After Empirical
Urbanism
February 27-28
230 College St. Toronto
Sunday Session - March 1
Room 066


Part 1/ 10:30 am -12:30 pm

Graeme Stewart
Tower Blocks, Mid-Century Regional Form and Toronto's 21st Century Potential
Graeme Stewart M.Arch OAA MRAIC CAHP is an Associate with ERA Architects. Graeme has been involved in numerous urban design, cultural planning, conservation and architecture projects with particular focus on neighbourhood design and regional sustainability. Graeme was a key initiator of the Tower Renewal Project. This initiative in modern heritage and community reinvestment examines the future of Toronto’s remarkable stock of modern tower neighbourhoods in collaboration with the United Way, City of Toronto, Province of Ontario, University of Toronto, and other partners. Graeme is also the co-editor of Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies. Graeme is a founding director of the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R), an urban research organization formed in 2009. In 2010, he was recipient of an RAIC National Urban Design Award for his ongoing research and design work related to Tower Renewal, and in 2014 received the Jane Jacobs Prize.

Session 1 - Aesthetics of the Everyday

Elizabeth Krasner, Sheraz Khan, Residual City: Picturing Etobicoke
Vanessa Abram,   Public Residuals
Rachel Heighway,The Peachoid and the Palm Tree: an                                             Investigation of Disguised Infrastructure

Session 2 - Politics of the Everyday

Suzy Harris-Brandts,Urbanism and Internal Displacement in the                                              Republic of Georgia
Jason DeLine,Arrival Community Infrastructure
Emma Dunn, Utopia Deferred Unrevealing a Myth of the                                               Everyday


Part 2 / 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Alexander Eisenschmidt:
Chicagoisms: a City to Speculate?
Alexander Eisenschmidt is a designer, theorist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture, where he teaches graduate studios and courses in history and theory. Before joining UIC, Eisenschmidt taught at Syracuse University and Pratt Institute in New York, and held a visiting position at the University of Pennsylvania. His work investigates the productive tension between the modern city and architectural form. He is author and editor of City Catalyst (Architectural Design, 2012), contributing lead-editor of Chicagoisms (Scheidegger & Spiess / Park Books, 2013). In addition, Eisenschmidt is the designer and curator of City Works, a collaborative exhibition at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice (2012) to which he also contributed a 100 ft. long drawing and the co-curator and designer of the exhibition Chicagoisms at the Art Institute of Chicago (2014). As founding partner in the design practice Studio Offshore, Eisenschmidt understands the challenges of the contemporary environment as opportunities, the contemporary city as a resource, and architectural design as a strategic device.

Session 3 - Publicness of the Everyday

Zoé Renaud-Drouin,Walking through Machines and Monuments:                                               Exploring the Actual Urban Performance                                               of Moscow's Ideological Planning
Kiarash Kiai Soodkolai,    Transparency and Appearance: Questioning                                              the Publicness in Commercial Space
Kevin Murray,   The Everyday Experience of Mass Transit:
                                              an Analysis and Design for two Monuments