Two M.Arch students awarded Canada Graduate Scholarships

Two Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism students — currently in their first year of the three-year Master of Architecture program — have each received a major grant for research which will form the basis of their thesis projects.

Kaylee Komatich’s project, Harmony in Chaos: Regenerative Architecture in Urban Contexts, will look at the effects of urbanization on climate and investigate how we might reduce damaging effects. She proposes that a “regenerative architecture” could redefine urban development to address the impacts of buildings on climate change. “A regenerative architecture approach that integrates sustainability, resilience, and ecosystem harmony would be the resulting project,” she says.

Asha Stott calls her project Ghosts in the Garden and the Virtue of the Tender Machine. She hopes her research will “contribute to the ongoing dialogue within architecture that seeks a balanced framework between analogue and digital, nature and machine, and progress and preservation.” She understands the appeal of evolving technologies and simultaneously the intrinsic value of ecosystems. The research will seek a methodology for architecture which honours both as dimensions of life in the urban condition. 

Komatich and Stott will each receive $27,000 from the SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarships —Master’s Program, which aims to help develop the research skills of students who demonstrate high standards in undergraduate and early graduate studies.  

Both students hold a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Manitoba and plan to site their research in Manitoba. They will write their thesis in their final year of the master’s program.

Komatich will study the local ecology of a site to identify sustainable practices that protect and enhance the environment. Site data will be gathered through mapping, modeling, and experiential learning.

“This ecological study will inform the design of a mixed-use building that promotes community engagement, environmental stewardship, and material longevity,” she says. “The research and resulting project will aim to show how regenerative architecture can challenge our current idea of city and transform it into sustainable, resilient spaces.”

Meanwhile, Stott observes that the tallgrass prairie in North America has diminished to three percent of what it once due to unsustainable agriculture and urbanization. “Using the disappearing tallgrass prairie as a catalyst, the research will explore a spatial response that situates value in the fragile ecologies with which people and other beings coexist,” she explains.

The grant is also important personally. “Receiving this award affirms the value in examining conventions and advocating for an architecture that is more compassionate, responsible, and built upon a tender approach,” says Stott.

Komatich adds: “It provides the opportunity to improve as a student in an academic environment while allowing me to continue to grow my interests in the field of architecture through research.”

The CGS M program supports up to 3,000 students annually in all disciplines and is administered jointly by Canada’s three granting agencies: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).