Associate Professor

Catherine Hamel is an associate architecture professor at SAPL and a talented visual artist who regularly exhibits her work. Hamel is an advocate for social justice in the built environment, and her work explores the potential role of architecture as an instrument for social reconstruction. She believes in the power of shifting attitudes in transforming systems, and brings principles of humility, collaboration, and value-based action to the forefront of her work. Her current work focuses on collaborative mapping for people reintegrating into unfamiliar environments, with an emphasis on processes and approaches to adaptation. Hamel is a thoughtful and subtle changemaker, using art, community engagement, and inspiring students to build the potentials for instigating change.

Hamel believes that the most important shift in architectural practice will be towards basing actions on values. “How do we do community engagement, and what does it mean? We’re opening up the way these things are being done, allowing for changes in the process. There’s more humility and respect to the community.” She wants to see efforts in mental health action to adjust their scope based on necessity, not to fit in where it is most convenient. In pushing for a better world, she emphasizes the importance of opening pathways into freely imagining the possibilities for things to be different. “It’s about pushing against the boxes that limit how we think about things... It’s changing our assumptions and believed limitations.”

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