Niloofar Taheri

Advisor: Lancelot Coar

A surreal collage depicting forests, industrial elements, and figures in bubbles. Trees blend with mechanical structures, symbolizing nature-meets-technology.
Black and white architectural design poster titled “(De)Clothing: Re-learning The Prairie Through Rituals of Adaptive Architecture” by Niolofar Taheri. Featuring abstract sketches of trees, structures, and circular vignettes depicting various living spaces and concepts. Smoke rises from tree-like supports, suggesting transformation and interaction with the environment. Text explains themes of memory, adaptation, and learning. Tone is thoughtful and innovative.
Panel
Silhouette of a person next to a wind turbine diagram. The turbine has tripod legs and labeled dimensions. Detailed hinge placement sketches are on the right.
A device: map the wind
Triptych of solar panel setups on consecutive days, top panels showing evolving designs on tripods facing the sun; below, cloudy formations possibly representing solar energy data.
Testing the device on Fort Garry Campus
Black and white collage of six images. Each top image shows a forest setting with a cone object above a textured surface, labeled "Middle of Forest," "Around a Tree," and "Around a Bushes." Below are close-ups of ethereal, mist-like patterns. Mysterious and surreal tone.
Mapping the wind in the forested area near Red River
Abstract black-and-white collage with trees, geometric shapes, and silhouettes of people. It conveys a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.
Collage of the micro-climates observed through the device
Four cone-shaped structures labeled "Winter Coat" and "Summer Screen." Figures inside, smoke on two, suggest adaptability of the building design. Monochrome tone.
Model exploring clothing and de-clothing
Architectural drawing of a building section, featuring labeled rooms and structures. Arrows indicate airflow, evoking a sense of innovation and design.
Winter iteration in Section
Architectural sketch of interconnected octagonal structures leading to a river. Features labeled "Summer" and "Winter Coat." A compass indicates north.
Iteration of clothing and de-clothing in plan
Surreal architectural sketch with abstract elements, including buildings, trees, a river, and geometric structures. The intricate lines convey creativity.
stories on site

(De)Clothing:  Re-learning The Prairie Through Rituals of Adaptive Architecture

“Let’s sit down here … on the open prairie, where we can’t see a highway or a fence. Let’s have no blankets to sit on, but feel the ground with our bodies, the earth, the yielding shrubs. Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.”1    -Fire Lame Deer

I grew up under the dry, hot summers of Tehran, where wind meant a soft breeze after hours of sweating. In Winnipeg, I have met a completely different kind of wind. Here it is sharp, heavy, and unforgettable. What was once familiar bodily condition has become challenge. Yet, wind is always there. It belongs to this place, to the prairie, as much as snow or the flat horizon. It is a force that shapes how we move, gather, and build. In much contemporary architecture, however, wind is treated as an inconvenience to be sealed out and mechanically controlled.

Drawing from Indigenous teachings such as the Lakota concept of Woniya Wakan—the holy air2 —and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writings on reciprocity3, the project reframes comfort not as a fixed temperature but as an ongoing exchange. In this view, architecture becomes a medium for negotiating with wind, light, temperature, and seasonal change. Inspired by experiential thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty and Juhani Pallasmaa, the project treats the body as the primary site of perception and knowledge.4  

The project asks: How can architecture cultivate awareness of the environments it mediates through windows, doors, layers, and thresholds? This thesis proposes a learning center and public addition to the Faculty of Architecture on the Fort Garry campus, designed as a shared civic and educational environment. In addition to studio spaces, the project incorporates public programs that are accessible to students, artists, and the residents of South Wood Circle. It invites occupants to participate in daily and seasonal rituals that bring them closer to the way the wind, rain, sun, shade, cold, and heat are mediated by design and ritual. The building in this way becomes a teaching tool, a device for learning about how to achieve comfort through participation and awareness".

1.David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World ; with a New Afterword (New York: Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017), 130.
2.David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World ; with a New Afterword (New York: Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017).
3.Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and John Hausdoerffer, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations (Libertyville, IL: Center for Humans and Nature Press, 2021).
4.Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2024).