Forum Lecture: Re-Assembling Institutions & Infrastructure
January 17, 2022
6:00 pm EST
2021-2022 FORUM LECTURE SERIES: RE-ASSEMBLE
RE-ASSEMBLING INSTITUTIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE
Monday, January, 17, 2022
6:00 p.m. EST
Free public online event
Watch the video here.
Topic:
Cultural institutions have long been anchors of communities. As we adapt to new modes of knowledge production and dissemination, both the mandates and physical forms of our cultural institutions require reconfiguring. New digital technologies alongside hands-on makerspaces and innovative leisure and recreational facilities are updating traditional civic centres, turning them into leading examples of how public institutions can facilitate democracy. How might important civic hubs take on an expanding list of programmatic uses to become even more celebrated spaces of public assembly? What roles do such institutions play in society?
About the Speakers
Raymond Chow
Partner at gh3*
Raymond Chow is a graduate of Carleton University, where he earned a Master of Architecture (2002) and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies (1999.)
Chow joined gh3 in 2006 and was named partner in 2015. His contributions have been key to the Toronto-based firm’s growth as an integrated studio-based design practice of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. His work has varied in scale from infrastructure buildings and small renovations to large institutional buildings and multi-residential developments.
Chow has been the project architect for multiple award-winning projects that integrate landscape and architecture.
The Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool and Pavilion and the Real Time Control Building #3 each won a 2020 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. Both are in Edmonton, AB.
Other examples include:
Sidewalk Labs Quayside Unit Prototyping, Toronto, ON
Castle Downs Park Pavilion, Edmonton, AB
Scholars’ Green Park, Mississauga, ON
Stormwater Facility, Toronto, ON
Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage, Edmonton, ON
June Callwood Park, Toronto, ON
Tyler Sharp
Principal and Design Director of RDHA
Tyler Sharp is a graduate of the Dalhousie University School of Architecture and the 2004 recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Young Architect Medal.
Sharp joined RDHA in 2005. His work has received over 50 major design awards. They include Governor General’s Medals in Architecture for the Bloor Gladstone District Library in Toronto (2014), the renovation and addition of the Lakeview, Port Credit, and Lorne Park libraries in Mississauga, ON (2012), and Springdale Library in Brampton, ON (2020.)
Sharp has also led designs for the Hamilton Central Library and Farmers Market, the Waterdown Library and Civic Centre, the First Leaside Financial Headquarters, the Guelph Civic Centre Skating Pavilion, Eglinton Go Statiion, and the Old Galt Post Office Idea Exchange.
Sharp was instrumental in changing the culture of the office, establishing a design vision and language, leading a rebranding, and bringing young designers to the firm. As a result, he received, with RDHA, the 2018 RAIC Architectural Firm Medal.
About Re-Assemble
The notion of assembly is at the core of architecture, from building materials to community connections, theoretical frameworks to programmatic uses, structural components to project teams. It is through these broadly defined yet inter connected assemblies that we construct our built environment. As we navigate new ways of convening and interacting with one another following the easing of lockdowns, the 2021-22 Forum Lecture Series turns to these many processes of architectural assembly and re-assembly.
Reflecting on the current state of society and design’s role within it, we ask: In what ways are people, places and practices today being re-assembled? How is this driving innovation in design research, professional practice, and pedagogy?
The history of architecture is one of perennial re-assembly—of building on and iterating theories, of reconfiguring design concepts, approaches, and collaborations, in addition to physically constructing materials and spaces. The altered social behaviours, ad-hoc spatial configurations, shifting demographics, and growing virtual realm of our past pandemic-focused year have only underscored our impetus to re-assemble.
Unpacking these dynamics, this lecture series investigates the future possibilities of physical, spatial, and operational re-assembly within our urban realm, acknowledging that these processes are not exclusively within the purview of design professionals.
We acknowledge the generous support of our founding sponsors: