Block Week Program

• Gillmor Theory Seminar – Wil Marquez, Detroit: Focus on working with a Hispanic community in Detroit
• Taylor Seminar – Kory Bieg, University of Texas
• Sommerville Design Charrette – Shane Williamson, Architect, Toronto

• Lili Tayefi – Printing Paste: 3D printing seminar
• Bushra Hashim – Neurodiversity and Design
• Cameron Gilles – Spatial Justice in Heritage Building Restoration
• Maria Landry – Codes and Bylaws in Design – On-site and classroom investigations of building codes and bylaws
• Dr. Chika C. Daniels – Equity in Architecture
• Dr. David Monteyne – Music, Space, and Place
• Valerio Morabito – Representing the City: Drawings
• Larry Pearson – Conservation of Historic Sites
• Nick Pryce – Municipal Planning Law
• Sasha Tsenkova – Sustainable & Healthy Communities Re-Imagined
• Mathis Natvik – Ecological Restoration

PLAN 672.2L01
Instructor: Sasha Tsenkova

This course introduces students to the principles and practice of sustainable community planning that promotes health and well-being. Covid-19 has been a catalyst for lifestyle changes in how we work, play, live, learn, worship, shop, and govern. It has exacerbated urban inequalities and patterns of social exclusion emphasizing the need to reimagine our built environment to accommodate new routines as well as to enhance social cohesion and community resilience. Planners across Canada have made an explicit commitment to creating and fostering healthy communities through better urban design, active transportation, green rebuilding, and collaborative engagement for social justice. This course will examine a variety of innovative planning and design strategies that have emerged to improve people’s health – post-pandemic residential design, affordable housing, tactical urbanism in public spaces, liveable streets, and community health initiatives. The block course uses design thinking pedagogy and blended learning strategies - lectures, self-directed field trip, directed reading and design charrette to enhance independent student learning.

PLAN 672
Instructor: Larry Pearson

The course introduces the theory and practice of historic place conservation through lectures, guest speakers, case studies and site visits. Topics include an introduction to the history and principles of heritage place conservation, an overview of the legal and institutional framework in Alberta and Canada including an examination of municipal, provincial and federal roles, methods for identifying, evaluating and describing historic places (with specific reference to the approach taken by Alberta Culture), a discussion of the benefits of heritage place conservation through the lens of sustainable development, an examination of the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Place’s in Canada through a discussion of their application to a proposed project which will include a detailed review of their application to the treatment of a specific material type (sandstone).

LAND 672.3 L01
Instructor: Mathis Natvik

In this course, students will be introduced to the major ecosystems of Canada, the history of the field, and the core principles and theories of ecological restoration. Most of the course  will focus on the planning and implementation of ecological restoration projects and will include the following subtopics: site analysis, creation of site-specific restoration plans, sourcing of plant materials, site preparation techniques, control of invasive species, managing earthwork/construction, installation of plant material, prescribed fire, and long-term management of projects. A special emphasis will be placed on the ecosystems of southern Alberta such as grasslands, wetlands, forests, streams, and riparian ecosystems. The course will be delivered via online lectures, discussions, group work sessions, and a field trip to various ecosystems in Calgary.

PLAN 672.7 L02
Instructor: Nick Pryce

This Block Course explores how the policy and regulatory planning regime works and improve students' understanding of how policy and regulatory planning documents operate within the governance structure of Alberta municipalities and how policy and regulatory documents interconnect documents. This course also explores the challenges faced by planners in the development and implementation of policy and regulations using examples from professional practice.

ARCH 672.6 
Instructor: David Monteyne

This course provides an opportunity to step back from planning and design work in the studios and listen to music. Students won't just listen to music: they will explore and analyze a wide range of music as it relates to space and place.

Goethe famously wrote that "architecture is frozen music." He probably was referring to the visual and spatial rhythms and motifs of Baroque architecture. Can we make similar analogies today? What about at different scales, such as neighbourhoods or cities? Starting from this premise, the course will go well beyond it to consider things like spaces made for music (e.g., concert halls), and especially music that evokes a sense of place (country and western, hip-hop, etc.). 

ARCH 672.23
Instructor: Bushra Hashim

How do we go about making sensitive, thoughtful environments for a population who might see colours as muted, vibrating, and neon, or who might not be able to sense time chronologically or know whether the feelings they are experiencing are current or from a memory two years ago? Who might not be able to read your body language or even your facial expression, and worst of all, who likely aren't able to tell you any of this?

This block-week course is a preliminary exploration of neurodiversity and its intersection with the built environment. Explored through the emergent fields of neuroarchitecture, sensory design, and behavioural psychology, students will critically engage in lectures, discussions, and exercises. Culminating in a final design project, the objective is to understand the art and science of the ever-complex human brain for which we design.

ARCH 607.3
Instructor: Maria Landry

This course will explore the role of building codes and bylaws in design. Students will undertake an in-depth analysis of the building code and the land use bylaw, describing each of their roles and how they are different from each other. Students will be asked to work through a series of case study examples of projects located in different cities. As part of the course, students will be taken on a site visit where PPE will be required.

ARCH 672.22
Instructor: Cameron Gillies

This course explores the premise that adapting historic buildings to be physically and programmatically inclusive spaces is vital to the conservation of historic buildings and critical to the reconciliation of the profession of architecture.

ARCH 672.24 Lec 05
Instructor: Chika Daniels-Akunekwe

This five-day intensive course offers both an introduction into and in-depth study of the nature of architecture/architectural design, as it pertains to the architect’s ethical responsibility of ensuring justice and equity in design for the client as well as for the greater community. This course will explore the forces at play and their effect in determining the final architectural output/outcome. Students will work both individually and in teams to reflect on, and critically review select architectural design periods/eras. Activities including assessing/evaluating social problems and the design intervention that was prescribed and executed. Students will be expected to, through reflective essays, identify a solution within a specified urban setting, discuss it in-depth, with an objective to identifying how the solution performed versus what supplementary elements/ideas could have been integrated to improve the solution’s efficiency.

ARCH 672 L06
Instructor: David Burch

This class explores the potential and impact of AI Based generative conceptual design. Students will look at methods of taking design options generated by MidJourney and converting them to buildable projects in REVIT, using families, and potentially Adaptive Components and conceptual masses. Then describing the project using Chat GPT. MidJourney allows students to explore several design options to create a rough design idea. This idea needs to be rationalized through modeling. Adaptive components bring shape and form to architecture, allowing designers to craft complex geometry easily. Using this technology in pattern panel families, adaptive component families, conceptual massing environments or projects can create a seamless design for architects as well as an aesthetically pleasing outcome. Chat GPT will be used both to create the final project narrative, but can also be used to create meaningful Midjourney Prompt to feed into the generation of the design concepts. Students will write a short description of their methods, along with their impressions of this process and its usefulness. This is an exploration of these new tools.

PLAN 672.6 L03
Instructor: Teresa Goldstein

This course introduced students to the municipal planning process through a fast-paced, four-day intensive exploration of planning tools, planning theories in practice, field studies, political/ governmental acumen, and reflective practice. As an intermediate-level course, broad explorations of each topic were provided. Primarily technical, application-based learning, this course also featured a variety of lectures/ discussions with current practitioners in the fields of Planning, Engagement, Real Estate, and Land Development. The intention is to build on their existing planning knowledge and expose students to the many daily interactions that go into planning. The City of Calgary is currently in the process of redoing its current local area planning system. The existing 260 local area plans provide incomplete coverage across Calgary and are often outdated. The City’s intent is to replace these plans with a new set of modernized local area plans that have citywide coverage. The students worked through this program as a conceptual avenue to explore current planning and municipal tools.

ARCH 672.20 L06
Instructor: Farhad Mortezaee

In this block week studio, community greenhouse was designed to accommodate year-round indoor programs such as early childhood development, seniors’ engagement, and an events venue. Students were asked to design a five thousand-square-feet structure with translucent facades with the main objective of urban farming and providing food security, social interactions, and community engagement. The designs incorporated a building envelope assembly that became an intersection of utility and beauty. Vacant sites in specific communities in wards 9 and 10, where the average family income is substantially below the City of Calgary median income, were selected.

ARCH 672.16
Instructor: Khalid Omokanye

This three-unit course served as a hands-on, rapid introduction to architectural pavilions, exploring their purpose, evolution, and current iterations as a means to present architectural ideas, materiality, and modes of making.

ARCH 672
Instructor: Adrian A. Stimson

This block course focus on reimagining monuments. The last number of years has seen a rethinking or reimagining of what monuments are, can, and should be. History and historical figures are under more scrutiny and as such artists, designers, and architects are reimagining what monuments represent now and into the future. Instructor Adrian Stimson will guided students through several public monument projects he has undertaken, through the cultural lens of his Blackfoot world view, public/corporate clients, and Burning Man. Students were encouraged to research current thoughts, trends, and projects to influence their own creative reimagining of monuments.

ARCH 672.21 L07
Instructor: Dr. Ali Syed

The objective of the course was to introduce students to the concepts of energy and environmental sustainability. The course will focus on the development of the energy model. The goal was to provide an understanding of the energy usage of buildings and be able to assist HVAC and architectural design teams to optimize their design for the best energy and cost options. The modeling software used for this course will be RETScreen.

PLAN 672.5 L02
Instructor: John Lewis

This course was connected to the Halal Housing Lab - a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)-supported innovation lab that explores the intersection between affordable housing, multigenerational housing design, social supports and Shariah-compliant financing.

Students worked with team members of the Lab, including the Islamic Family and Social Services Association, Intelligent Futures, Another Way and SAS Architecture. After an introduction to key components of the Lab, students were asked to explore promising practices from around the world, focusing on four key dimensions:

• Built form and design: How do other parts of the world design for multigenerational living? How are considerations for privacy and community balanced?
• Policy: What policy levers are used in other jurisdictions to enable housing that supports multigenerational living?
• Safety: What design and programming approaches can be used to support at risk residents, such as women fleeing domestic violence, while considering the safety of other residents?
• Financing: What mechanisms are used to realize Shariah-compliant financing for housing in other parts of the world?

At the conclusion of the course, students presented their findings to the Halal Housing Lab team, helping to inform this innovation lab that is designed to provide new and impactful ways of housing members of our communities.

LAND 672
Instructor: Mathis Natvik

Landscape architects are at the forefront of specifying plant materials for challenging environments such as boulevards, public parks, stormwater features, and green roofs. A thorough understanding of planting stock, growing mediums, and establishment techniques is required to successfully implement planting projects in these settings.

LAND 672 introduced students to the materials and methods for establishing plant material in the semi-arid, cold winter climate of southern Alberta. Multiple experts in the Calgary region will present important aspects of plant establishment in various settings. Invited experts included:

• A certified arborist with expertise in the propagation and handling of different types of tree planting stock (e.g., bare-root stock, ball & burlap, container-grown trees, tree cages).
• An agronomist with expertise in growing medium specification for difficult urban settings (e.g., structural soils for boulevard plantings, soils for silvi-cells, stormwater mediums, green roof mediums, mediums for public perennial plantings).
• A nursery manager with expertise in large-scale propagation and planting of herbaceous stock for green roofs, public gardens, ecological restoration/naturalization projects etc.).

ARCH 670.01 
Instructor: Trevor Boddy

This course consisted of seminars and site visits. The final assignment, "IN and OUT", served as an exercise in applying principles of architectural criticism and history to the reconsideration of contemporary architecture in Canada. Students had copies of Boddy's 1987 book, Modern Architecture in Alberta as .pdfs and hard copies. As part of the assignment, students had to apply their judgment, visuals, and verbal arguments to the revision of the book into a hypothetical new and expanded Second Edition. The exercise tested their powers of observation and persuasion, relating buildings to their cultural and social contexts.