Projects 2022

The goal of this collaborative research project is to conduct interviews (online and in-person, if possible) with key clients and collaborators of celebrated Canadian architect and McGill graduate Arthur Erickson (1924-2009). The project advances the research begun in 2016 with support from the 2016, 2018 and 2021 SURE programs on Erickson’s work over a career that spanned more than 50 years. The main outcomes of the research to date are the Arthur Erickson Bibliography, a database with approximately 350 references to his buildings and his writings, the Index of Projects, which provides detailed information on 744 projects, and Erickson at the Movies, a video archive that documents the use of Erickson’s buildings in commercial film, television, and video productions. Crucial to our understanding of Erickson’s legacy and the ongoing stewardship of his built work is the kind of information that can only be compiled from interviews with clients and collaborators, in particular, the ‘Erickson alumni’ - the students, interns and architects who worked in his offices in Canada, the US and abroad, many of whom went on to build significant careers in architecture and who are listed in a separate database that includes over 300 names. The project is co-directed by Professors David Theodore and David Covo.

1. Archival research: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; the John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection, McGill University; the Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. 2. Update existing databases: Arthur Erickson Bibliography, Index of Projects, Erickson Alumni 3. Develop the list of interviewees based on the Index of Projects and The Erickson Alumni

The Morgan Arboretum needs some new buildings: a bird observatory, a maple syrup shack, a welcome centre. But what does it mean to build 'carbon neutral' buildings in an Arboretum? To prepare for these new building projects, we have started developing a digital, geospatial inventory of the Arboretum, focusing on plantations that need thinning. The goal is to classify important qualities and quantities of different species and individual trees. This open-source map will help us make wise decisions about which trees to harvest and when. It will also help us understand how to use all parts of the harvested tree innovatively while obviating other materials and systems and ensuring the timber components last and store carbon as long as possible. Last year we measured the total biomass of hundreds of trees. The measurements allowed us to estimate the carbon stored above and below ground -- and the carbon sequestration and sustainable harvesting rates. We want to continue developing the inventory this year with additional aspects. Specifically, we plan to measure the thermal properties of different species, scan some trees to obtain detailed 3D models, and conduct life cycle analyses for various harvesting and construction scenarios. Are you passionate about ecology, architecture, wood construction, and materials innovation? Do you like the idea of working in teams both in the field and in the laboratory? Then, this project could be for you!

- Fieldwork at the Morgan Arboretum (team of 3): Geo-locating, measuring, and classifying trees; taking soil samples; scanning trees. - Laboratory work at the Downtown campus (team of 3): measuring thermal properties of wood samples - Desktop work, remote or on campus (team of 3): Harvesting and cutting options, design options, life cycle analysis

The building and construction sectors are responsible for at least 39% of global carbon emissions. The majority of global housing stock that will be inhabited in 2050 already exists (70-90% in Canada) and more than 67% of that building stock was constructed with no energy code in place. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions from building energy retrofits are proven to be cost-effective and can be realized more quickly that reductions in other sectors. A harmonized building energy retrofits initiative provides a timely and compelling opportunity to simultaneously tackle urgent climate change mitigation, clean energy transition, affordable housing, natural resource and economic imperatives. Equally important in the upgrading of the building stock is to address inevitable adaptation and resiliency ultimatums as climate change marches on at a pace we now know to be more aggressive than anticipated. In the face of immense environmental, social and economic challenges exacerbated by the current global health crisis, international agencies, governments, and institutes are calling for considerable and urgent investment into building retrofit measures. However, even with such a substantial investment, structured building energy retrofit platforms, effective business and legislative mechanisms, and overall capacity does not exist for implementation at scale. ReCONstruct will address key conceptual, knowledge, technology gaps to mount a fully functioning Building Energy Retrofit program and substantially contribute to the development of decarbonization pathways for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sectors. The goal of the R&D program is to invent a model 'turn-key' deep energy retrofit process solution capable of meeting large-scale demand.

1) Building Stock Model multi-criteria research, framework design, and data collection; 2) State-of-the-art research in retrofit prefabricated panel design and manufacturing; 3) Retrofit pilot project (actual) research, identification, and documentation. All tasks will be in collaboration with graduate and faculty research teams.

Are you interested in helping to tackle the housing supply challenge across Canada? This research project explores data driven solutions that improve decision-making for housing supply in Canada. This research is at the nexus of sustainable low-carbon building design and affordable housing. Through the design of a new web-based application, named Data Homebase, and Housing Passports (HPs) which standardize residential building characteristics, we aim to tackle housing supply through fostering a circular economy (CE). A CE envisions a sustainable future where waste is eliminated in the built environment and materials and buildings are kept in use for as long as possible. Standardizing housing data enables CE decision-making towards understanding the potential for building reuse and supporting cities with asset management of housing. Read about the project in the link below. Through this project, students will join an interdisciplinary research group (with members from architecture, engineering, industrial ecology, and data science) and gain valuable experiential training in interdisciplinary research methods working with Profs. Keena, Jemtrud, and Friedman. Three students are sought for this project from the disciplines of architecture and engineering. Students best fit for this position are those interested in (1) architectural design and life cycling thinking and/ or (2) in data science and web development. Comfort with BIM Modeling and Adobe suite, and/or HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java are desired. Bilingual/French language is an asset. Depending on the student’s interest and /or experience, the students may work more with theory and design, modeling and analysis, or with data and implementation as described below.

As part of an interdisciplinary team, each SURE researcher will work one of the following tasks: (i) Theory and design – literature review, data collection, website and database content creation, data visualization, UX and UI web design (no prior knowledge of UX, UI design is required – the student will be guided in this process). (ii) Modeling and analysis – developing BIM models and running life cycle analysis (LCA) (BIM experience required, but no LCA experience necessary – the student will be guided in this process), analyzing, and visualizing the environmental impact results (iii) Data processing and full-stack web development – data analytics (e.g. cleaning, integrating, running analysis on data), web-based data visualization (e.g. implementation of information visualizations, web development), organizing and characterizing housing data from across the building value chain using semantic web infrastructures (no prior knowledge of semantic web is required – the student will be guided in this process).

Current modes of planning and construction, with their many far-reaching negative implications for society, economy, and the environment, necessitate a fundamental reconsideration of traditional building practices. We study the building life cycle (i.e. from material sourcing, extraction, manufacturing, building design, construction, operation to building deconstruction) and consider how a circular logic can be applied in transitioning from a linear throughput material economy (take, make, waste) to a circular one (eliminating waste and extending the life of a building, its materials and component parts). This research will focus on studying the current state of circular economy within the built environment. It will draw from Canadian and international examples to gain an understanding of the technical, government-level, economic, and socio-cultural factors at play. Students, working closely with Profs. Keena and Friedman, will investigate three key circular economy principles and their applications in architectural construction and design, namely: 1) re-thinking of the end-of-use phase of a building and the potential of design-for-disassembly; 2) the role of digitization and data standardization in fostering evidence-based circular economy design decision-making; 3) presenting space as a resource to conserve, via exploration of the sharing economy and flexibility principles. Students best fit for this position are those interested in (1) the built environments and circular economy, (2) have strong reading, writing, and communication skills, (3) enjoy researching precedent studies and multiple forms of literature.

(i) Literature review – investigating scholarly articles, grey literature, reports from building sector professional bodies, as well as key global, federal, state and local government reports and datasets. (ii) Documenting findings through scholarly writing to synthesize the literature. (iii) Assisting with dissemination activities.

Children are disproportionally affected by climate change and displacement. The leadership of children in recent climate activism is a demonstration of their ability to process and act. Our project seeks to learn from children while building awareness and establishing seeds of action children can implement as adults. While there is consensus that education for environmental justice must begin in early childhood, architecture's relevance and capacity is almost never included in curricula. Entitled "Architecture Playshop," our project will show (5 to 9-year-old) young children that the built environment is an indirect cause of climate change; yet, architects can develop visions to mitigate effects of climate change on populations. This project will also demonstrate to educators how these topics can be introduced to young children in age-appropriate ways. It is vital to expose children to the complex entanglements of climate change, forced migration and architecture. In a team-based research environment which included many specialists, the 2021 SURE students developed a rich bibliography of children’s literature, illustrations for the curriculum, and designed a website where the material is presented to educators. https://www.mcgill.ca/architectureplayshop/ They oversaw the pilot testing of the program in two daycares in Montreal, with 5 year-olds, and presented some of the results in our dedicated IG site. The 2022 SURE students will be testing the curriculum by teaching it in K-6 (elementary school) classrooms, and help improve the content based on feedback. In addition, they will conduct in-depth interviews and studies of the program that will translate into scholarly publications on Engineering/Architecture Education Research.

Teaching young children, interviewing educators and children, curriculum development (producing illustrations and supplementary graphic design and research as needed), managing the website and social media accounts of the project.

The SURE project will comparatively study the campus landscapes of select historic colleges from around the world. By “campus landscape,” the project refers to the individual buildings that make up a campus and the spaces in between them, and the inside and outside of the campus. The project will trace architectural changes in the campus in relationship to pedagogic objectives and racial and class hierarchies. A geographic approach to buildings will reveal much about design decisions and user experiences that are unarticulated in textual or architectural documentation. The SURE students working on the project will use maps and geographic information and other contextual information to show how and why some colleges differ from others in the way they are laid out and their major landmarks are oriented. The work will contribute to our understand the different ways campus design evolved as various models mutated across the globe over the last two centuries.

Archival work in digital collections, and production of architectural drawings and plans

This SURE project entails the design and prototyping of experimental machines for design and making that distort the relationship between a digital file and its material output, or between a material object and its digital model. While digital instruments that are often portrayed as neutral translators of design-related information across contexts and materials, these machines will be made to exhibit “bias” and “intent.” One simple example is a pen plotter that performs an unexpected transformation to the image that it is asked to output. Another example is a hand-held digitizing arm that scans objects by modifying the one-to-one relationship between coordinates in physical and digital space. Aligning with the approaches of critical design (Dunne and Raby) and critical making (Ratto), these machines will serve as instigators of reflections and conversations on technological mediation in design and making: What does it mean for an instrument to be biased or to exhibit intent? What kinds of creative workarounds can its user devise? How to think of agency and control when an instrument becomes neither a tool nor a medium, but rather an adversary? (How) can a machine "program" its user? The project will include four steps: development of theoretical background (2-3 weeks), design and prototyping of machines (6-8 weeks), use of machines and reflections (2-3 weeks). Students will have access to the fabrication equipment of the newly established CoDEx (Computational Design Exploratory) lab and will have the opportunity to collaborate further with the lab following the completion of the summer project.

The two students will work collaboratively to: 1. Review relevant literature from the philosophy of technology, science and technology studies, critical design and making, and design anthropology to build a theoretical foundation for the project; 2. Brainstorm and prototype two "idiosyncratic" machines by modifying existing machines such as pen plotters, hand-held digitizers, stylus pens, or other (this will require design, fabrication, electronics design and programming); 3. Use the machines to produce physical and/or digital artifacts; 4. Record and reflect on the experience of use.