenological encounter, through a game in writing and drawing architecture.
Between Four Walls and City Streets: Urban Challenges and Domestic Adaptations
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-22) Elasmar, Tracey
The practices of domesticity within the city have expanded the understanding of ‘home’ to encompass a broad range of spaces beyond the physical boundaries of the dwelling. The city itself, by means of its own inherent conditions, restructures the physical and psychological manifestations of domestic space. Among these factors, the issue of the home as a commodity has restricted the availability of space within an affordable margin. A series of layered thresholds between the public and the private have emerged across domestic and urban spaces. This porosity has developed uniquely within the context of the metropolis. Through a series of interviews, this thesis investigates the dwelling habits of a unique group which have become prevalent across global cities; those who are fixed in migration. Individual narratives weave together common themes across two cities, London and New York, displaying how dwellings support daily practices and how city dwellers rely on the urban to supplement the facilitation of domestic activities. Between Four Walls and City Streets draws explicit connections between public and private life, highlighting how the commodification of domestic space creates a knock-on effect that ultimately forces domestic life to spill into the public sphere and the high turnover that results from the relentless compromise of city living.
Re-Imagining Healthy Aging within an Intergenerational Community
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-19) Daniyal, Khana
There has been a demographic shift resulting in an increasing number of older people than younger people in the demographic pyramid. As a result, there is a strain on the number of resources available, such as senior specific homes, to accommodate the growing need for housing the elderly of our society. In addition, with ever-increasing prices in the real-estate market, general housing shortages, and the lack of affordable housing, low-income seniors have limited choices, in many cases, none. Moreover, the central city as a place has today come to typically cater towards the younger generation, and especially young couples. Many families with children and older people choose to relocate to the suburbs. There are, however, more sustainable solutions as the present situation requires an overly heavy reliance on cars due to the spread of many amenities and resources in a low-density urban fabric. This thesis emphasizes a push toward more generationally shared living within the central city urban context. Options for some like the elderly are limited because in today’s real estate market they can’t find adequate housing to allow for healthy aging, so they are often forced to turn to senior-specific housing resulting in them being physically and socially isolated. Similarly, cities lack the space and shared affordability needed for families to grow in the urban context. Multi-generational housing set as a community hub is a potentially viable alternative choice to the current care models and existing housing. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question: how can older adults and their families fit into the urban context, and how can the young and old generations co-exist in a shared residential space? The thesis analyzes different design and planning strategies to create an inclusive care community that supports continual aging. A design framework and strategies will be developed to propose an intergenerational community that supports healthy aging. This approach will be developed as a conceptual urban and architectural design that explores ways to facilitate care between all generations and create a shared space in the urban context of Toronto, one that encourages aging in place and social interaction between a diverse aging population and younger generations. The thesis outcome is an architectural community project that re-imagines healthcare, residential and mixed-use urban and building developments for every stage of life.
Xinjiang's Vernacular Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-19) Yuan, Wendy
The Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang is home to numerous ethnic groups and their vernacular architecture that is uniquely representative of their geographical contexts, collective wisdoms, and cultural identities. In recent years, the Chinese government has implemented sweeping urban-rural “improvement” policies and facilitated extensive – arguably non-negotiable – architectural projects that have resulted in the rapid disappearance, modification, and reconstruction of vernacular houses and settlements. Claims have been made by the government, and supported by some Chinese scholars, that their architectural update endeavors are important for Xinjiang’s indigenous populations’ cultural advancements, lifestyle improvements, and economic developments. However at the same time, the government is using architecture – through selective preservation, demolition, renovation, and construction – as a powerful tool to manipulate the locals’ movements, thoughts, and lifestyles, reinforcing the state’s propaganda of ethnic unity and economic prosperity, and thus asserting its ruling authority through the newly established architectural and social order.

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