BAS Year 4, Studio 4A
Zakir Hamza, Charlotte Keskinen-Keith
A Big New/Old Way to Do Housing reconsiders the role of the architect in an era of increasing scriptability. Rather
than authoring a fixed form, the project positions architecture as a negotiated
framework.
Drawing from radically older traditions of community negotiation, the proposal treats
housing as a consensual architecture that emerges from shared values rather than
top-down prescription. The design is organized by splitting programmatic requirements into two primary conditions:
rolling hills of commercial space and mountains of negotiated housing. Commercial spaces are embedded beneath a continuous park landscape, where cut streets introduce light, air, and connections
to the lower levels. Above, islands of green space are linked by a slow, meandering
pedestrian path that prioritizes movement and encounter.
Housing rises from the park level, beginning with family-oriented units and extending upward into a diversity of dwelling types.
As density increases, shared terraces and green grottoes are introduced, forming a
layered community structured around collective space and negotiated living.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#housingdesign
#collectivehousing
#cohousing
#urbanhousing
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
BAS Year 4, Studio 4A
Guanlin Li, Lesley Li
Sustainable Human Square is conceived as a pedestrian- and bicycle-oriented community that prioritizes human-scale
movement while diverting vehicles to underground parking. The project is
organized around twelve 60 m × 60 m micro-blocks, forming a compact and walkable urban fabric. By rethinking mobility identities and responding to the residential grain of the surrounding neighbourhoods, the design challenges the dominance of stand-alone
apartment buildings typical of Ottawa. It demonstrates how residential density
can be achieved through modestly scaled buildings and interconnected pedestrian
streets sensitive to existing context.
Commercial programs are concentrated along Carling Avenue, while a gallery and
community centre are embedded within the neighbourhood as shared civic
destinations. A sunken pathway weaves through the site as a defining landscape feature, functioning as an open-air tunnel that connects residents across the square.Through playful pedestrian experiences
and layered public spaces, the project positions social interaction and everyday movement as drivers of long-term social and commercial sustainability.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#urbanhousing
#sustainableurbanism
#pedestriancity
#communityarchitecture
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 4107: Options Studio
Jemma Johnson
In Memory Of… is conceived as a monument to remembrance, situated within a remote landscape removed from
cities, infrastructure, and immediate inhabitation. The project frames architecture
as a vessel for memory, imagination, and
trace addressed not to the present, but to an unknown future observer.
Rather than narrating a fixed
history, the project invites interpretation, allowing future explorers to reconstruct
stories from what remains. Through absence, distance, and quiet, the architecture becomes an ode to what once was: the ideas held, the spaces made,
and the lives embedded within them. In this way, the monument positions memory
itself as successor.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#memorialarchitecture
#speculativearchitecture
#architectureandmemory
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 5909: Thesis
Faculty Supervisor: Piper Bernbaum
Chiara Muia
Vieni a Mangiare! examines how the built environment can support cultural continuity
within diasporic communities while allowing for meaningful and positive assimilation.
Since the early twentieth century, Canada has been home to a large Italian immigrant population, yet many everyday traditions
have gradually faded across generations of Italian-Canadians.The thesis focuses on familial food practices— preparation, gathering, and eating—as sites
where cultural memory persists. Through the
act of cooking and the making of a cookbook, traces of the Italian diaspora in Canada are
uncovered and translated into spatial and material form. Small-scale interventions, including ceramic
dinnerware sets and tablecloths, become
design catalysts that inform the adaptive reuse of a home within an Italian immigrant– populated neighbourhood. This domestic space is reimagined as a communal hub, where shared meals foster connection, memory, and exchange. By proposing collective ways of living rooted
in everyday ritual, Vieni a Mangiare! reflects on cultural preservation through space— positioning food, the table, and the home as architectural instruments for sustaining community across generations.
#architecturethesis
#marchthesis
#architectureandfood
#diasporicarchitecture
#architectureandmemory
#domesticarchitecture
#communityarchitecture
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 4107: Options Studio
Martha Woolfrey
The Colours of My Home is situated in Elliston, Newfoundland and Labrador,
within a coastal landscape shaped by bog, barren rock, and the expansive horizon of
sea and sky. The project draws from the sensory conditions of this environment: wind, fog, sound, and seasonal growth as formative forces in shaping space.
Rooted in the rhythms of the North Atlantic, the design reflects the presence of shifting
weather, migrating bird life, and cultivated landscapes marked by berries, gardens, and tuckamore at the cliff’s edge. These conditions inform an architecture attentive to atmosphere, material, and inhabitation.The project explores the relationship
between coastal environments, culture, and architecture through the adaptation
of Newfoundland vernacular forms, construction techniques, and programs. Four new buildings are distributed across
the site and connected by an elevated fish flake boardwalk.
Programmatic elements include a kitchen for preserves and jams, a harvest root cellar, a craft hall, and a boat-building
shed. Together, these spaces narrate local spatial traditions while supporting contemporary cultural life within the
coastal landscape.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#vernaculararchitecture
#coastalarchitecture
#landscapearchitecture
#culturalarchitecture
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 4107: Options Studio
Justin Lortie
Plaza Canadá concludes the monumental axis of Montevideo’s Artigas Boulevard as an architectural landscape that mediates between city and sea. Approached from the Rambla, a series of stepped concrete groynes extend from the shoreline into the Atlantic, supporting boardwalks that weave through salt marshes, dense vegetation, local fauna, and sculptural works by Uruguayan and Canadian artists.
Structured around complementary oppositions, the plaza extends from the fixed condition of the city while remaining shaped by the volatility of the sea. The massive groynes anchor the lighter, floating boardwalks, forming a landscape that is both grounded and adrift in time.
#architecturestudent #architecturaldesign #designstudio #studentarchitecture #architectureconcept #publicarchitecture #landscapearchitecture #coastalinfrastructure #architectureportfolio #designprocess
ARCS 5909: Thesis
Arkoun Merchant
Faculty Supervisor: Suzy Harris-Brandts
Rifts, Remnants & Reparation examines the spatial and social legacy of the 1947 Radcliffe Line, which divided the Indian
subcontinent into two states and resulted in the largest mass migration in history.While the border has since been marked through monumental forms, the thesis critiques these gestures by shifting focus toward the socio-spatial conditions the Line produced in Punjab and the lived
experiences of Partition’s survivors.The project interrogates how dominant
narratives have overlooked the sites of refuge occupied during migration—spaces that are now gradually fading from collective
memory. Drawing from existing oral histories, the thesis explores how design
can support awareness, healing, and remembrance through new spaces of
narrative sharing. In parallel, it examines how storytelling and archival testimony
can actively inform architectural decision- making.
These investigations culminate in the design of an outdoor exhibition conceived as a counter-monument. Rather than fixing memory within static form, the exhibition
embraces conscious abstraction, interactivity, and temporality as tools for spatializing trauma with care.
By offering places for both contemplation and play, the project creates opportunities
for intergenerational exchange allowing younger visitors to engage with histories
carried by older generations, and ensuring that the forgotten narratives of Partition
remain active, shared, and collectively held.
#architecturethesis
#marchthesis
#architectureandmemory
#countermonument
#partition1947
#architectureandtrauma
#publicexhibition
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ACRS 4107: Options Studio
Helen Wang
Nest is situated at the end of Artigas Boulevard in Montevideo, where it emerges as a new groundscape that weaves terrain into a layered stage for environmental connection. The project reconsiders the ground not as a fixed plane, but as an ambiguous fabric capable of shaping interaction across multiple levels. Through a fluid manipulation of surface and structure, ground conditions are allowed to shift, overlap, and converge. This multi-layered landscape creates spaces of encounter while accommodating diverse programs and rhythms of use.
Materiality unfolds across the site to define distinct habitats, fostering coexistence between people and animals. Though each occupies its own spatial world, these realms remain intertwined through shared ground, movement, and experience.
#architecturestudent #architecturaldesign #designstudio #studentarchitecture #architectureconcept #landscapearchitecture #groundscape #environmentaldesign #multispeciesdesign #architectureportfolio #architectureschool #designprocess
ARCS 3107: Studio 5
Willem Girard
Espanola Cultural Center is situated within
a landscape shaped by layered histories, as the home of the Ohkay Owingeh and
Santa Clara Pueblos and the former capital of the first Spanish settlement in North
America. The project seeks to integrate these coexisting cultural narratives through
site, form, and material expression. Drawing from the Santa Clara creation story of emergence from the ground, the project’s program and materiality emphasize
earthen construction and grounded spatial organization. To the west, the Puye Cliff
Dwellings inform the project’s architectural language, where traces of former masonry
structures remain visible through perforations left by wooden roof vigas embedded in the rock face.
These traces are reinterpreted through formwork-cast concrete, with form-tie dimples punctuating interior and exterior surfaces as evidence of structure. Brick staggering along the catwalk echoes the
rhythm of these perforations, referencing ancestral masonry practices. Glulam floor
joists further allude to traditional pueblo vigas, translating vernacular systems into a contemporary architectural framework. Together, these material strategies employ modern construction techniques to embed tradition and symbolism, while creating a
cultural centre that remains inclusive and responsive to the diverse communities it
serves.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#culturalarchitecture
#indigenousarchitecture
#materiality
#contemporaryvernacular
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 5105: Graduate Gateway Studio I
Olive Lazarus
Urban Forestry Knowledge Center is grounded in a long-standing relationship between soil, shelter, and community— a lineage that predates written history and
has historically shaped collective life. The project re-examines earthen construction within a contemporary context, recognizing its low-carbon footprint, local availability,
and renewed relevance amid climate catastrophe. Earthen walls are celebrated for both their documented durability and their capacity for gradual dissolution. A central path
guides visitors through a sequence of micro food forests, partially enclosed by cob walls, alongside large excavated
depressions retained by earth and intended for rewilding. These landscapes are built
and maintained through partnerships with local community members and vocational training programs.
The path culminates at two rammed earth volumes formed from undulating layers of black and brown clay. Wrapped in a wooden veil of suspended saplings, the research centre is approached as a sensory and
pedagogical environment.
Inside, the smell of warm earth anchors the experience. Overhead, Virginia Creeper
vines climb cascading walls of translucent mesh, reaching twelve meters toward vaulted skylights. Together, material,
landscape, and atmosphere frame a space for research, learning, and renewed engagement with soil as both structure and living system.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#graduatestudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#earthenarchitecture
#environmentalarchitecture
#urbanforestry
#materialresearch
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
ARCS 3107: Architecture Studio
Studio 5
Danniel Cho Valadao
The Peak explores the relationship between movement, space, and imagination, shaping architecture as a continuous journey of exploration and
creative expression.
Organized as a civic plaza and cultural hub, the project links a series of programs including
an art hive, performance theatre, auditorium, and café. Circulation is treated as a primary architectural element, guiding visitors through the complex and connecting interior spaces to the surrounding urban context.
Inspired by the Arc de Triomf metro station, the building weaves portals of entry and exit
into its form, creating an organic system of movement. As visitors move through the
project, reality and imagination begin to blur, fostering an atmosphere that encourages
innovation, expression, and artistic exchange.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#civicarchitecture
#culturalarchitecture
#architectureschool
#architectureportfolio
#designprocess
BAS Year 2, Studio 2A
Andrea Booth
This seasonal pavilion is shaped by a careful reading of its “edge” condition, situated along the western boundary of
the Rideau Canal opposite Carleton campus. The project engages the site as a place of overlap, where multiple forms of movement and seasonal activity intersect along land and water throughout the year.The rhythmic design seeks to reconcile the canal’s dual physical realms—ground
and water—by spatially connecting the landscape to the canal’s shifting water and
ice levels. As a seasonal structure, the pavilion offers shelter while supporting a range of activities that change with time and climate. Movement through, around, and within the pavilion fundamentally informed the
design. The surrounding site is organized to encourage a fluid approach and a gradual discovery of the pavilion and its
relationship to the canal edge.
The project reinterprets elements from a preceding architectonic study, translating
diagonal geometry into the pavilion’s structural system. Paired wood elements
are carried forward through column-to- beam joinery, forming a timber frame enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glazing and skylights. Natural light and shifting shadows
animate the interior, reinforcing the pavilion’s connection to seasonal change.
#architecturestudent
#architecturaldesign
#designstudio
#studentarchitecture
#architectureconcept
#pavilionarchitecture
#canalarchitecture
#landscapearchitecture
#timberarchitecture
#seasonalarchitecture
#architectureportfolio
#architectureschool
#designprocess
