Top reasons to study at SAPL
We offer a rich learning environment that will accelerate your professional education. This includes work-integrated learning opportunities, our unique block week elective program, extensive digital fabrication facilities, exciting study-abroad studio options, and a visiting experts-in-residence program where you can work with leading practitioners and academics from around the world.
City Building
Located in Canada’s most enterprising city, we educate students to use the power of entrepreneurial design thinking to develop disruptive strategies and social innovations that make our cities more resilient, equitable, vibrant, and healthy. https://live-sapl.ucalgary.ca/research
Digital Focus
Design studios include community and industry involvement, and design-build initiatives so students can help develop real, impactful solutions while building a strong portfolio.
Student Experience
Workshop and digital fabrication labs foster a hands-on culture of makers and doers, allowing you to put theory into practice and prepare you to the future of practice.
Robotic Arm Art by David Schiwy 2017
Each year, Jason Johnson, director of the Laboratory of Integrative Design, along with Guy Gardner, director of fabrication, teach an Introduction to Robotic Fabrication course at the University of Calgary. This project by student David Schiwy explores robotic fabrication through completion of a self portrait. This is done while working through the challenges and constraints of art through an industrial robotic arm, designing and building a robotic tool, and creating a tool path communicative of a self portrait. Schiwy explores these challenges through paint pouring.
Robotic Arm Art by David Schiwy 2017
Transparency by Anna Guan, Brendan Webb, Judy Liu, Mac Mcginn, Marina Malik, Xuefei Wang, 2020
Spring 2020 - Guy Gardner, LID Director of Fabrication, taught a Computational Design in Architecture course at the University of Calgary. This project titled Transparency by students Anna Guan, Brendan Webb, Judy Liu, Mac Mcginn, Marina Malik, and Xuefei Wang explores this topic thorough the use of data to shape space, provide transparency to public infrastructure and overall increase public engagement. These elements include a breathable media facade, adaptable columns, and kinetic floor panels, which respond to user interaction and data collected from public opinions via kiosks and a phone app of city projects.
Transparency by Anna Guan, Brendan Webb, Judy Liu, Mac Mcginn, Marina Malik, Xuefei Wang, 2020
